Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon said another: This is analogous to a king who had a gem and pearls. His son came and said to him: ‘Give it to me.’ He said to him: ‘It is for you, it is yours, and I am giving it to you.’ So too, Israel said before the Holy One blessed be He: “The Lord is my strength [ozi]40This is expounded to mean that the Israelites were asking that the strength of the Lord be given to them. and song” (Exodus 15:2).
The Holy One blessed be He said to them: ‘It is for you, it is yours, and I am giving it to you.’ Oz is nothing other than Torah, “The Lord will give strength [oz] to his people” (Psalms 29:11). Rabbi Levi said: There were three great expectations that Israel anticipated at the sea. They anticipated the Torah, they anticipated the banners, they anticipated the Tabernacle.
They anticipated the Torah, as it is written: “In its shade I delighted and I sat.”41The connection between shade and Torah is based on the verse: “I placed My words in your mouth and with the shade of My hand I covered you” (Isaiah 51:16). They anticipated the banners, as it is written: “I delighted.”42This is derived in conjunction with the next verse, which states “his banner over me is love” (Song of Songs 2:4) (Matnot Kehuna).
They anticipated the Tabernacle, as it is written: “And I sat [veyashavti],” just as it says: “For I have not dwelt [yashavti] in a house from the day I took the children of Israel up from Egypt [to this day; I have moved about in a tent and a Tabernacle]” (II Samuel 7:6). This is similar to what Rabbi Menaḥaman said: “They went out to the wilderness of Shur” (Exodus 15:22); it teaches that they prophesied about themselves that they were destined to align according to their various camps, banners, and rows [shurot], like the alignment of a vineyard.
“And its fruit was sweet to my palate,” Rabbi Yitzḥak said: These are the twelve months that Israel stayed before Mount Sinai, reveling in the sweetness of the Torah. What is the reason for “and its fruit was sweet to my palate”?43Clearly if someone is sensing the sweetness, they are sensing it with their palate. It was sweet to my palate, but to the palate of the nations of the world it was bitter as wormwood.