This is the Song of the Sea — the oldest poetry in the Bible, sung by Israel on the far bank of the Red Sea while the chariots of Egypt are still washing ashore. Moses and Miriam lead it. The audience is a people who, twenty-four hours earlier, were slaves with no army, no land, and no future. The song is not a polite hymn. It is a victory chant set against the gods of Egypt — Ra, Hapi, Osiris — each of whom had just been publicly humiliated by the plagues. Israel sings among the gods, not in their absence.

From the writers we read together

Michael S. Heiser

biblical scholar, author of The Unseen Realm

Heiser pressed hard on this verse because it embarrasses a flat monotheism that the Bible itself does not teach. Israel's song does not say "there are no other gods"; it says none of them is like the LORD. The plagues were a courtroom in which each Egyptian deity was tried and found absent. The Red Sea was the verdict. When Israel sings mi kamokha ba'elim, they are not speaking hypothetically — they have just watched the contest and named the winner.

The pastoral weight of this is heavier than it sounds. If the other powers were nothing, the victory would be trivial. Because they are real but defeated, the victory is real too. Whatever lesser power has had a claim on you — an addiction, a fear, a family pattern, a national idol — it is not nothing, and it is also not the LORD. The song teaches you to sing the second clause without flinching at the first.