NOTES for Exo 15:1-27
By whom and when was the hymn of the Exodus that we see in chapter 15 of the corresponding book written? There is no single answer; Bible scholars offer different proposals. One thing is clear: whenever it appeared, the Exodus here becomes a path, first of all a spiritual one, and only then a physical one. God makes a way for His people, and therefore miracles are possible. Indeed, a miracle by no means always requires a direct manifestation or action of supernatural power. God can intervene in a situation in different ways. Often He does it in such a way that an unbelieving person can easily explain what is happening as luck, a fortunate combination of circumstances, or chance. God is unobtrusive; He will not force Himself before the eyes of someone who does not want to know Him.
And that is understandable: He does not need slaves who will follow Him out of fear or because they have realized the inevitability of His will and the absence of any alternative. What matters to Him is that people accept Him consciously, yet entirely freely, not because there is nowhere else to go. God carries out His plan in any case, for in the end this is His world, and He is free to act in it as He considers necessary; He has far more grounds for such action than any of us does.
We, for our part, are free to turn to Him and then see Him, or not to turn, not to notice, not to pay attention, and then to comfort ourselves with chance, coincidence, and luck. If, of course, that can be called comfort. But if we do turn to Him, then we will see what is happening with Moses' eyes. We will see the world as the embodiment of God's plan, and what happens to us and around us as the path by which God leads us to the goal He has set before us within that plan. That is how it was with His people and with Moses himself, to whom God entrusted the task of leading His people.