Day 9 from Pastor Brian Flewelling's 24-Day Devotional Titled "Exodus."

 “Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.’” Exodus 15:20-21

Moses and the Israelites had just finished singing this song of praise to the Lord in Exodus 15:1-18. Now Miriam the prophetess picks up the lyrics to the tune and repeats the song in 15:21. This redundancy may feel tedious to the modern reader, but something profound is transpiring. Moses’s song of praise is sung from the people up to the Lord. The song of Miriam, the prophetess, is sung from the Lord back to the people.

Let’s recall Israel’s deliverance. In stage one, God promises to deliver them, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army…” (Exodus 14:4). In stage two, God delivers. The deliverance is confessed out of the mouth of God’s enemies, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt” (Exodus 14:25). In stage three the people of Israel give thanks and praise for God’s deliverance (Exodus 15:1-18). And finally, in stage four, Miriam retells the story of the Lord’s deliverance (Exodus 15:21).

If you experience deliverance and then praise the Lord for it, you give him a single offering. If you experience deliverance and educate the next generation, you get an offering of praise and worship from every generation that walks in the prophetic power of your breakthrough. The Lord is giving the Israelite community a prophetic education in his ways. This is an oral culture committing the song of Miriam to their collective memory. Remember, they practiced regularly looking backward to the past, remembering their stories and where they came from. They are chronicling their victory for future generations to remember.

If you have a song of Moses without a song of Miriam, the move of God dies within a generation. But if you have a prophetic voice, like Miriam’s, reminding the people of the mighty acts of the Lord, you impact every generation after. An experience without education and activation leads to stagnation. An experience with education and activation leads to accumulation.

Every generation stands on the shoulders of the one before it. There’s the effect of accumulation here. God is retraining the people. He is retelling their story through his eyes. Not only is the Spirit of the Lord delivering them, but he is redefining them. John Locke, no stranger to Christianity, observed, “Whoever defines the word defines the world.” Through the prophetic voice of Miriam, God is reorienting his people around the story he is crafting and his character as their king.

Find the full digital copy of "Exodus" here.