(1) Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to ה'. They said:
I will sing to ה', for God has triumphed gloriously;
Horse and driver hurled into the sea. (2) For God is my strength and might;
[S]he is become my deliverance.
This is my God and I will enshrine Him;
The God of my ancestor's [lit: father’s], and I will exalt Him.
(3) ה', the Warrior—
ה' is God's name!
(4) Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
God has cast into the sea;
And the pick of his officers
Are drowned in the Sea of Reeds.
(5) The deeps covered them;
They went down into the depths like a stone.
(6) Your right hand, ה', glorious in power,
Your right hand, ה', shatters the foe!
(7) In Your great triumph You break Your opponents;
You send forth Your fury, it consumes them like straw.
(8) At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up,
The floods stood straight like a wall;
The deeps froze in the heart of the sea.
(9) The foe said,
“I will pursue, I will overtake,
I will divide the spoil;
My desire shall have its fill of them.
I will bare my sword—
My hand shall subdue them.”
(10) You made Your wind blow, the sea covered them;
They sank like lead in the majestic waters.
(11) Who is like You, ה', among the celestials;
Who is like You, majestic in holiness,
Awesome in splendor, working wonders!
(12) You put out Your right hand,
The earth swallowed them.
(13) In Your love You lead the people You redeemed;
In Your strength You guide them to Your holy abode.
(14) The peoples hear, they tremble;
Agony grips the dwellers in Philistia.
(15) Now are the clans of Edom dismayed;
The tribes of Moab—trembling grips them;
All the dwellers in Canaan are aghast.
(16) Terror and dread descend upon them;
Through the might of Your arm they are still as stone—
Till Your people cross over, ה',
Till Your people cross whom You have ransomed.
(17) You will bring them and plant them in Your own mountain,
The place You made to dwell in, ה',
The sanctuary, O my God, which Your hands established.
(18) ה' will reign for ever and ever! (19) For the horses of Pharaoh, with his chariots and riders, went into the sea; and ה' turned back on them the waters of the sea; but the Israelites marched on dry ground in the midst of the sea.

[THIS.] The word zeh (this), which is written after "elohei avi," ("the God of my fathers") refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

(4) אלקי אבי MY FATHER’S GOD is this וארממנהו AND I WILL EXALT HIM. אלקי אבי He is not merely my God but He was MY FATHER’S GOD also — I am not the beginning of the sanctity (i.e. sanctifying God). Rather, the sanctifying and glorifying of God is something that has been upheld and strengthened since the days of my fathers.

(5) אלוקי אבי, a reference to the “G’d of Yaakov” who had spoken of א-ל אלוקי ישראל, in Genesis 33:20. Yaakov had meant that G’d is great in [Her] grandeur and in [Her] supervision [of her] creatures, reflective of both the attribute of compassion and the attribute of justice.

עזי וזמרת כה, "The Lord is my strength and song." The normal procedure when one composes a song for G'd, praises G'd or prays to G'd, is to mention first how G'd relates to oneself before mentioning how G'd related to one's ancestors. [For example,] we find that the men of the Great Assembly who established our major prayers began the Amidah by first referring to G'd as "our G'd," i.e. the G'd of the petitioner, and only afterwards did they define G'd also as the G'd of the patriarchs.

The Israelites were similarly motivated when they started their song by referring to what G'd meant to them (each individual Jew)--how G'd had proven a Saviour for them in their present situation, acting as the merciful G'd. And they concluded the statement referring to their personal relationship with G'd by saying "zeh Eli v'anveihu," "this is my G'd and I will glorify [Her]," and only afterwards did they describe the same G'd in [Her] capacity as the G'd of their fathers.

§ Rav Avira taught: In the merit of the righteous women that were in that generation, the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt. At the time when these women would go to the river to draw water, the Holy One, Blessed be God, would make small fish materialize that would enter into their pitchers, and they would therefore draw pitchers that were half filled with water and half filled with fish. And they would then come and place two pots on the fire, one pot of hot water for washing their husbands and one pot of fish with which to feed them. And they would then take what they prepared to their husbands, to the field, and would bathe their husbands and anoint them with oil and feed them the fish and give them to drink and bond with them in sexual intercourse between the sheepfolds, i.e., between the borders and fences of the fields, as it is stated: “When you lie among the sheepfolds, the wings of the dove are covered with silver, and her pinions with the shimmer of gold” (Psalms 68:14), which is interpreted to mean that as a reward for “when you lie among the sheepfolds,” the Jewish people merited to receive the plunder of Egypt, as it is stated in the continuation of the verse, as a reference to the Jewish people: “The wings of the dove are covered with silver, and her pinions with the shimmer of gold” (Psalms 68:14).

And when these women would become pregnant, they would come back to their homes, and when the time for them to give birth would arrive they would go and give birth in the field under the apple tree, as it is stated: “Under the apple tree I awakened you; there your mother was in travail with you; there was she in travail and brought you forth” (Song of Songs 8:5). And the Holy One, Blessed be God, would send from the heavens above an angel who would clean and prepare the newborns, just as a midwife prepares the newborn, as it is stated: “And as for your birth, on the day you were born, your navel was not cut nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all” (Ezekiel 16:4). This indicates that there were no midwives to take care of the Jews born in Egypt. And then, the angel would gather for them two round stones from the field and the babies would nurse from that which would flow out of them. One of the stones flowed with oil and one of the stones flowed with honey, as it is stated: “And He would suckle them with honey from a crag and oil from a flinty rock” (Deuteronomy 32:13). And once the Egyptians would notice them, realizing that they were Jewish babies, they would come to kill them. But a miracle would occur for them and they would be absorbed by the earth. And the Egyptians would then bring oxen and would plow upon them, as it is stated: “The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows” (Psalms 129:3). After the Egyptians would leave, the babies would emerge and exit the ground like grass of the field, as it is stated: “I caused you to increase even as the growth of the field” (Ezekiel 16:7). And once the babies would grow, [God would lead them] like many flocks of sheep to their homes, as it is stated in the continuation of the verse: “And you did increase and grow up and you came with excellent beauty [ba’adi adayim]” (Ezekiel 16:7). Do not read the verse as: “Ba’adi adayim,” “with excellent beauty.” Rather, read it as: Be’edrei adarim, meaning: As many flocks. And when the Holy One, Blessed be God, revealed Himself at the Red Sea, these children recognized the Divine first, as it is stated: “This is my God, and I will glorify Him” (Exodus 15:2).