Song of Moses

Song of Moses September 23, 2015

The exalted martyrs sing “the song (ode) of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb” (Revelation 15:3). That could mean that the martyrs sing the song about or even composed by Moses and the Lamb. It could also mean that they sing a song sung by Moses and the Lamb. Is the genitive objective or subjective?

Steven Grabiner (Revelation’s Hymns) thinks the latter. He points to the link with the song at the Red Sea in Exodus: “The fact that Moses is called Yahweh’s servant (Exod. 14.31) and then immediately follows the song Israel and he sing, leads interpreters to see [song of Moses] in a subjective sense. This is clearly a reference to a song, not about Moses, but one that he participated in” (182).

But do the martyrs also sing a song that the Lamb sings? Though there is no explicit reference to the Lamb singing, Grabinder argues that this genitive is also subjective: “The Lamb should be understood as part of the group that is victorious over the beast. This interpretation is in harmony with the larger theme, that God’s people conquer as they partake in, and follow, the Lamb’s victory (12.11; 17.14)” (182).

More generally, he argues that the two song titles highlight the parallel between the experience of Moses and that of the Lamb. Moses is a rejected leader who suffers with and intercedes for the people of Israel. Moses is a “servant” of Yahweh: “eighteen out of twenty-three references to the Servant of the Lord [in the Old Testament] refer to Moses” (185), and this provides crucial background to the servant songs of Isaiah, set in a new-exodus context. This leads Grabiner to conclude that there is only a single song, and that the second title is epexegetical of the first: “the song of Moses, the servant of God, that is, the song of the Lamb” (186).

By tracing allusions in the martyrs’ song to Psalm 86 and 98, as well as to Jeremiah 10, Grabiner also sorts through the question of the role of the nations in the song  and in Revelation generally. He concludes, correctly, that the mighty acts of God displayed in the victory of the martyrs turn the nations to worship: “The focus is not judgment only, but the manifestation of God’s ways and acts. They are great and marvelous, righteous and true. This is portrayed before all, so that the end results is that God’s name is both feared and glorified. It is the evidence of God’s actions that is presented before the heavenly council and recognized by the earthborn additions to the heavenly choir, which ultimately refuse the accusations of Satan and call forth universal praise” (195).


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