Exodus 15:12

Exo 15:12 Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.

Ver. 12. The earth swallowed them,] That is, the sea, which compasseth the earth about as a girdle: God having set the solid earth upon the liquid waters. See Jon 2:6 Psa 24:2.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo 15:12. The earth swallowed them up — Their dead bodies sunk into the sands, on which they were thrown, which sucked them in.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 12. The earth swallowed them.] It is very likely there was also an earthquake on this occasion, and that chasms were made in the bottom of the sea, by which many of them were swallowed up, though multitudes were overwhelmed by the waters, whose dead bodies were afterward thrown ashore. The psalmist strongly intimates that there was an earthquake on this occasion: The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings lightened the world; the EARTH TREMBLED and SHOOK; Ps 77:18.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(12) The earth swallowed them.—The sea, which actually “swallowed them,” was a part of the earth. Literalism might argue that the statement contravened former ones (Exo_15:4-5; Exo_15:10); but the fact is otherwise. If we only allow our common sense fair play, and permit sacred writers the same latitude as profane ones, we shall find wonderfully few discrepancies, or even difficulties, in the Biblical narrative.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. The poet, before proceeding to the main theme of the paragraph (v. 13 ff.), reverts for a moment to the thought of Jehovah’s destruction of the foe.

The earth swallowed them] In the Heb., the imperfect, attached ἀσυνδέτως, expresses vividly how the result followed at once the stretching out of Jehovah’s hand. Exactly so v. 14 ‘the peoples heard, they trembled’; Psa_77:16 ‘the waters saw thee, they were in pangs.’ The ‘earth’ must here be understood as inclusive of the sea. ‘Swallowed,’ i.e. engulphed: cf. Num_16:32, Psa_106:17 (of Dathan and Abiram).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thou stretchedst out thy right hand,.... That is, exerted his power, and gave a display and proof of it; of which the right hand is an emblem:

the earth swallowed them; meaning Pharaoh and his host; for though they were drowned in the sea, that being a part of the terraqueous globe, they may be said to be swallowed in the earth; as Jonah, when in the depth of the sea, the earth and its bars are said to be about him, Jon 2:6 and besides, many of Pharaoh's army might be swallowed up in the mud at the bottom of the sea: nor is it improbable that those that were cast upon the banks and sand, whom the Israelites stripped, might be afterwards swallowed up therein.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Earth. When their carcasses were corrupted, such as were not eaten by fishes, mixed with the earth at the bottom, or on the shore of the sea.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Either,

1. The globe, consisting of earth and water, which is here called earth; as it is called the deep, and the water s, Gen 1:2. Or,

2. The earth is here put for the sea, the other part of the same globe; as the soul is put for the body, or the dead carcass, the other part of the man, Lev 19:28; 21:1; Num 6:6,9,11. Or,

3. The earth properly, either because many of them sunk into the mud at the bottom of the sea, and were buried in it; or because, after they were cast up upon the shore, they were buried by the Israelites in the earth.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thou stretchedst out thy right hand. Thou hadst only to stretch out an arm, and at once thy enemies perished. The earth swallowed them upi.e. , the sea, which is a part of the earth.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The earth swallowed them - Their dead bodies sunk into the sands on which they were thrown, which sucked them in.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

with your right hand

The phrase "right hand" represents the strong power of God. AT: "with your strong power" (See: Metonymy)

You reached out with your right hand

Moses speaks about God causing something to happen as if God reached out with his hand. AT: "With your strong power you made it happen" (See: Metaphor)

the earth swallowed them

Moses personifies the earth as if it could swallow or devour with it's mouth. AT: "the earth devoured them" (See: Personification)

translationWords

right hand

covenant

holy

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

נטית ימינך THOU INCLINEST THY RIGHT HAND — When the Holy One, blessed be He, inclines His hand the wicked cease to be and fall — because everything is held in His hand and consequently falls when He inclines it. Similarly it states, (Isaiah 31:3) “When the Lord inclineth His hand, he that helpeth shall stumble and he that is helped shall fall”. A parable: it may be compared to glass vessels held in a man’s hand: if he inclines his hand a little they fall and are shattered to pieces (cf. Mekhilta).

תבלעמו ארץ THE EARTH SWALLOWED THEM — From this it may be gathered that they received the privilege of burial as a reward for having said, (Exodus 9:27) “The Lord is righteous” (Mekhilta).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

THOU STRETCHEDST OUT THY RIGHT HAND — THE EARTH ‘TIVLA’EIMO’ (SWALLOWED THEM). The meaning is that “after you blew with Your wind and the sea covered them, You stretched out Your right hand and Your arm, and the earth swallowed them.” The purport thereof is that after they drowned, the sea cast them out as is the custom of the seas, and so Scripture says, And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. There, [on the sea-shore], their bodies decomposed and they returned to the dust upon the earth as they were, and thus they were swallowed up and destroyed [by the earth]. The usage of the word tivla’eimo is similar to the expressions: Together round about, ‘vativla’eini’ (Thou dost destroy me); The Eternal ‘bila’ (hath swallowed up) unsparingly; And the way of thy paths ‘bileiu,’ which means “they destroyed.” Our Rabbis have said that the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them, for they were privileged to be buried by virtue of having said, The Eternal is righteous. [Thus, according to this Midrash of the Rabbis, the bodies of the Egyptians were not totally destroyed, for they even merited a place for burial.] But the expression of G-d’s “outstretched right hand or arm,” [as stated here, Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand], is used in Scripture only as indicating vengeance and destruction! Perhaps the Rabbis [of the above-mentioned interpretation] will explain the verse as follows: “Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand to slay them in the sea, and the earth swallowed them up after that,” this being the burial which they merited.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.