The legendary figure is less a guide to the wonders of human ingenuity and innovation than a necessary reminder of human constraints and limitations.

To find evidence of what America owes to the Hebraic part of its religious heritage, one need look no further than the motifs the song sung by the Israelites after crossing the Sea of Reeds shares with The Star-Spangled Banner. Reuven Kimmelman observes that both songs 

liturgize [a] baffling reversal by compressing the past into the present, where the singers bear witness to their astonishing deliverance. More than mirroring the event, the songs re-enact it, placing singer and listener at the event.

Seeing the parallel with the ancient Israelites, Francis Scott Key composed an anthem reverberating with echoes of the Song at the Sea as he composed other biblically-nourished hymns including “Lord, with Glowing heart I’d Praise Thee” and “Before the Lord We Bow.”

Both anthem and Song begin with a double reference to visualizing the victory thereby transforming the vocalists into eyewitnesses. The anthem begins: “O say can you see”; “O’er the ramparts we watched”; whereas Exodus introduces the Song with “Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore of the sea” (14:30). And “Israel saw the wondrous power which God had wielded against the Egyptians” (14:31).

Finally, both paeans place their trust in a saving God. The anthem concludes with: “Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation,” [referring to] “our motto—In God is our trust”; whereas the Song is introduced, with the proclamation: “On that day, God saved Israel from the hand of Egypt” (Exod. 14:30) initiating the Song with: “They trusted in God” (Exod.14:31). As the Song begins, so the anthem ends.