אז ישיר משה, “this is when Moses broke out with a song, etc.;” Moses now apologised for when in frustration he had said to G–d, also using the word מאז, “from then,” that since he had assumed his position the fortunes of the Jewish people had worsened (Exodus 5,23). He therefore used the same word when now singing G–d’s praises. An alternate interpretation: the numerical value of the word אז is 8. He hinted that the Jewish people had merited this miraculous salvation on account of the circumcision which is performed on the eighth day of the infant’s life. The verse לגוזר ים סוף לגזרים, “Who splits apart the Sea of reeds into separate sections,” (Psalms 136,13) is used as a Scriptural reference to this. The Hebrew word וימל, “he circumcised,” describing Avraham performing circumcision in Genesis 17,23, is translated by the Targum as וגזר.

ימינך ה' נאדרי בכח, “Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power;” Rashi explains the grammatical inconsistency of using the masculine adjective for the word “Your hand,” which is a feminine noun, and should have been נאדרת, as having a counterpart in Lamentations, 1,1, when the prophet Jeremiah said איכה רבתי עם, instead of the masculine adjective, seeing that the noun עם is masculine. An alternate explanation of the words נאדרי בכח, is that it is linked to the name of the Lord, as for instance in Psalms 123,1: היושבי בשמים, “He Who resides in heaven.”

Wind emanating from the nose is basically hot, as opposed to wind emanating from arctic regions. Here the phenomena were reversed, the wind emanating from G–d’s nostrils resulting in the waters congealing, as a result of which the waters piled up upon layer after layer; the wind emanating from natural causes covered the Egyptian soldiers and their chariots so that they drowned. In accurate versions of the Torah scrolls the word באלם, is spelled without the letter י, so that it does not refer to deities, but refers to אלמים, the dumb, describing how very often G–d, even though He had good reason to raise His voice in protest, remained silent. (Talmud tractate Gittin, folio 56)

נערמו, “they had become cunning;” the waters had become crafty, so that they too recited G–d’s praises. This is also how Onkelos translates this line when he wrote: “the waters became smart;”

קפאו תהומות בלב ים, “the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.” The lower two thirds of the sea had become congealed, whereas the upper third had been split. If all three thirds of the water had been split, the Israelites would not have been able to climb out of it on the opposite bank. This is why the Torah chose the expression בלב ים, “in the heart of the sea,” as the heart of a human being is located at the junction of the upper third of torso and the two lower thirds.

מי כמכה, “who is comparable to You?” The reason this question has been repeated is that it refers to two different verses. The first one is verse 8, where the wind, ברוח אפיך, the wind issuing forth from G–d’s nostrils, is described as making the waves assume an upright posture; the second wind in verse 10 describes a natural wind at work but blowing constantly in the same direction.

וילכו שלשת ימים, “they walked for a period of three days;” when the Israelites had left Egypt they had taken vessels containing drinking water with them. As soon as they ran out of water they raised their voices complaining (verse 24) Instead of displaying a minimum amount of patience, they complained immediately. An alternate interpretation: the expression וילכו שלשת ימים במדבר ולא מצאו מים, is an allegory; the people had been hoping to find Torah=מים=life sustaining water, but were sorely disappointed not to have found it, so they complained. In Isaiah 55,1, Torah has been equated with water. This is the reason why Ezra introduced the custom to read publicly from the Torah every Monday and Thursday, so that the people would not have to go without listening to a Torah reading for three successive days. (Talmud, tractate Baba Kamma, folio 82)

חק ומשפט, “a law which is a social law,” i.e. the commandment to honor one’s parents.

כי אני, ה' רופאך, “for I, the Lord, am your physician.” The Torah here speaks of preventive medicine. It tells us that G–d, i.e. His Torah, teaches us how to forestall sickness. Physicians are in the habit of telling their patients what to eat and what not to eat so that that they will not become victims of certain common diseases. This is why the verse commences with the warning to pay heed to what your Physician tells you before you become a victim to these diseases. We are to consider the performance of the Torah’s commandments as preventive medicine. Our author also quotes Isaiah 17,11 as support for his interpretation. The prophet wrote: נד קציר ביום נחלה וכאב אנוש, “on the day that you plant you see it grow.” He also quotes proverbs 4,22, where the author concludes his advice in verse 20 by stating: ולכל בשרו מרפא, “and healing for all his flesh.” (Attributed to Rabbi Joseph Kara). The words: כל המחלה in our verse above is interpreted as having the same meaning as the same word in Samuel II 12,2: ולרש אין כל, “and the poor man does not have anything,” and as in Psalms 78,38: ולא יעיר כל חמתו, “and He did not give full vent to His fury,” i.e. “any of the different kinds of disease I will not inflict upon you.”