Bible Strands
Exodus 15:8
At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; like a wall the currents stood firm; the depths congealed in the heart of the sea.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses and the Israelites sing this song after the crossing, recounting God’s past deliverance and the destruction of Pharaoh’s forces. The surrounding verses employ past tense to frame the event as a completed act of judgment rather than a real-time description of the pursuit.
The words — The Hebrew terms רוּחַ (ruach) and אַפֶּיךָ (appekha) literally render “by the breath of your nostrils,” while נֶעֶרְמוּ (ne'ermu) and נִצְבּוּ (nitzvu) describe the waters as “piled up” and “standing firm.”
The thread — The image of waters standing upright like a wall reappears in Psalms 78:13, while the mechanism of a divine wind driving back waters parallels Exodus 14:21. These passages trace a consistent motif of God’s command over the sea during the Exodus narrative.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition of divine sovereignty over chaotic natural forces as a completed historical act of rescue. It calls the reader to acknowledge that the same power that parted the sea operates beyond human control.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.
Cross-references
- Job 4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.
- Psalms 78:13 He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.
- Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,
- 2 Samuel 22:16 The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils.
- Isaiah 11:4 but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips.
- Isaiah 37:7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”
- Habakkuk 3:10 The mountains saw You and quaked; torrents of water swept by. The deep roared with its voice and lifted its hands on high.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.