Psalms 114

Psalms 114:1-8

Psalms 114As the preceding psalm encouraged the people of God, in a time of trial, by reminding them that, although infinitely exalted, he condescends to notice and relieve the sufferings of his creatures, so the one before us is intended to produce the same effect, by bringing to their recollection what he actually did for Israel in the period of the exodus from Egypt. By that deliverance he acknowledged Israel as his chosen people, Psalms 114:1-2, and attested the acknowledgment by miracle, Psalms 114:3-4. Nature herself, whose course was interrupted, is appealed to as a witness, Psalms 114:5-6, that she is subject to the God of Israel, Psalms 114:7-8. There is no improbability in the opinion that this psalm, with those which immediately follow, was intended to continue the series begun in the two preceding trilogies (Psalms 108— 110, and Psalms 111— 113.), and intended to sustain the hopes of the Jewish Church after its return from Babylon.

1. (Psalms 114:1) In the coming forth of Israel from Egypt, of the house of Jacob from a people of strange language. The first phrase is not to be restricted to the very act or moment of the exodus, but comprehends the whole Mosaic period, of which this was the characteristic and critical event. The house of Jacob is a phrase peculiarly appropriate to those who entered Egypt as a family, and left it as a nation. Of strange language is a paraphrase of one Hebrew word, apparently a participle and occurring only here; but according to its obvious etymological affinities, it probably means stammering, and then, by an association common in antiquity, speaking barbarously i.e. in a foreign language. All such expressions may perhaps involve an allusion to the pre-eminence of Hebrew, as the primitive and sacred language. It was no small part of the humiliation to which Israel was subjected in Egypt, that the people of God should sustain for ages a relation of dependence to a nation who did not even speak the sacred language, much less profess the true religion, so inseparably blended with it. See above, on Psalms 81:5, and compare my note on Isaiah 33:19.

2. (Psalms 114:2) Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. Judah is put as an equivalent to Israel, hot only because it had really become so, when the psalm was written, but because it was destined to become so from the first. See Genesis 49:10. Became, literally was for, which might mean nothing more than served as or was treated as; but this construction of the verb to be with to or for is the only representative in Hebrew of our word become. The sense thus obtained is entirely consistent with the call- ing of Abraham, because what is here meant is that Israel, as a nation, was now publicly declared to be the chosen or peculiar people, an idea expressed by the phrase his sanctuary or holy thing, i. e. something set apart exclusively to his use and service. The parallel word in the original is plural, dominions or domains, in reference, as some suppose, to the plurality of tribes, but according to others, in contrast with the lordships and dominions of the world, to all which Israel is described as more than equipollent, just as the infinite superiority of the true God to all false gods is expressed or suggested by the plural name Elohim.

Here, as in Psalms 87:1, the pronouns are without an antecedent in the sentence. The reference to God is so self-evident, that the only question has respect to the unusual form, which some explain by supposing that the psalm was originally part of the preceding one, or at leak designed to be always read or sung directly after it. The latest interpreters prefer the explanation, that the name of God. was designedly suppressed, in order that the questions in Psalms 114:5-6, might appear more natural and yet more striking.

3. (Psalms 114:3) The sea saw and fled— the Jordan turns back. By supposing the conversive prefix to affect both verbs, we may render the last also as a preterite, turned back. The historical allusion is to Exodus 14:21, Joshua 3:14-17. At the same time, as seas and rivers are familiar emblems of the world and its nations, the reminiscence is adapted to suggest the hope, that other seas and other rivers may be yet controlled by the same power. See above, on Psalms 77:16; Psalms 93:3; Psalms 107:23.

4. (Psalms 114:4) The mountains skipped like rams, (the) hills like the young of sheep. As the Psalmist is reciting actual events, to be used as symbols and pledges of others, this cannot be explained as a poetical figure, but must be understood as referring to the concussion of Sinai, with its various peaks and neighbouring mountains. See Exodus 19:18, Judges 5:4, Psalms 68:8; Psalms 97:4-5, Habakkuk 3:6. Here again the familiar use of mountains to denote states and empires is suggestive of the same consolation as in Psalms 114:3.

5. (Psalms 114:5) What aileth thee, 0 sea, that thou fleest— O Jordan (that) thou turnest back? By a fine poetical apostrophe, the Psalmist, instead of simply stating the cause of these effects, puts the question to the natural objects which thus witnessed and attested the divine presence. The first phrase literally means, what (is) to thee, the nearest approach that the Semitic dialects can make to our expression, what have you, which in some languages, the French for instance, is the usual equivalent to what ails you?

6. (Psalms 114:6) Ye mountains, (that) ye skip like rams— ye hills, like the young of sheep? The sentence is continued from the foregoing verse, being still dependent on the question there asked. In this interrogation the terms of Psa 114:3-4, are studiously repeated. The young of sheep, literally sons of the flock.

7. (Psalms 114:7) From before the Lord tremble, 0 earth, from before the God of Jacob. As in other cases of rhetorical interrogation, the writer or speaker answers his own question. The imperative mood is here peculiarly significant, including both a recollection and prediction; as if he had said, the earth might well tremble at the presence of the Lord, and may well tremble at it still, From before is better than at the presence of, because the very form of the expression necessarily suggests the ideas of recoil and flight. Before is itself a compound term in Hebrew, meaning to the face of. The word translated Lord is the simple or primitive form of Adhonai, and is applied both to God and man, in the sense of lord or master. See Exodus 23:17, Malachi 3:1.

8. (Psalms 114:8) Turning the rock (into) a pool of water, the flint to springs of water. This refers to the miraculous supply of water in the desert. See above, on Psalms 107:35, and compare Exodus 17:6, Numbers 20:11, Deuteronomy 8:15; Deuteronomy 32:13, Isaiah 41:18. The connection with the preceding verse is still more marked in the original, the first words of which strictly mean the (one) turning, etc. The reader is left to draw for himself the natural and obvious conclusion, that the God, who thus drew water from a flinty rock for the supply of Israel, can still educe the richest blessings from what seem to be the hardest and most inauspicious situations. When this thought is supplied, the psalm no longer seems unfinished or abrupt in its conclusion.