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Psalm 114

Psalm 114 portrays creation yielding before the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and made them his own.

Israel leaves Egypt and becomes the people among whom God dwells and rules. An unnamed psalmist recalls that deliverance through scenes of waters retreating, mountains skipping, and rock yielding water. The poem addresses the sea, Jordan, mountains, and hills, asking what made them move. Its closing command identifies the cause: the earth must tremble before the Lord, the God of Jacob. The same God who commands creation supplies water for his people.

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1When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of foreign language,
2Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3The sea saw it, and fled. The Jordan was driven back.
4The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.
5What was it, you sea, that you fled? You Jordan, that you turned back?
6You mountains, that you skipped like rams? You little hills, like lambs?
7Tremble, you earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of waters.
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Key verses
Psalm 114:3The fleeing sea and retreating Jordan bring Israel’s departure from Egypt and entrance into the land into one scene.
Psalm 114:8The closing image joins God’s rule over creation with his provision of water from unyielding rock.
Psalm 114:4Mountains and hills become leaping animals in the poem, showing that even the firmest ground responds to God’s presence.
Where this chapter reaches

Exodus shares the departure from Egypt, the passage through the sea, and water from rock; Numbers and Deuteronomy also recount God’s provision of water from rock. Habakkuk shares the imagery of mountains and waters responding to God’s presence and power.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What changes in your reading when the poem names the Lord after questioning the sea and mountains?

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How does the final image of water from rock shape your understanding of the command to tremble?

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Questions people ask about Psalm 114

Why do the mountains skip in Psalm 114?

The psalm portrays mountains and hills as rams and lambs that leap before God. This poetic image may recall the trembling mountain at Sinai in Exodus, though Psalm 114 names no mountain. Verse 7 supplies the explanation for creation’s movement: the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob.

What does Judah becoming God’s sanctuary mean in Psalm 114?

Verse 2 describes Judah as God’s sanctuary and Israel as his dominion. Sanctuary identifies a place of God’s dwelling; dominion identifies what he rules. Together, the lines present the people brought out of Egypt as belonging to God, with his presence among them and his authority over them.

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Psalms · 150 chapters
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).