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Psalm 114

The exodus from Egypt was a tremendous display of God's power. Only the most metaphoric language can even begin to describe it. Referring to that wondrous event, this psalm therefore begins with poetic simile when it says, "The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs!" Mountains and hills, always symbols of strength, firmness, and endurance here are pictured as being tossed about like skipping rams and lambs!

The song reminds the people of the reason why God exercised such power.  It was because "Judah became His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion." Israel, out of all the nations of the earth, was chosen for rescue, for redemption from the fallen, rebellious, error-ridden condition of mankind!  It wasn't because Israelites were worthy, nor was it because they were in any way better than the other nations.  It was solely because He sovereignly chose them.  Their exodus from Egypt was to be a statement as it were, to all the universe, that there was one and only one God, and that His worship could only be accomplished among His special people! 

Israel in that day, and the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ after it, have often been accused of bigotry, of thinking and speaking as if they alone, of all the millions of peoples of the earth had the truth about God.  As preposterous as it may seem, though, they DID have it, and they DO have it!  The exodus from Egypt is God's powerful exclamation point to that fact!  His people should sing this song, then, with all their might and with heavenly harmony.  On the mornings when it was used in worship, it should have reverberated from Africa to India!

And if only all of estranged humanity could hear it, they too should all be moved by its last words.  Those words call them to, "Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, Who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters!"  God called His people to leave Egypt and to wander across the awful desert – but He cared for them over the entire way by providing water and bread!

After creation, only one act of God exceeds the exodus, namely the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It too is a statement to all the world, an announcement "that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father!" (Phil. 2:11)  That announcement, however, is the last one before the great and glorious day when He will come to finish His Redemption of a people for Himself.  He is the God Who delivered Israel, and He is the God Who delivers us!  Praise Him in song!

|Amen!