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Psalm 114:4
The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.
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?
Notice
Mountains skipping like rams unsettle the sense that the earth is fixed, while the little hills seem as light as lambs.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What happens to your sense of a mountain’s strength when it skips like a ram?
Write on thisHow do the rams and lambs shape your response to this scene of God’s power?
Write on thisConnect
Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Judges 5:4–5“LORD, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water.Both passages picture the solid earth in motion in response to God, with trembling in Judges and skipping in the psalm.
Exodus 19:18All of Mount Sinai smoked, because the LORD descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.Sinai quakes when the LORD descends, sharing the psalm’s picture of mountains moving before God.
Exodus 20:18All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed …Mountains feature in both scenes of God’s presence; Exodus also records the people’s fear at what they saw.
Habakkuk 3:6He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal.Both describe mountains and hills losing their apparent stability before God, though Habakkuk pictures collapse rather than skipping.
Jeremiah 4:23–24I saw the earth and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.The shared thread is an unsettling landscape: Jeremiah sees an earth laid waste, while the psalm pictures mountains skipping.
Zechariah 4:7Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace, to it!’”Both portray mountains as less fixed than they appear: one skips like a ram, and another becomes a plain before Zerubbabel.
Habakkuk 3:8Was the LORD displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of …Both use vivid descriptions of nature in relation to God’s action, with moving mountains in the psalm and questioned rivers in Habakkuk.
2 Peter 3:7–11But the heavens that exist now and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of …Both present creation as subject to God, though Peter speaks of coming judgment and the psalm recounts Israel’s deliverance.
Revelation 20:11I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the sky fled away. There was found no place for them.Both portray the landscape moving before God, though Revelation describes earth and sky fleeing rather than mountains skipping.
Psalm 29:6He makes them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young, wild ox.Both compare the movement of great heights to skipping animals, making massive landscapes seem light before God.
Psalm 18:7Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the mountains quaked and were shaken, because he was angry.Both describe mountains in motion before God; Psalm 18 names his anger, while Psalm 114 uses comparisons with rams and lambs.
Micah 1:3–4For behold, the LORD comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.Both connect God’s presence with the earth’s heights: Micah describes him treading them, while the psalm pictures them skipping.
Where this verse fits
Praise and worship. sermon or Bible study notes.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
The mountains’ strength does not make them independent of God. In this poem of Israel’s deliverance, even the great heights move before him.
Now put it in your words.
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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).