Psalm 114

 

Psalm 114

1 When Israel went out from Egypt, 

the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, 

2 Judah became God's sanctuary, 

Israel his dominion. 

3 The sea looked and fled; 

Jordan turned back. 

4 The mountains skipped like rams, 

the hills like lambs. 

5 Why is it, O sea, that you flee? 

O Jordan, that you turn back? 

6 O mountains, that you skip like rams? 

O hills, like lambs? 

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, 

at the presence of the God of Jacob, 

8 who turns the rock into a pool of water, 

the flint into a spring of water.

 

          Psalm 114 is a hymn. Some scholars call it the Egyptian hallel. Some scholars think the Covenant Festival was the occasion of the poem, during the period of the divided Monarchy. It later became part of the Passover in the post-exilic period. The Exodus and the birth of the nation, the saving history and the birth of a nation synchronize. The saving history begins with Exodus. The psalm celebrates the exodus and its aftermath as the liberation of Israel, but also as an event through which all nature came to see the power of the Lord. The poem is structured on events involving water: the splitting of the sea, the crossing of the Jordan, and the supplying of water in the wilderness. One might read the hymn playfully as it recounts the wonders of God that accompany bringing Israel from Egypt to Canaan.

 The first strophe, verses 1-2, we see the intimate connection with the birth of Israel as a nation and the departure from Egypt. ¹ When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, showing that peoples were categorized by their language more than by their race, and in a beautiful image, ² Judah became God's sanctuary, Israel his dominion. This could refer to the time of the divided monarchy. Judah and Israel are the holy dominion of the Lord. Today, we could desire that a denomination, a local church, a personal life, would be that sanctuary and place where the Lord rules. The second and third strophes provide a parallelism between the beginning and the end of the exodus. The poet personifies the waters. The second strophe, verses 3-4, refers to the miracles accompanying the departure from Egypt. ³ The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back. ⁴ The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. The exodus included Mount Sinai, but here it takes on cosmic proportions. The miracles associated with the Exodus testify to the greatness of the Lord. Creation and saving history are again united. The third strophe is verses 5-6, where the poet intervenes with his questions of nature as to why it responded to the deliverance of Israel the way it did. ⁵ Why is it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? ⁶ O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs? The fourth strophe is verses 7-8, recount awe and majesty. ⁷ Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, ⁸ who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water, referring to water in the desert in Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20:11. The answer to the questions in the previous strophe is that the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob, is the reason for nature to respond the way it did. On the cosmic level, God has power over all the material of the earth and can alter it.