Original Meaning
Deliverance and Election (114:1–2)
IN THE OPENING STROPHE THE PSALMIST recounts the decisive moment in Israel’s history in verse 1 and then draws theological conclusions from that event in verse 2.
When Israel came out. The psalmist begins his psalm of praise by noting God’s deliverance in bringing Israel out of Egypt, out from a people of a “foreign tongue [lo‘ez].” Although the term lo‘ez appears only here in the Old Testament, there are numerous other texts that refer to the speech of those in foreign lands as “strange and incomprehensible” (Isa 33:19; cf. Deut 28:49; Jer 5:15). The stress on the “foreign tongue” or “incomprehensible speech” of the captor highlights the sense of powerlessness experienced by the Israelites and, even more, emphasizes their sense of alienation in a foreign land. Typically, one would expect the text to connect deliverance from Egypt with the deliverance from slavery (cf. Deut 6:21), but in this instance the imagery has shifted, as has the emphasis. The opening verse references “Israel” and the “house of Jacob” but locates them in Egypt, estranged and alienated from those in that land because of the “foreign tongue.” In Egypt, Israel was not a nation in the most basic sense but a homeless and threatened people in a foreign land when God called them out to be his people.
God’s sanctuary. In Psalm 114:1 the psalmist refers to “Israel” and “the house of Jacob,” but both labels are applied to the same people group. In verse 2, however, the language shifts to “Judah” and “Israel,” thus raising a question as to whom these labels refer. The reference to Judah and Israel could be understood as signaling the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom, respectively. Although this understanding is possible, other biblical texts from the exilic and postexilic periods make reference to “Judah” but also apply the label “Israel” to Judah. For example, Ezra 7:7 refers to all those living in Yehud in the postexilic period as “Israelites” and verse 6 refers to God as the “God of Israel.” Other postexilic texts, such as Isaiah 58:1 and 65:9, refer to “Jacob” or the “descendants of Jacob” when referencing those living in Yehud during the same time. While varied, the labels used in Psalm 114:1–2 all refer to those living in Yehud in the postexilic period; they are the people of God.4
Verse 2 explains that when God brought Israel up from Egypt, he made them his “sanctuary” (qodesh) and his “dominion” (memshalah). Rather than understanding these two terms as different spheres of operation, the terms likely stand in parallel construction and “refer to the same matter, but from different perspectives.”5
In Exodus 19:6 Israel is referred to as “a kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” Obviously, the text in Exodus is not referring to two different nations or two different entities but, instead, is using different ways of characterizing Israel’s identity. Similarly, the psalmist explains that when God brought Israel up from the land of the “foreign tongue,” he gave them an identity (see below, Bridging Contexts). Israel/ Judah/the house of Jacob were the people with whom God has chosen to “sanctuary.” They were no longer strangers in a foreign land but the place from which the Divine King ruled and from whence he exercised his reign. Israel, as the people of God, became “the place where the God-king Yahweh is present on the world stage.”6
Bridging Contexts
THEOPHANY. In alluding to the exodus tradition, the psalmist does much more than simply retell the narrative features of Israel’s story—he celebrates God’s breaking into Israel’s world. Such appearances, while considerably diverse in description, are labeled “theophanies.” The word itself comes from two Greek words, theos (“God”) and phainein (“to appear”), and refers to God’s appearance to individuals or groups of people. Although the writers of the Old Testament understood God as wholly other, independent of creation, they also believed that God broke into the world at significant moments in Israel’s history. A reported theophany in the Old Testament conveyed the sense that Israel’s God was at work in the world in visible ways. Frequently theophanies occurred by bodies of water (e.g., rivers, seas) or on mountains (e.g., Mount Sinai), a point not to be lost on the interpreter of Psalm 114. And while a precise description accompanied some accounts of a theophany, other accounts simply report that God “appeared” to an individual or community. Regardless of the precise form of the appearance, the reporter is nonetheless certain that God has made himself known in the world.
The more memorable accounts of theophanies occur in narrative texts. Immediately following the call to Abram in Genesis 12:1–3, God appears to him, and this theophany prompts Abram to build an altar on the site. Several chapters later a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passes through a sacrifice as further confirmation of God’s commitment to Abram and his future. In Exodus 3 God appears as a burning bush. From that bush God calls Moses to a task and then communicates his name to Moses as a pledge of divine faithfulness to him. In Exod 19 God appears at Sinai in the form of a storm, and from that mountain he communicates his covenantal expectation in the form of the torah. Throughout the wilderness period God appears as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide his people through the wilderness; he even speaks to them out of the cloud (Num 12:6–8). In many of the theophanic accounts in narrative texts, the intent seems to be communication. God appears in varied forms and in varied contexts to bring a word to his people. In these texts, theophanies function as mediators of God’s communications to his people.
Theophanies are not limited to narrative texts, however. Images of God breaking into the world appear in poetic and prophetic texts as well. Because these texts frequently use language that is highly stylized and metaphorically laden, the description of the theophany can differ considerably from that found in a narrative. For example, in Habakkuk 3 the prophet announces the coming of God as the divine warrior.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. . . .
He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever. (vv. 3–4, 6)
Similarly, the description of God in Psalm 18 contains highly charged language. In that psalm, the poet describes the appearance of God as a response to the king’s plea for deliverance from his enemies (vv. 2–3). God parted the heavens and came down, with dark clouds under his feet. He mounted his cherubim and flew on “the wings of the wind” (vv. 9–10). Smoke rose from the nostrils of God (v. 8a), and a consuming fire poured forth from his mouth (v. 8b) even as he shot forth arrows and bolts of lightning (v. 14).
While theophanies in many of the narrative texts primarily provide divine communication to the individual or group of individuals, theophanies in poetic texts appear to function somewhat differently, generally speaking. In texts such as Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, the message is not in what is said but in what is described. The images and metaphors employed in these texts construct an image of God, and that image is meant to convey to the reader something about this God of Israel. Thus, when God speaks out of the burning bush in Exodus 3, the reader learns something about God as a result of what God said. In Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, however, the reader learns something about God by how God is described. The theological force of those texts lies in their descriptive power. In the latter two texts, the writer describes God as the divine warrior—a metaphor that is linked to the images of God as king and judge.11
Israel’s hope rests with this God, the one who breaks into the world as the great king but who is also judge and warrior. All nature yields at the appearance of this God.
The truncated language and imagery in Psalm 114 fails to describe God with the graphic language used above, but the response of the seas and the Jordan signal that Israel’s God is indeed the Divine Warrior-King who comes in behalf of his people. Israel’s God causes waters to flee and mountains to bolt in alarm, and, as the psalmist suggests, all the earth should tremble in his presence. Theophanies are not intended as fanciful descriptions; instead, they are reminders that God breaks into our world in profound ways—then and now. And we would do well to recover that sense of awe.
Transformation and election. In Psalm 114 the psalmist connects election with God’s transformative power. Other psalms (Pss 106; 135; 136) recount the events of the exodus and celebrate God’s deliverance from the “enemy.” These psalms rehearse the key features of the story as reminders of God’s intervention in behalf of the nation. In Psalm 114, however, explicit references to Israel’s deliverance have been pressed into the background, and the two main “characters,” Israel and God, have been moved to the foreground of the psalm. The stress is not on what happens to Egypt (cf. Ps 105:38) but on what has happened to the people of God. They have not simply been delivered from the hands of a formidable imperial power—they have been transformed into a sacred nation in service to the Divine King. Hans-Joachim Kraus notes, “the joy that the exodus brought was due to the fact that those rescued from Egypt had been taken to the side of their deliverer and had entered into a incomparable realm of his might. This gave the people a completely new basis for their existence.”12
For the psalmist, the story of Israel’s exodus does not move along a line from captivity to freedom, from enslavement to liberation; rather, the story of Israel involves the movement from captivity to purpose, from slavery to service. God does more than simply rescue people; he delivers them so that they might be transformed, so that they might “have a completely new basis for their existence.” God elects Israel, he transforms the house of Jacob, so that they might become the sanctuary of God, the dominion of the living God.
Psalm 114 opens by acknowledging God’s transformative power and then returns to this theme in the final verse. The psalmist reminds Israel of God’s capacity to turn rock into pools of water and hard rock into springs of water. He acknowledges not simply the provision by God but the impossibility of the act. No one turns water into pools of water, and springs of water do not suddenly pour forth from hard rock—unless they have been transformed utterly. As noted above, the events that transpired in the wilderness period likely stand in the background of this verse, but the transformative power of God is not locked into a singular moment within Israel’s history; rather, God’s capacity to transform becomes part of Israel’s testimony.
In Isaiah, for example, the prophet announces that the Babylonian captivity is nearing its end and that God will bring his people out from Babylon. The making of this confession returns to the theme of God’s transformative power, his capacity to do what seems utterly impossible. In order to make this point, the prophet returns to these same images from Israel’s past as evidence of God’s capacity to deliver. In Isaiah 43:19 the prophet announces,
See, I am doing a new thing! . . .
I am making a way in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
And elsewhere the prophet indicates that the “burning sand will become a pool” and “thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Isa 35:7).
How could those exiled in Babylon actually believe that they would return home? Such a proposal seems impossible. Yet the prophet is clear. The power of God to transform his people, and even nature, suggests that with this God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).
The New Testament writers also seized on the theme of transformation and election. In 1 Peter 2:9–10 Peter calls on his audience to “declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” Much as Israel was taken from Egypt and transformed, much as the exiles were taken from Babylon and given a new life, so too, Peter explains, Christians were brought out by the mighty acts of God to find life in the light. But Peter adds more. He tells the Christians that not only were they brought out of darkness and into the light, they were also called out to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9). Then Peter reminds them, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (v. 10). They were brought out so that they might be transformed into the people of God. While God is a God who delivers, he is even more the God who transforms.13
He has made us what we were not—a work that he alone can do. We can do little more than tremble before such a God.
Contemporary Significance
AWE. Of the psalms that comprise the Egyptian Hallel (Pss 113–18), Psalm 114 provides the most explicit reference to Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt; yet in the Hebrew text, “Egypt” appears as the third word in the psalm and is mentioned no more. The focus on the psalm remains thoroughly theocentric. The psalmist invites the reader to consider God more fully. Through the mention of God’s presence and his power to transform, the psalmist calls the reader, and all creation, into a deep sense of awe.
In a world that seems to place humans and their significance at the center, we have little room for a deepened sense of awe. In a “can-do” culture, the assumption is that human beings have the capacity to do anything, that we are limited only by our imagination—yet Scripture reminds us differently. We are not the center—God is—and Scripture calls us to live in awe before this God. Psalm 114 returns us to Israel’s story and reminds us of the Power that is even greater than the story. The psalmist asks us to pause and to lift our eyes to God so that we might consider again what it means to be the people of God in the presence of God.
In recent years I attended a conference at the University of Münster in Germany. Across from the seminary dormitory in which we were housed was the majestic St. Paulus Dom, the Catholic cathedral for the diocese. The original cathedral was built on that site in 805 CE. While that date alone was enough to give me pause, it was what I saw as I entered the south side of the cathedral that left me standing speechless. Jutting out from the cathedral was one of the entrances that has been traditionally labeled, “Paradise.” Beveled stonework runs from wall to wall, all filled with images of vines, animals, and persons tilling the earth and no doubt simultaneously invoking images of paradise and the German countryside. In order to walk into the nave of the cathedral, you must pass through two large wooden doors. Between the two doors is a massive statue of St. Paul, Scripture in hand, and just above Paul is Jesus sitting upon his throne, hand held high to bless all who enter. On each side of the doors are the apostles, six to a side. My German colleague who accompanied me to the cathedral explained that those statues had been there since 1200 CE. And I stood there. For more than 800 years, Christians had passed through that same hallway on the south side of a cathedral in Münster, Germany. My feet were crossing the paving stones that the feet of countless numbers before me had crossed, and my eyes had lit upon the same statues that their eyes had seen. I was standing silently where no doubt many others had stood, they too in silence. And in that moment I felt very small. The statues were imposing, indeed, but even more imposing was the thought that I belonged to a story, a long story—a story so compelling that for more than eight centuries people had passed through these doors as they made their way to worship the living God. I was in awe.
In his treatment of Psalm 114, Robert Davidson suggests that “the congregation is left contemplating the miracle of God’s grace, the foundation of Israel’s life in the past and their continuing hope in the present and the future. This is where every act of worship should end, as we bow before the mystery of the God who unites past and present, and therefore bathes the future in hope.”14
Tremble, O earth—tremble indeed.
Original Meaning
Nature’s Response to God’s Work (114:3–4)
IN PSALM 114:3–4 THE PSALMIST rehearses the response of nature to God’s awesome work of deliverance and election of his people. While terse and succinct, these verses draw from and build on the images and language associated with the exodus and the entry into the promised land.
The sea looked and fled. In verse 3 the psalmist alludes to the two stories of Israel’s crossing a body of water. Verse 3a makes reference to the crossing of the Red Sea as recounted in Exodus 14–15. In the Song of Moses (Exod 15), the seas are said to have piled up like a wall and the deep waters to have “congealed in the heart of the sea [yam]” (15:8). In Exodus 15, nature was under the sovereign rule of Israel’s God and was a means of deliverance for his people. In the second half of Psalm 114:3 the psalmist references the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3–5 and couples the tradition of the crossing of the Red Sea with that tradition. The connection between the two crossings appears elsewhere in the Old Testament: “The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea” (Josh 4:23). Similarly to the waters of the Red Sea, the waters of the Jordan “piled up in a heap” (Josh 3:16), once again signaling God’s rule over creation. While Psalm 114 refers to the sea (yam) and the Jordan River, the imagery has shifted. Both bodies of water no longer “pile up”—they “flee” (nus) and “turn back” (sabab). These Hebrew words, nus and sabab, regularly refer to military struggles and the retreat of the defeated forces. For example, in Exodus 14, as the waters converged upon the Egyptians, the soldiers “fled” (nus). The battle scene in Psalm 114, however, appears to be between Yahweh and waters. In the ancient Near East, water functioned as a cipher for the larger threat of the chaotic forces in the world. Neighboring traditions refered to the deity as battling the waters of chaos in an effort to secure the orderliness of creation. The defeat of chaotic waters in these other traditions signaled the identity of the divine king. Psalm 114 draws from this larger tradition in suggesting that God has appeared (i.e., a theophany) and that when the waters “looked” (ra’ah) at God leading his people out of Egypt, they fled. Yahweh’s defeat of the waters signals his rightful role as the Divine King.
The mountains leaped. When a theophany occurs and God’s presence breaks into the world, all nature responds. The psalmist announces that the mountains and hills leap like rams and lambs. Some interpreters understand the mountains and hills as an allusion to the giving of the law at Sinai and the accompanying earthquake there. While this interpretation is possible given the reference to the exodus tradition in verse 3, the reference appears to have shifted. The only other place where the word “leap” (raqad) occurs in connection with mountains is in Psalm 29:6. Although the image of young animals as leaping about seems to convey a certain sense of playfulness and celebration, the metaphorical image is meant to convey that the power of God’s cosmic kingship is recognized by all creation.7
The use of raqad in Psalm 29 and the images in the surrounding verses appear to support this understanding. According to the psalmist,
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD thunders over the might waters. . . .
The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion [Mount Hermon] like a young wild ox. (vv. 3, 5–6)
Even as the sea and the Jordan fled at the sight of Israel’s God, the mountains and hills leaped with alarm at the sight of this awesome God. The fleeing of the seas and the leaping of the mountains signal not only God’s sovereignty over all creation, but even more, these reactions signal that all creation declares that this God, the one who brought his people up out of Egypt, is indeed the Divine King over all.
Bridging Contexts
THEOPHANY. In alluding to the exodus tradition, the psalmist does much more than simply retell the narrative features of Israel’s story—he celebrates God’s breaking into Israel’s world. Such appearances, while considerably diverse in description, are labeled “theophanies.” The word itself comes from two Greek words, theos (“God”) and phainein (“to appear”), and refers to God’s appearance to individuals or groups of people. Although the writers of the Old Testament understood God as wholly other, independent of creation, they also believed that God broke into the world at significant moments in Israel’s history. A reported theophany in the Old Testament conveyed the sense that Israel’s God was at work in the world in visible ways. Frequently theophanies occurred by bodies of water (e.g., rivers, seas) or on mountains (e.g., Mount Sinai), a point not to be lost on the interpreter of Psalm 114. And while a precise description accompanied some accounts of a theophany, other accounts simply report that God “appeared” to an individual or community. Regardless of the precise form of the appearance, the reporter is nonetheless certain that God has made himself known in the world.
The more memorable accounts of theophanies occur in narrative texts. Immediately following the call to Abram in Genesis 12:1–3, God appears to him, and this theophany prompts Abram to build an altar on the site. Several chapters later a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passes through a sacrifice as further confirmation of God’s commitment to Abram and his future. In Exodus 3 God appears as a burning bush. From that bush God calls Moses to a task and then communicates his name to Moses as a pledge of divine faithfulness to him. In Exod 19 God appears at Sinai in the form of a storm, and from that mountain he communicates his covenantal expectation in the form of the torah. Throughout the wilderness period God appears as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide his people through the wilderness; he even speaks to them out of the cloud (Num 12:6–8). In many of the theophanic accounts in narrative texts, the intent seems to be communication. God appears in varied forms and in varied contexts to bring a word to his people. In these texts, theophanies function as mediators of God’s communications to his people.
Theophanies are not limited to narrative texts, however. Images of God breaking into the world appear in poetic and prophetic texts as well. Because these texts frequently use language that is highly stylized and metaphorically laden, the description of the theophany can differ considerably from that found in a narrative. For example, in Habakkuk 3 the prophet announces the coming of God as the divine warrior.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. . . .
He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever. (vv. 3–4, 6)
Similarly, the description of God in Psalm 18 contains highly charged language. In that psalm, the poet describes the appearance of God as a response to the king’s plea for deliverance from his enemies (vv. 2–3). God parted the heavens and came down, with dark clouds under his feet. He mounted his cherubim and flew on “the wings of the wind” (vv. 9–10). Smoke rose from the nostrils of God (v. 8a), and a consuming fire poured forth from his mouth (v. 8b) even as he shot forth arrows and bolts of lightning (v. 14).
While theophanies in many of the narrative texts primarily provide divine communication to the individual or group of individuals, theophanies in poetic texts appear to function somewhat differently, generally speaking. In texts such as Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, the message is not in what is said but in what is described. The images and metaphors employed in these texts construct an image of God, and that image is meant to convey to the reader something about this God of Israel. Thus, when God speaks out of the burning bush in Exodus 3, the reader learns something about God as a result of what God said. In Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, however, the reader learns something about God by how God is described. The theological force of those texts lies in their descriptive power. In the latter two texts, the writer describes God as the divine warrior—a metaphor that is linked to the images of God as king and judge.11
Israel’s hope rests with this God, the one who breaks into the world as the great king but who is also judge and warrior. All nature yields at the appearance of this God.
The truncated language and imagery in Psalm 114 fails to describe God with the graphic language used above, but the response of the seas and the Jordan signal that Israel’s God is indeed the Divine Warrior-King who comes in behalf of his people. Israel’s God causes waters to flee and mountains to bolt in alarm, and, as the psalmist suggests, all the earth should tremble in his presence. Theophanies are not intended as fanciful descriptions; instead, they are reminders that God breaks into our world in profound ways—then and now. And we would do well to recover that sense of awe.
Transformation and election. In Psalm 114 the psalmist connects election with God’s transformative power. Other psalms (Pss 106; 135; 136) recount the events of the exodus and celebrate God’s deliverance from the “enemy.” These psalms rehearse the key features of the story as reminders of God’s intervention in behalf of the nation. In Psalm 114, however, explicit references to Israel’s deliverance have been pressed into the background, and the two main “characters,” Israel and God, have been moved to the foreground of the psalm. The stress is not on what happens to Egypt (cf. Ps 105:38) but on what has happened to the people of God. They have not simply been delivered from the hands of a formidable imperial power—they have been transformed into a sacred nation in service to the Divine King. Hans-Joachim Kraus notes, “the joy that the exodus brought was due to the fact that those rescued from Egypt had been taken to the side of their deliverer and had entered into a incomparable realm of his might. This gave the people a completely new basis for their existence.”12
For the psalmist, the story of Israel’s exodus does not move along a line from captivity to freedom, from enslavement to liberation; rather, the story of Israel involves the movement from captivity to purpose, from slavery to service. God does more than simply rescue people; he delivers them so that they might be transformed, so that they might “have a completely new basis for their existence.” God elects Israel, he transforms the house of Jacob, so that they might become the sanctuary of God, the dominion of the living God.
Psalm 114 opens by acknowledging God’s transformative power and then returns to this theme in the final verse. The psalmist reminds Israel of God’s capacity to turn rock into pools of water and hard rock into springs of water. He acknowledges not simply the provision by God but the impossibility of the act. No one turns water into pools of water, and springs of water do not suddenly pour forth from hard rock—unless they have been transformed utterly. As noted above, the events that transpired in the wilderness period likely stand in the background of this verse, but the transformative power of God is not locked into a singular moment within Israel’s history; rather, God’s capacity to transform becomes part of Israel’s testimony.
In Isaiah, for example, the prophet announces that the Babylonian captivity is nearing its end and that God will bring his people out from Babylon. The making of this confession returns to the theme of God’s transformative power, his capacity to do what seems utterly impossible. In order to make this point, the prophet returns to these same images from Israel’s past as evidence of God’s capacity to deliver. In Isaiah 43:19 the prophet announces,
See, I am doing a new thing! . . .
I am making a way in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
And elsewhere the prophet indicates that the “burning sand will become a pool” and “thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Isa 35:7).
How could those exiled in Babylon actually believe that they would return home? Such a proposal seems impossible. Yet the prophet is clear. The power of God to transform his people, and even nature, suggests that with this God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).
The New Testament writers also seized on the theme of transformation and election. In 1 Peter 2:9–10 Peter calls on his audience to “declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” Much as Israel was taken from Egypt and transformed, much as the exiles were taken from Babylon and given a new life, so too, Peter explains, Christians were brought out by the mighty acts of God to find life in the light. But Peter adds more. He tells the Christians that not only were they brought out of darkness and into the light, they were also called out to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9). Then Peter reminds them, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (v. 10). They were brought out so that they might be transformed into the people of God. While God is a God who delivers, he is even more the God who transforms.13
He has made us what we were not—a work that he alone can do. We can do little more than tremble before such a God.
Contemporary Significance
AWE. Of the psalms that comprise the Egyptian Hallel (Pss 113–18), Psalm 114 provides the most explicit reference to Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt; yet in the Hebrew text, “Egypt” appears as the third word in the psalm and is mentioned no more. The focus on the psalm remains thoroughly theocentric. The psalmist invites the reader to consider God more fully. Through the mention of God’s presence and his power to transform, the psalmist calls the reader, and all creation, into a deep sense of awe.
In a world that seems to place humans and their significance at the center, we have little room for a deepened sense of awe. In a “can-do” culture, the assumption is that human beings have the capacity to do anything, that we are limited only by our imagination—yet Scripture reminds us differently. We are not the center—God is—and Scripture calls us to live in awe before this God. Psalm 114 returns us to Israel’s story and reminds us of the Power that is even greater than the story. The psalmist asks us to pause and to lift our eyes to God so that we might consider again what it means to be the people of God in the presence of God.
In recent years I attended a conference at the University of Münster in Germany. Across from the seminary dormitory in which we were housed was the majestic St. Paulus Dom, the Catholic cathedral for the diocese. The original cathedral was built on that site in 805 CE. While that date alone was enough to give me pause, it was what I saw as I entered the south side of the cathedral that left me standing speechless. Jutting out from the cathedral was one of the entrances that has been traditionally labeled, “Paradise.” Beveled stonework runs from wall to wall, all filled with images of vines, animals, and persons tilling the earth and no doubt simultaneously invoking images of paradise and the German countryside. In order to walk into the nave of the cathedral, you must pass through two large wooden doors. Between the two doors is a massive statue of St. Paul, Scripture in hand, and just above Paul is Jesus sitting upon his throne, hand held high to bless all who enter. On each side of the doors are the apostles, six to a side. My German colleague who accompanied me to the cathedral explained that those statues had been there since 1200 CE. And I stood there. For more than 800 years, Christians had passed through that same hallway on the south side of a cathedral in Münster, Germany. My feet were crossing the paving stones that the feet of countless numbers before me had crossed, and my eyes had lit upon the same statues that their eyes had seen. I was standing silently where no doubt many others had stood, they too in silence. And in that moment I felt very small. The statues were imposing, indeed, but even more imposing was the thought that I belonged to a story, a long story—a story so compelling that for more than eight centuries people had passed through these doors as they made their way to worship the living God. I was in awe.
In his treatment of Psalm 114, Robert Davidson suggests that “the congregation is left contemplating the miracle of God’s grace, the foundation of Israel’s life in the past and their continuing hope in the present and the future. This is where every act of worship should end, as we bow before the mystery of the God who unites past and present, and therefore bathes the future in hope.”14
Tremble, O earth—tremble indeed.
Original Meaning
The Questioning of Nature’s Response (114:5–6)
IN PSALM 114:5–6 THE PSALMIST references the same four elements that appeared earlier in verses 3–4 (sea, Jordan, mountains, hills), but in the latter verses he has made two fundamental changes in his comments. The psalmist has modified the narrative report in verses 3–4 so that the same information now reads as rhetorical questions directed at each of the four elements (i.e., “Why was it, sea . . .?”). The second modification pertains to the type of verbal form used in each strophe. In strophe 2 (verses 3–4) the psalmist uses the perfect (qatal) form of the verb in reference to events at the Red Sea and the Jordan River (vv. 3a, 4a). Typically, this verbal form refers to action in the past or action that has been completed. In strophe 3 (vv. 5–6), however, the psalmist opts for the imperfect (yiqtol) form of the verb, thus shifting the discourse from the past to the present.8
The NIV’s translators opted not to recognize the shift in the verbal forms in verses 5–6, consequently locating the interrogation of the four elements in Israel’s past. Unfortunately, this translational decision reduces the force of the questions. By shifting the questions to the present, the psalmist inquires
Why is it, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you leap as rams,
O hills, as lambs?
As Richard Nelson suggests, “the distant past of the exodus and creation are made present for the reader.”9
The powers of chaos and false gods that threatened Israel when God brought them out of Egypt remain the same forces that continue to threaten the people of God. And just as God’s theophanic presence caused them to flee and leap in fear in “the distant past,” so too will his presence hold such powers in check even now.
Bridging Contexts
THEOPHANY. In alluding to the exodus tradition, the psalmist does much more than simply retell the narrative features of Israel’s story—he celebrates God’s breaking into Israel’s world. Such appearances, while considerably diverse in description, are labeled “theophanies.” The word itself comes from two Greek words, theos (“God”) and phainein (“to appear”), and refers to God’s appearance to individuals or groups of people. Although the writers of the Old Testament understood God as wholly other, independent of creation, they also believed that God broke into the world at significant moments in Israel’s history. A reported theophany in the Old Testament conveyed the sense that Israel’s God was at work in the world in visible ways. Frequently theophanies occurred by bodies of water (e.g., rivers, seas) or on mountains (e.g., Mount Sinai), a point not to be lost on the interpreter of Psalm 114. And while a precise description accompanied some accounts of a theophany, other accounts simply report that God “appeared” to an individual or community. Regardless of the precise form of the appearance, the reporter is nonetheless certain that God has made himself known in the world.
The more memorable accounts of theophanies occur in narrative texts. Immediately following the call to Abram in Genesis 12:1–3, God appears to him, and this theophany prompts Abram to build an altar on the site. Several chapters later a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passes through a sacrifice as further confirmation of God’s commitment to Abram and his future. In Exodus 3 God appears as a burning bush. From that bush God calls Moses to a task and then communicates his name to Moses as a pledge of divine faithfulness to him. In Exod 19 God appears at Sinai in the form of a storm, and from that mountain he communicates his covenantal expectation in the form of the torah. Throughout the wilderness period God appears as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide his people through the wilderness; he even speaks to them out of the cloud (Num 12:6–8). In many of the theophanic accounts in narrative texts, the intent seems to be communication. God appears in varied forms and in varied contexts to bring a word to his people. In these texts, theophanies function as mediators of God’s communications to his people.
Theophanies are not limited to narrative texts, however. Images of God breaking into the world appear in poetic and prophetic texts as well. Because these texts frequently use language that is highly stylized and metaphorically laden, the description of the theophany can differ considerably from that found in a narrative. For example, in Habakkuk 3 the prophet announces the coming of God as the divine warrior.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. . . .
He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever. (vv. 3–4, 6)
Similarly, the description of God in Psalm 18 contains highly charged language. In that psalm, the poet describes the appearance of God as a response to the king’s plea for deliverance from his enemies (vv. 2–3). God parted the heavens and came down, with dark clouds under his feet. He mounted his cherubim and flew on “the wings of the wind” (vv. 9–10). Smoke rose from the nostrils of God (v. 8a), and a consuming fire poured forth from his mouth (v. 8b) even as he shot forth arrows and bolts of lightning (v. 14).
While theophanies in many of the narrative texts primarily provide divine communication to the individual or group of individuals, theophanies in poetic texts appear to function somewhat differently, generally speaking. In texts such as Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, the message is not in what is said but in what is described. The images and metaphors employed in these texts construct an image of God, and that image is meant to convey to the reader something about this God of Israel. Thus, when God speaks out of the burning bush in Exodus 3, the reader learns something about God as a result of what God said. In Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, however, the reader learns something about God by how God is described. The theological force of those texts lies in their descriptive power. In the latter two texts, the writer describes God as the divine warrior—a metaphor that is linked to the images of God as king and judge.11
Israel’s hope rests with this God, the one who breaks into the world as the great king but who is also judge and warrior. All nature yields at the appearance of this God.
The truncated language and imagery in Psalm 114 fails to describe God with the graphic language used above, but the response of the seas and the Jordan signal that Israel’s God is indeed the Divine Warrior-King who comes in behalf of his people. Israel’s God causes waters to flee and mountains to bolt in alarm, and, as the psalmist suggests, all the earth should tremble in his presence. Theophanies are not intended as fanciful descriptions; instead, they are reminders that God breaks into our world in profound ways—then and now. And we would do well to recover that sense of awe.
Transformation and election. In Psalm 114 the psalmist connects election with God’s transformative power. Other psalms (Pss 106; 135; 136) recount the events of the exodus and celebrate God’s deliverance from the “enemy.” These psalms rehearse the key features of the story as reminders of God’s intervention in behalf of the nation. In Psalm 114, however, explicit references to Israel’s deliverance have been pressed into the background, and the two main “characters,” Israel and God, have been moved to the foreground of the psalm. The stress is not on what happens to Egypt (cf. Ps 105:38) but on what has happened to the people of God. They have not simply been delivered from the hands of a formidable imperial power—they have been transformed into a sacred nation in service to the Divine King. Hans-Joachim Kraus notes, “the joy that the exodus brought was due to the fact that those rescued from Egypt had been taken to the side of their deliverer and had entered into a incomparable realm of his might. This gave the people a completely new basis for their existence.”12
For the psalmist, the story of Israel’s exodus does not move along a line from captivity to freedom, from enslavement to liberation; rather, the story of Israel involves the movement from captivity to purpose, from slavery to service. God does more than simply rescue people; he delivers them so that they might be transformed, so that they might “have a completely new basis for their existence.” God elects Israel, he transforms the house of Jacob, so that they might become the sanctuary of God, the dominion of the living God.
Psalm 114 opens by acknowledging God’s transformative power and then returns to this theme in the final verse. The psalmist reminds Israel of God’s capacity to turn rock into pools of water and hard rock into springs of water. He acknowledges not simply the provision by God but the impossibility of the act. No one turns water into pools of water, and springs of water do not suddenly pour forth from hard rock—unless they have been transformed utterly. As noted above, the events that transpired in the wilderness period likely stand in the background of this verse, but the transformative power of God is not locked into a singular moment within Israel’s history; rather, God’s capacity to transform becomes part of Israel’s testimony.
In Isaiah, for example, the prophet announces that the Babylonian captivity is nearing its end and that God will bring his people out from Babylon. The making of this confession returns to the theme of God’s transformative power, his capacity to do what seems utterly impossible. In order to make this point, the prophet returns to these same images from Israel’s past as evidence of God’s capacity to deliver. In Isaiah 43:19 the prophet announces,
See, I am doing a new thing! . . .
I am making a way in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
And elsewhere the prophet indicates that the “burning sand will become a pool” and “thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Isa 35:7).
How could those exiled in Babylon actually believe that they would return home? Such a proposal seems impossible. Yet the prophet is clear. The power of God to transform his people, and even nature, suggests that with this God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).
The New Testament writers also seized on the theme of transformation and election. In 1 Peter 2:9–10 Peter calls on his audience to “declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” Much as Israel was taken from Egypt and transformed, much as the exiles were taken from Babylon and given a new life, so too, Peter explains, Christians were brought out by the mighty acts of God to find life in the light. But Peter adds more. He tells the Christians that not only were they brought out of darkness and into the light, they were also called out to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9). Then Peter reminds them, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (v. 10). They were brought out so that they might be transformed into the people of God. While God is a God who delivers, he is even more the God who transforms.13
He has made us what we were not—a work that he alone can do. We can do little more than tremble before such a God.
Contemporary Significance
AWE. Of the psalms that comprise the Egyptian Hallel (Pss 113–18), Psalm 114 provides the most explicit reference to Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt; yet in the Hebrew text, “Egypt” appears as the third word in the psalm and is mentioned no more. The focus on the psalm remains thoroughly theocentric. The psalmist invites the reader to consider God more fully. Through the mention of God’s presence and his power to transform, the psalmist calls the reader, and all creation, into a deep sense of awe.
In a world that seems to place humans and their significance at the center, we have little room for a deepened sense of awe. In a “can-do” culture, the assumption is that human beings have the capacity to do anything, that we are limited only by our imagination—yet Scripture reminds us differently. We are not the center—God is—and Scripture calls us to live in awe before this God. Psalm 114 returns us to Israel’s story and reminds us of the Power that is even greater than the story. The psalmist asks us to pause and to lift our eyes to God so that we might consider again what it means to be the people of God in the presence of God.
In recent years I attended a conference at the University of Münster in Germany. Across from the seminary dormitory in which we were housed was the majestic St. Paulus Dom, the Catholic cathedral for the diocese. The original cathedral was built on that site in 805 CE. While that date alone was enough to give me pause, it was what I saw as I entered the south side of the cathedral that left me standing speechless. Jutting out from the cathedral was one of the entrances that has been traditionally labeled, “Paradise.” Beveled stonework runs from wall to wall, all filled with images of vines, animals, and persons tilling the earth and no doubt simultaneously invoking images of paradise and the German countryside. In order to walk into the nave of the cathedral, you must pass through two large wooden doors. Between the two doors is a massive statue of St. Paul, Scripture in hand, and just above Paul is Jesus sitting upon his throne, hand held high to bless all who enter. On each side of the doors are the apostles, six to a side. My German colleague who accompanied me to the cathedral explained that those statues had been there since 1200 CE. And I stood there. For more than 800 years, Christians had passed through that same hallway on the south side of a cathedral in Münster, Germany. My feet were crossing the paving stones that the feet of countless numbers before me had crossed, and my eyes had lit upon the same statues that their eyes had seen. I was standing silently where no doubt many others had stood, they too in silence. And in that moment I felt very small. The statues were imposing, indeed, but even more imposing was the thought that I belonged to a story, a long story—a story so compelling that for more than eight centuries people had passed through these doors as they made their way to worship the living God. I was in awe.
In his treatment of Psalm 114, Robert Davidson suggests that “the congregation is left contemplating the miracle of God’s grace, the foundation of Israel’s life in the past and their continuing hope in the present and the future. This is where every act of worship should end, as we bow before the mystery of the God who unites past and present, and therefore bathes the future in hope.”14
Tremble, O earth—tremble indeed.
Original Meaning
The Presence of the Lord (114:7–8)
THE FINAL STROPHE CALLS ALL CREATION to acknowledge God as the Divine King. Although verses 1–6 have referenced the work of God, the name of God does not appear until the final strophe. The delayed identification of God by name only serves to heighten the significance of the last two verses, thus creating in the psalm a crescendo of sorts.
Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord. The rhetorical questions in verses 5–6 find their answer in verse 7. The seas, Jordan, mountains, and hills flee and leap because of “the presence of the Lord.” The psalmist suggests that the very presence of God should cause all the earth, and in particular all people, to stop and tremble in his presence. While the word “tremble” (hil) can refer to writhing or being in pain, the context suggests that the proper response to the Divine King is fear and trembling, pure awe. A parallel text is located in Psalm 97:3–4. In describing the presence of the Divine King, the psalmist there explains that “fire goes before him” and that “his lightning lights up the world.” He then records that the earth sees this God “and trembles” (hil)—the mountains all melt like wax before the presence of God.10
In Psalm 114 the psalmist likely has similar images in mind.
Rock into a pool. The psalmist concludes by declaring that God is the one who “turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.” The image invoked in this verse recalls God’s provision of water for his people in the wilderness (Exod 7:1–7; Num 20:2–13). As the last line in the psalm, verse 8 reminds the reader of God’s transformative power as well as his gracious provision. God’s cosmic rule is balanced by his attentive care for his people. Even as he can turn rocks into pools of water, so also can God turn a people into his sanctuary.
Bridging Contexts
THEOPHANY. In alluding to the exodus tradition, the psalmist does much more than simply retell the narrative features of Israel’s story—he celebrates God’s breaking into Israel’s world. Such appearances, while considerably diverse in description, are labeled “theophanies.” The word itself comes from two Greek words, theos (“God”) and phainein (“to appear”), and refers to God’s appearance to individuals or groups of people. Although the writers of the Old Testament understood God as wholly other, independent of creation, they also believed that God broke into the world at significant moments in Israel’s history. A reported theophany in the Old Testament conveyed the sense that Israel’s God was at work in the world in visible ways. Frequently theophanies occurred by bodies of water (e.g., rivers, seas) or on mountains (e.g., Mount Sinai), a point not to be lost on the interpreter of Psalm 114. And while a precise description accompanied some accounts of a theophany, other accounts simply report that God “appeared” to an individual or community. Regardless of the precise form of the appearance, the reporter is nonetheless certain that God has made himself known in the world.
The more memorable accounts of theophanies occur in narrative texts. Immediately following the call to Abram in Genesis 12:1–3, God appears to him, and this theophany prompts Abram to build an altar on the site. Several chapters later a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passes through a sacrifice as further confirmation of God’s commitment to Abram and his future. In Exodus 3 God appears as a burning bush. From that bush God calls Moses to a task and then communicates his name to Moses as a pledge of divine faithfulness to him. In Exod 19 God appears at Sinai in the form of a storm, and from that mountain he communicates his covenantal expectation in the form of the torah. Throughout the wilderness period God appears as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide his people through the wilderness; he even speaks to them out of the cloud (Num 12:6–8). In many of the theophanic accounts in narrative texts, the intent seems to be communication. God appears in varied forms and in varied contexts to bring a word to his people. In these texts, theophanies function as mediators of God’s communications to his people.
Theophanies are not limited to narrative texts, however. Images of God breaking into the world appear in poetic and prophetic texts as well. Because these texts frequently use language that is highly stylized and metaphorically laden, the description of the theophany can differ considerably from that found in a narrative. For example, in Habakkuk 3 the prophet announces the coming of God as the divine warrior.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. . . .
He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever. (vv. 3–4, 6)
Similarly, the description of God in Psalm 18 contains highly charged language. In that psalm, the poet describes the appearance of God as a response to the king’s plea for deliverance from his enemies (vv. 2–3). God parted the heavens and came down, with dark clouds under his feet. He mounted his cherubim and flew on “the wings of the wind” (vv. 9–10). Smoke rose from the nostrils of God (v. 8a), and a consuming fire poured forth from his mouth (v. 8b) even as he shot forth arrows and bolts of lightning (v. 14).
While theophanies in many of the narrative texts primarily provide divine communication to the individual or group of individuals, theophanies in poetic texts appear to function somewhat differently, generally speaking. In texts such as Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, the message is not in what is said but in what is described. The images and metaphors employed in these texts construct an image of God, and that image is meant to convey to the reader something about this God of Israel. Thus, when God speaks out of the burning bush in Exodus 3, the reader learns something about God as a result of what God said. In Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 18, however, the reader learns something about God by how God is described. The theological force of those texts lies in their descriptive power. In the latter two texts, the writer describes God as the divine warrior—a metaphor that is linked to the images of God as king and judge.11
Israel’s hope rests with this God, the one who breaks into the world as the great king but who is also judge and warrior. All nature yields at the appearance of this God.
The truncated language and imagery in Psalm 114 fails to describe God with the graphic language used above, but the response of the seas and the Jordan signal that Israel’s God is indeed the Divine Warrior-King who comes in behalf of his people. Israel’s God causes waters to flee and mountains to bolt in alarm, and, as the psalmist suggests, all the earth should tremble in his presence. Theophanies are not intended as fanciful descriptions; instead, they are reminders that God breaks into our world in profound ways—then and now. And we would do well to recover that sense of awe.
Transformation and election. In Psalm 114 the psalmist connects election with God’s transformative power. Other psalms (Pss 106; 135; 136) recount the events of the exodus and celebrate God’s deliverance from the “enemy.” These psalms rehearse the key features of the story as reminders of God’s intervention in behalf of the nation. In Psalm 114, however, explicit references to Israel’s deliverance have been pressed into the background, and the two main “characters,” Israel and God, have been moved to the foreground of the psalm. The stress is not on what happens to Egypt (cf. Ps 105:38) but on what has happened to the people of God. They have not simply been delivered from the hands of a formidable imperial power—they have been transformed into a sacred nation in service to the Divine King. Hans-Joachim Kraus notes, “the joy that the exodus brought was due to the fact that those rescued from Egypt had been taken to the side of their deliverer and had entered into a incomparable realm of his might. This gave the people a completely new basis for their existence.”12
For the psalmist, the story of Israel’s exodus does not move along a line from captivity to freedom, from enslavement to liberation; rather, the story of Israel involves the movement from captivity to purpose, from slavery to service. God does more than simply rescue people; he delivers them so that they might be transformed, so that they might “have a completely new basis for their existence.” God elects Israel, he transforms the house of Jacob, so that they might become the sanctuary of God, the dominion of the living God.
Psalm 114 opens by acknowledging God’s transformative power and then returns to this theme in the final verse. The psalmist reminds Israel of God’s capacity to turn rock into pools of water and hard rock into springs of water. He acknowledges not simply the provision by God but the impossibility of the act. No one turns water into pools of water, and springs of water do not suddenly pour forth from hard rock—unless they have been transformed utterly. As noted above, the events that transpired in the wilderness period likely stand in the background of this verse, but the transformative power of God is not locked into a singular moment within Israel’s history; rather, God’s capacity to transform becomes part of Israel’s testimony.
In Isaiah, for example, the prophet announces that the Babylonian captivity is nearing its end and that God will bring his people out from Babylon. The making of this confession returns to the theme of God’s transformative power, his capacity to do what seems utterly impossible. In order to make this point, the prophet returns to these same images from Israel’s past as evidence of God’s capacity to deliver. In Isaiah 43:19 the prophet announces,
See, I am doing a new thing! . . .
I am making a way in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
And elsewhere the prophet indicates that the “burning sand will become a pool” and “thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Isa 35:7).
How could those exiled in Babylon actually believe that they would return home? Such a proposal seems impossible. Yet the prophet is clear. The power of God to transform his people, and even nature, suggests that with this God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).
The New Testament writers also seized on the theme of transformation and election. In 1 Peter 2:9–10 Peter calls on his audience to “declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” Much as Israel was taken from Egypt and transformed, much as the exiles were taken from Babylon and given a new life, so too, Peter explains, Christians were brought out by the mighty acts of God to find life in the light. But Peter adds more. He tells the Christians that not only were they brought out of darkness and into the light, they were also called out to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9). Then Peter reminds them, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (v. 10). They were brought out so that they might be transformed into the people of God. While God is a God who delivers, he is even more the God who transforms.13
He has made us what we were not—a work that he alone can do. We can do little more than tremble before such a God.
Contemporary Significance
AWE. Of the psalms that comprise the Egyptian Hallel (Pss 113–18), Psalm 114 provides the most explicit reference to Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt; yet in the Hebrew text, “Egypt” appears as the third word in the psalm and is mentioned no more. The focus on the psalm remains thoroughly theocentric. The psalmist invites the reader to consider God more fully. Through the mention of God’s presence and his power to transform, the psalmist calls the reader, and all creation, into a deep sense of awe.
In a world that seems to place humans and their significance at the center, we have little room for a deepened sense of awe. In a “can-do” culture, the assumption is that human beings have the capacity to do anything, that we are limited only by our imagination—yet Scripture reminds us differently. We are not the center—God is—and Scripture calls us to live in awe before this God. Psalm 114 returns us to Israel’s story and reminds us of the Power that is even greater than the story. The psalmist asks us to pause and to lift our eyes to God so that we might consider again what it means to be the people of God in the presence of God.
In recent years I attended a conference at the University of Münster in Germany. Across from the seminary dormitory in which we were housed was the majestic St. Paulus Dom, the Catholic cathedral for the diocese. The original cathedral was built on that site in 805 CE. While that date alone was enough to give me pause, it was what I saw as I entered the south side of the cathedral that left me standing speechless. Jutting out from the cathedral was one of the entrances that has been traditionally labeled, “Paradise.” Beveled stonework runs from wall to wall, all filled with images of vines, animals, and persons tilling the earth and no doubt simultaneously invoking images of paradise and the German countryside. In order to walk into the nave of the cathedral, you must pass through two large wooden doors. Between the two doors is a massive statue of St. Paul, Scripture in hand, and just above Paul is Jesus sitting upon his throne, hand held high to bless all who enter. On each side of the doors are the apostles, six to a side. My German colleague who accompanied me to the cathedral explained that those statues had been there since 1200 CE. And I stood there. For more than 800 years, Christians had passed through that same hallway on the south side of a cathedral in Münster, Germany. My feet were crossing the paving stones that the feet of countless numbers before me had crossed, and my eyes had lit upon the same statues that their eyes had seen. I was standing silently where no doubt many others had stood, they too in silence. And in that moment I felt very small. The statues were imposing, indeed, but even more imposing was the thought that I belonged to a story, a long story—a story so compelling that for more than eight centuries people had passed through these doors as they made their way to worship the living God. I was in awe.
In his treatment of Psalm 114, Robert Davidson suggests that “the congregation is left contemplating the miracle of God’s grace, the foundation of Israel’s life in the past and their continuing hope in the present and the future. This is where every act of worship should end, as we bow before the mystery of the God who unites past and present, and therefore bathes the future in hope.”14
Tremble, O earth—tremble indeed.
HALOT 1:297 and 
HALOT 1:310.