Joyful invitation to faith
The Jews who returned from exile were marginalized and looked down on in their own land, much like Christians in the West today. This psalm reminds them of who their God is and, wonderfully, does so with playfulness, not anger.
Praise YHWH!
1 When Israel came out of Egypt—
when Jacob’s family escaped
from a people babbling in a strange tongue—
2 Judah became his sanctuary
and Israel his domain.
3 The sea saw it and bolted
the Jordan River turned tail and ran.
4 The mountains jumped like rams
and the hills skipped like lambs.
5 What was wrong with you, sea
that you bolted?
And you, Jordan
that you ran away?
6 Why, mountains
did you jump like rams
and you hills, skip like lambs?
7 Tremble, Earth
before YHWH!
Tremble before the God of Jacob!
8 He turned solid rock
into a pool of water
hard stone into a gushing spring.
Two things suggest that Psalm 114 originally began with “Praise YHWH,” dislocated by a scribal mistake to the end of Psalm 113. First, the text of Psalm 114 makes it the only Hallel (Praise) psalm that doesn’t explicitly praise God and Psalm 113 the only one that begins and ends with “Praise YHWH.” Second and more importantly, the pronoun “his” in Psalm 114:2 demands either “God” or “YHWH” as its antecedent, which the psalm’s initial “Praise YHWH” originally supplied. By making this textual correction, we make the psalm’s currently implicit call to praise explicit.
The Jews who returned from exile were suppressed by their pagan overlords, which made praising God hard. This psalm uses the Exodus, Israel’s signature story, to address that situation. And it does so with playful pugnacity, by ridiculing the river, sea, and mountains and then calling the whole earth to submit to the omnipotent God who cares for his people.
Something about Israel’s departure from Egypt terrified the waters and made the earth quake. But instead of saying what it was, the psalmist taunts the natural formations, leaving them mute before her taunts.* She also brings us readers on stage since, by voicing her words, we join her taunting and relish the resultant silence.
Only when the earth is commanded to tremble are we told what overwhelmed nature in the Exodus. But since these were Israel’s best-known stories, the psalmist’s audience knew the secret all along, the psalm’s dramatic irony making her jibes all the more lively and fun.
The psalm’s images of YHWH’s controlling water evoke the region’s creation myths, in which Baal subdued the chaotic waters of the cosmos to permit the ordering of creation. These images underscore Earth’s need to submit to YHWH absolutely. And the fact that the psalm ends with God’s tender care for his people tells us he’s just as compassionate as he is powerful. All these things point to God’s majesty, giving us ample reason to praise him.
Prayer:
Lord, you defeated all the powers of darkness degrading and dehumanizing your people in Egypt. And Jesus, you defeated evil itself in your death-and-resurrection Exodus. When I feel powerless, against the evil around me, help me believe you have absolute agency and you live in me. Amen.
In your free moments today, meditate on these words:
Tremble, Earth, before YHWH!
Tremble before the God of Jacob!
* I imagine the psalmist here as a woman of faith, like Miriam, Deborah, Hanna, or the Virgin Mary (see further, my answer to the question: Who wrote the psalms?).
