Composition
The selected choruses from Handel's Israel in Egypt (1739) have had an independent performance history separate from the complete oratorio, particularly the plague choruses ("He sent a thick darkness," "He smote all the firstborn of Egypt," "He gave them hailstones for rain") and the victory choruses from the Song of Moses ("The LORD is a man of war," "The horse and his rider," "The LORD shall reign for ever"). These excerpts circulated separately in programs throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and contributed to the formation of the English choral tradition's characteristic approach to Old Testament text.
Biblical Text
The plague choruses draw on Exodus 7-12 and Psalm 105:28-36, presenting the ten plagues as a series of escalating divine interventions against Egyptian power. The theological argument of the Exodus narrative - that the plagues are not mere natural disasters but public demonstrations of Yahweh's sovereignty over the gods of Egypt - is made musically through the increasing density and force of Handel's choral writing: each plague is musically larger than the previous.
Exodus 15:3 - "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name" - is set by Handel as one of his most direct and martial choruses, the text's anthropomorphism rendered without theological softening. The warrior God of the Exodus is presented fully: not as metaphor but as the actual characterization of divine action that the text asserts. The final chorus on Exodus 15:18 - "The LORD shall reign for ever and ever" - transforms military victory into eternal sovereignty.
Creator and Legacy
See the main Israel in Egypt entry. The choruses' independent circulation reflects their particular combination of textual directness (the KJV renders the Exodus with extraordinary power) and musical vividness (Handel's pictorial writing - locusts in the strings, hailstones in the orchestra - is among his most dramatically immediate). They became standards of the English choral festival tradition and were regularly programmed alongside choruses from the Messiah throughout the 19th century.