Abstract The dynamical tide consists of various waves that can resonate with orbital motion. We test this coupling of the dynamical tide and orbital motion using a simple 2D shallow water model, which can be applied to a rocky planet covered with a thin ocean or atmosphere. Then we take the Earth–Moon system as a fiducial model to calculate the tidal resonances and orbital evolution. We find that tidal dissipation can even increase with increasing orbital separation because of the coupling of the dynamical tide and orbital motion. We draw the conclusion that the coupling is not negligible to study the orbital evolution on a secular timescale.