Psalm 114:1-8
1 When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;
2 Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.
3 The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
5 What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?
6 Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;
8 Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.
From Jewish Study Bible Notes
Ps. 114: The exodus and its aftermath is celebrated not only as the liberation of Israel, but as an event through which all of nature came to see the power of God. The exodus is a cosmic theophany that alters the course of nature. The poem is structured on events involving water: the splitting of the sea, the crossing of the Jordan, and the supplying of water in the wilderness.
114.1-2: In v. 1, 'Israel' is the entire nation, 'the house of Jacob;' in v. 2, 'Judah' and 'Israel' refer to the Southern and Northern Kingdoms.
. . .
114.3-6: The passage through the sea (Exod. 14.29) is paralleled by the crossing of the Jordan (Josh. 3.14-17), the beginning and end of the exodus. These waters are personified and their splitting is imagined as their flight from the awe of God. The 'mountains' and 'hills' remind one of Mount Sinai (so Radak), but here the theophany takes on cosmic proportions. Compare the sea fleeing in terror from God (104.7), and the theophanous quaking of the earth (68.9; Judg. 5.4-5).
114.8: Water in the desert (Exod. 17.6; Num. 20.11). On the cosmic level, God has power over all the material of the earth and can alter it as He wishes.
See Creation Texts.
