“And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.”
By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood up like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. The poetic description of the wind as the blast of God's nostrils is a bold anthropomorphism — the east wind of Exodus 14:21 is here described as the breath of God's nose. The waters that piled up and stood like a wall and congealed are the same waters described in prose in Exodus 14:22. Poetry and prose tell the same event from different distances: the prose is closer to the event; the poetry interprets its theological significance. The congealing of the deep in the heart of the sea is the most visceral image — the sea itself was rearranged at the molecular level by the God who made it.
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