Exodus 15:7

Summary

Exodus 15:7 describes God's overthrow of adversaries through the greatness of divine majesty and the sending forth of burning anger, which is compared to a consuming fire that destroys stubble. The verse forms part of the Song of the Sea, using parallel verbal clauses to depict destructive action against those who rose up in opposition.

Key words

• ge'onkha ("your majesty", H1347) — masculine singular construct noun with 2ms suffix; forms a construct chain with rov ("greatness of"), producing the phrase "in the greatness of your majesty."
• taharos ("you threw down", H2040) — qal imperfect, 2ms; the qal (simple) stem indicates the subject directly performs the action of overthrowing.
• qameikha ("those who rose against you", H6965) — qal participle, masculine plural construct with 2ms suffix; the participle form frames the adversaries as those in the ongoing state/act of rising up.
• teshallach ("you sent forth", H7971) — piel (intensive) imperfect, 2ms; the piel stem intensifies the action of sending, distinguishing it from a simple qal "send."
• yokhelemo ("it consumed them", H0398) — qal imperfect, 3ms with 3mp suffix; the subject shifts to a third-person "it" (the anger), which acts upon "them" (the adversaries).

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel bicola. The first pair — taharos qameikha ("you threw down those who rose against you") — is governed by the prepositional phrase u-ve-rov ge'onkha ("and in the greatness of your majesty"), a construct chain stacking rov ("greatness of") upon ge'on ("majesty"), intensifying the description of the causal means by which the overthrow occurs. The verb taharos is qal imperfect, presenting the action as an ongoing or characteristic act performed directly by the addressee ("you").

The second pair shifts agency: teshallach charonkha ("you sent forth your anger") uses the piel stem of shalach, an intensive form suggesting deliberate or forceful sending, with charon ("anger") as the object sent. The final clause, yokhelemo ka-qash ("it consumed them like stubble"), changes grammatical subject to third person — the sent anger itself becomes the acting force ("it consumed"), no longer "you." This grammatical shift moves the addressee from direct agent to a distanced cause, while the anger becomes the immediate agent of consumption. The comparison ka-qash ("like stubble") uses a preposition plus article plus noun to characterize the totality and ease of destruction, likening the adversaries' fate to combustible dry plant matter.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders taharos ("you threw down") with synetripsas ("you crushed/shattered"), a distinct verb of breaking rather than overthrowing. The Vulgate's deposuisti ("you deposed/threw down") aligns more closely with the Hebrew sense of overthrow. For qash ("stubble," H7179), the LXX uses kalamēn ("stalk/reed"), while the Vulgate's stipulam ("stubble/stalk") is closer to the Hebrew image of dry plant remains.