Psalm 114:7 God's Presence

Psalm 114: 7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob

Psalm 114 is very brief, less than a hundred words in the NIV. It takes us back to the time when Israel came out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of foreign tongue. It was at that time that Judah became God's sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The main focus of the psalm is on what happened at the Red Sea and at Sinai. At that time, as the psalmist puts it, The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back; the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. The reference is to the way the Red Sea parted early in the Exodus and the way Mount Sinai (and no doubt the whole Sinai range of mountains and hills) shook when God came down to give the people his Law. With a striking rhetorical flourish the psalmist then asks Why was it, O sea, that you fled, O Jordan, that you turned back, you mountains, that you skipped like rams, you hills, like lambs? The answer is obvious, of course. It was God's presence. And so he draws this powerful conclusion - Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. His who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water  could be a poetic reference to the Red Sea and the way the dried up sea became liquid again when the Egyptians tried to pursue Israel. It is more likely to be referring to the way God also provided water for the Israelites in the desert. The happenings in the desert then are a lesson to us all. They call upon the whole earth, all people everywhere, to fear God and to tremble in fear for he is a mighty and powerful god on behalf of his people. There is nothing like his presence.