Psalms 114

¹When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;

²Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.

³The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.

⁴The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.

Psa 114:1-8. The writer briefly and beautifully celebrates God’s former care of His people, to whose benefit nature was miraculously made to contribute. 1-4. of strange language--(compare Psa 81:5).

⁵What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?

⁶Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?

⁷Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;

⁸Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.

5-8. The questions place the implied answers in a more striking form.