Psalms 114:1-8

Psalm 114 ¹ 

114:1 When Israel left Egypt,

when the family of Jacob left a foreign nation behind, ² 

114:2 Judah became his sanctuary,

Israel his kingdom.

114:3 The sea looked and fled; ³ 

the Jordan River ⁴  turned back. ⁵ 

114:4 The mountains skipped like rams,

the hills like lambs. ⁶ 

114:5 Why do you flee, O sea?

Why do you turn back, O Jordan River?

114:6 Why do you skip like rams, O mountains,

like lambs, O hills?

114:7 Tremble, O earth, before the Lord –

before the God of Jacob,

114:8 who turned a rock into a pool of water,

a hard rock into springs of water! ⁷ 

Exodus 13:21

13:21 Now the Lord was going before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them in the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, ⁸  so that they could ⁹  travel day or night. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 4:34

4:34 Or has God ¹¹  ever before tried to deliver ¹²  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ¹³  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ¹⁴  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Jude 1:14

1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, ¹⁵  even prophesied of them, ¹⁶  saying, “Look! The Lord is coming ¹⁷  with thousands and thousands ¹⁸  of his holy ones,

Habakkuk 3:13

3:13 You march out to deliver your people,

to deliver your special servant. ¹⁹ 

You strike the leader of the wicked nation, ²⁰ 

laying him open from the lower body to the neck. ²¹  Selah.

[114:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 114. The psalmist recalls the events of the exodus and conquest and celebrates God’s kingship over his covenant people.

[114:1]  ² tn Heb “the house of Jacob from a nation speaking a foreign language.” The Hebrew verb לָעַז (la’at, “to speak a foreign language”) occurs only here in the OT.

[114:3]  ³ sn The psalmist recalls the crossing of the Red Sea (Exod 14:21).

[114:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Jordan” (also in v. 5). The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[114:3]  ⁵ sn The psalmist recalls the crossing of the Jordan River (Josh 3:13, 16).

[114:4]  ⁶ sn The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. This may recall the theophany at Sinai when the mountain shook before God’s presence (Exod 19:18).

[114:8]  ⁷ sn In v. 8 the psalmist recalls the event(s) recorded in Exod 17:6 and/or Num 20:11 (see also Deut 8:15 and Ps 78:15-16, 20).

[13:21]  ⁸ sn God chose to guide the people with a pillar of cloud in the day and one of fire at night, or, as a pillar of cloud and fire, since they represented his presence. God had already appeared to Moses in the fire of the bush, and so here again is revelation with fire. Whatever the exact nature of these things, they formed direct, visible revelations from God, who was guiding the people in a clear and unambiguous way. Both clouds and fire would again and again represent the presence of God in his power and majesty, guiding and protecting his people, by judging their enemies.

[13:21]  ⁹ tn The infinitive construct here indicates the result of these manifestations – “so that they went” or “could go.”

[13:21]  ¹⁰ tn These are adverbial accusatives of time.

[4:34]  ¹¹ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

[4:34]  ¹² tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

[4:34]  ¹³ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

[4:34]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

[1:14]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “the seventh from Adam.”

[1:14]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “against them.” The dative τούτοις (toutois) is a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).

[1:14]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “has come,” a proleptic aorist.

[1:14]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “ten thousands.” The word μυριάς (muria"), from which the English myriad is derived, means “ten thousand.” In the plural it means “ten thousands.” This would mean, minimally, 20,000 (a multiple of ten thousand). At the same time, the term was often used in apocalyptic literature to represent simply a rather large number, without any attempt to be specific.

[3:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “anointed one.” In light of the parallelism with “your people” in the preceding line this could refer to Israel, but elsewhere the Lord’s anointed one is always an individual. The Davidic king is the more likely referent here.

[3:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”

[3:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”