Christianity
Psalms 114When Israel Went Out of Egypt
Summary
Psalm 114 is a short, vivid poem within the Hallel that celebrates the exodus as a moment when nature itself reacted to God's presence. When Israel went out of Egypt, Judah became his sanctuary, the sea saw it and fled, the Jordan was driven back, and the mountains skipped like rams. The psalmist teasingly asks the sea and hills what ailed them, then commands the earth to tremble before the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool and the flint into a fountain.
Key verse
“The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.”
Psalms 114:3
Themes
- The Exodus
- Creation Responds
- God's Presence
- Water from the Rock
Text
When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;
Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.
The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.
The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?
Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?
Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;
Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.
Text: King James Version (1611/1769), public domain.
Across traditions
Christianity
Exodus 14: The Sea DividedExodus 14 tells how the waters parted so Israel could cross on dry ground. Psalm 114 turns the narrative into poetry in which the sea itself sees God and runs away.
Christianity
Joshua 3: The Jordan Stands StillJoshua 3 tells how the Jordan's waters stood still so Israel could cross into Canaan. Psalm 114 pairs this crossing with the sea as two halves of one great deliverance.
Judaism
Psalm 114 in the JPS 1917 TanakhPsalm 114 is sung at the Passover Seder before the meal, together with Psalm 113, because it tells the story of the exodus that the Seder recounts.
Questions about Psalms 114
Why do the mountains skip like rams in Psalm 114?
Psalm 114:4 and 6 picture mountains and hills leaping like rams and lambs, a playful image of the earth trembling at God's coming, probably recalling the quaking of Sinai in Exodus 19:18.
Where does Dante quote Psalm 114?
In canto 2 of Purgatorio in Dante's Divine Comedy, souls arriving by boat sing In exitu Israel de Aegypto, the Latin opening of Psalm 114, which Dante reads as an image of the soul's release from sin.