Israel blamed Moshe at the sea. Why does the prayer call them "the loved ones"?
Look at what the Torah says just before the sea splits. The Egyptians are closing in, and Israel blames Moshe: "Was it for lack of graves in Egypt that you took us out to die in the wilderness?" Then they say it was better to serve Egypt than to die here (Shemot 14:11-12). Soon after, the prayer calls the same people "the loved ones."
The sources do not hide this. The prayer's line "the water covered their enemies, not one of them was left" is a verse from Tehillim 106. That psalm says what happened: "Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders... and they rebelled at the sea." Then it says God saved them anyway, "for His name's sake, to make His power known." Only after the rescue: "They believed His words and sang His praise" (106:7-12).
The Mekhilta (an early Midrash, a collection of rabbinic teachings, on the book of Shemot) is just as blunt. It says Israel split into four groups at the sea. One wanted to jump in. One wanted to go back to Egypt. One wanted to fight. One wanted to shout at the Egyptians. Each group got its own answer from the verses in Shemot 14:13-14.
So why "the loved ones"? Abudarham does not discuss the complaints. He ties "the loved ones" to a verse where God says, "I loved Yaakov" (Malachi 1:2). In that verse God is speaking about His own love. One way to read the prayer is that "the loved ones" describes God's side of the relationship, not how the people behaved that day. Abudarham does not say this himself.
In Shemot and in Tehillim 106 the order is the same: fear, rescue, then praise (Shemot 14:10, 14:30, 15:1). The prayer leaves the complaints out. The verses it quotes keep them in the story.
Shemot 14:11-12,Shemot 14:10, 14:30, 15:1,Tehillim 106:7-12,Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Beshalach 3,Abudarham, Blessings on the Shema,Malachi 1:2The prayer starts with God helping my ancestors. What does that have to do with me?
The first line is about the past: "You have always been the help of our ancestors, a shield and a savior to them and to their children after them, in every generation." You were not at the sea. You may not have seen anything you would call help. So why start there?
The prayer's own answer is in the same line: the help was for them "and for their children after them, in every generation." Abudarham links "their children" to Yeshayahu 63:8, where God calls Israel "children who will not lie," and the verse goes on, "and He became their savior." In that verse the children are Israel, as God's children.
The Mekhilta shows what the children did when they were stuck at the sea. Israel was terrified and cried out to God. The Mekhilta says that in doing so they took up the craft of their fathers, the craft of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Then it gives each father's proof. Avraham built an altar and called on God's name. Yitzchak went out to talk in the field, and the Mekhilta says that kind of talking means prayer. Yaakov "met" the place, and meeting also means prayer. What the fathers handed down, in this reading, was a way of asking.
Rashi quotes the Mekhilta on God's reply to Moshe at the sea: the merit of their fathers and the faith they showed when they left Egypt are enough to split the sea for them. So it was both what came from the fathers and what the people brought themselves.
The prayer does not promise you will see help in your own life. It says help was there for them, and for the children after them, in every generation. The sources do not say how a person is supposed to feel that. They show what the children at the sea did: they did what their fathers had done.
Abudarham, Blessings on the Shema,Yeshayahu 63:8,Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Beshalach 3,Rashi on Shemot 14:15The prayer says not one Egyptian was left. Did Pharaoh really die too?
"Not one of them was left" is a line from Tehillim 106:11. The Torah says it too: the waters covered "Pharaoh's entire army that followed them into the sea; not one of them remained" (Shemot 14:28). Read it closely. It says Pharaoh's army. It does not say Pharaoh himself.
Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic teachings on the book of Tehillim) discusses this verse. It gives three views. Rabbi Yehudah says even Pharaoh drowned, because the verse says not one was left. Rabbi Nechemiah says Pharaoh was left, by himself. His proof is what God told Pharaoh before the plague of hail: "For this I have kept you standing: to show you My power, and so that My name will be told in all the earth" (Shemot 9:16). Others say Pharaoh drowned too, but last of all, and bring Tehillim 136:15: "He shook off Pharaoh and his army into the Sea of Reeds."
The Midrash does not pick one. It sets the three side by side, each with its own verse.
What does the prayer itself say? It speaks of "their enemies," not of Pharaoh by name. The lines just before it are about Israel passing through, and the next lines are the song. So the line works whichever view you hold: the army that chased Israel did not come back.
A line that sounds final has a real open question inside it. The sages left it open.
Tehillim 106:11,Shemot 14:28,Midrash Tehillim 106:5,Shemot 9:16,Tehillim 136:15