Form and rhetoric in Biblical song: Ramban’s commentary on the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18).

Abstract

In the present study, I will illustrate how the commentary of the preeminent Andalusian exegete, R. Moshe ben Nah.man (Ramban) (c. 1194- 1270), offers a noteworthy medieval contribution to the study of the genre of biblical poetry in his interpretation of the Song of the Sea (Ex. 15:1- 18). This study builds on the scholarship on Ramban’s commentary to this biblical song, which has focused on how Ramban is insightfully aware of specific poetic features, such as the distinctive technique of parallelism and the song’s chronological ordering of events. The primary goal of the present analysis is to apply this scholarship to develop a comprehensive, holistic investigation of Ramban’s perceptive peshat-reading of this song in its entirety. This study aims to elucidate how Ramban coheres all of the parts of the song into a cohesive whole, discerning its sophisticated, intricate structure from beginning to end and creating an elaborate text that interweaves its individual components into a tightly organized composition.