What Does Exodus 15:7 Mean?

"In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble." "The greatness of your majesty" (Hebrew: geyon ge'onecha, the greatness of your height/excellence): the ga'ah-root from verse 1 (triumphed gloriously) reappears: YHWH's majesty is his exaltation, his supreme elevation above all competing powers. From this height of majesty, YHWH overthrows (hahras, to tear down/demolish) his adversaries: the demolition language of warfare applied to the divine victor.

"You send out your fury" (Hebrew: tishalach charonecha, you send out your burning anger). YHWH's anger is an active force that is "sent out" like a weapon against the opponents. The fury is rather than emotional but agential: YHWH's anger goes forth and consumes. "It consumes them like stubble": the stubble-fire simile is the image of complete combustion: dried chaff set on fire burns completely, leaving nothing. Egypt's army is consumed by YHWH's fury as completely as stubble in a fire: the most total possible destruction image in agricultural terms.

The "fury... consumes... like stubble" language is taken up by Isaiah in the new exodus oracles (Isaiah 5:24; 47:14) and by Malachi in the day-of-the-LORD imagery (Malachi 4:1: "the day is coming... that shall burn them up, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch"). The Song of the Sea's fire-and-stubble victory image seeds the prophetic tradition's day-of-the-LORD fire imagery: the same divine fury that consumed Pharaoh's army at the sea will consume the covenant enemies at the eschatological judgment.