A wide wet seabed of ribbed sand in flat morning light, the water drawn back to a thin line at the horizon, bare desert mountains beyond.

Praise

Psalm 114

The shortest telling of the Exodus: eight verses, and the sea runs away. Israel sang this at Passover.

8 verses≈ 3 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–41Book IDavid's prayers: 'The LORD is my shepherd'
42–72Book II'As the deer pants'; the throne under pressure
73–89Book IIIAsaph and Korah: the kingdom falls
90–106Book IVBack to Moses: the LORD reigns
107–150Book VSongs of ascents, and the last HallelujahPsalm 114

A Psalm of Exodus

From behind and above, a vast column of people on foot with flocks, herds and laden donkeys streams out of a mud-brick town across the flat delta at sunrise.

When Israel departed from Egypt,

the house of Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,

Judah became God’s sanctuary,

Israel His dominion.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

The sea observed and fled;

the Jordan turned back;

Wild ibex rams and young leaping across a steep rock face in bright morning air, hooves off the ground, dust in the light.

the mountains skipped like rams,

the hills like lambs.

The empty stony channel of the Jordan between tamarisk thickets at noon, the stones still wet and the water gone.

Why was it, O sea, that you fled,

O Jordan, that you turned back,

O mountains, that you skipped like rams,

O hills, like lambs?

Pray

Your sea

What looks like a sea in front of you today? Name it. Then praise the One the sea ran from, and ask it the psalm’s question: “Why was it, O sea, that you fled?” Amen.

Clear water bursting out of a split face of dark flint rock in a bone-dry wadi, spray in the sun, the rock wall towering.

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,

at the presence of the God of Jacob,

who turned the rock into a pool,

the flint into a fountain of water!

0:10

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

You’ve experienced

Psalm 114

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A verse to carry with you

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the flint into a fountain of water!

Psalm 114:7–8

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