1 When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a stammering people,
2 Judah became His sanctuary,
Israel His dominion.
3 The sea beheld and fled,
Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains leaped like rams,
The hills like the sons of a flock.
5 What ails thee, Sea, that thou fleest?
Jordan, that thou art turned back?
6 Mountains, that ye leap like rams?
Hills, like the sons of a flock?
7 At the presence of the Lord, writhe in pangs, O earth,
At the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 Who turns the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of waters.
It is possible that in this psalm Israel, restored from Babylon,
is looking back to the earlier Exodus, and thrilling with the great
thought that that old past lives again in the present. Such a
historical parallel would minister courage and hope. But the eyes of
psalmists were ever turning to the great days when a nation was born,
and there are no data in this psalm which connect it with a special
period, except certain peculiarities in the form of the words "turns"
and "fountain" in ver. 8, both of which have a vowel appended (_i_ in
the former, _o_ in the latter word), which is probably an archaism,
used by a late poet for ornament's sake. The same peculiarity is
found in Psalm cxiii. 5-9, where it occurs five times.
A familiar theme is treated here with singular force and lyric
fervour. The singer does not heap details together, but grasps one
great thought. To him there are but two outstanding characteristics
of the Exodus one, its place and purpose as the beginning of Israel's
prerogative, and another, its apocalypse of the Majesty of Jehovah,
the Ruler of Nature in its mightiest forms. These he hymns, and then
leaves them to make their own impression. He has no word of "moral,"
no application, counsel, warning, or encouragement to give. Whoso
will can draw these. Enough for him to lift his soaring song, and to
check it into silence in the midst of its full music. He would be a
consummate artist, if he were not something much better. The limpid
clearness, the eloquent brevity of the psalm are not more obvious
than its masterly structure. Its four pairs of verses, each laden
with one thought, the dramatic vividness of the sudden questions in
the third pair, the skilful suppression of the Divine name till the
close, where it is pealed out in full tones of triumph, make this
little psalm a gem.
In vv. 1, 2, the slighting glance at the land left by the ransomed
people is striking. The Egyptians are to this singer "a stammering
people," talking a language which sounded to him barely articulate.
The word carries a similar contempt to that in the Greek "barbarian,"
which imitates the unmeaning babble of a foreign tongue. To such
insignificance in the psalmist's mind had the once dreaded oppressors
sunk! The great fact about the Exodus was that it was the birthday of
the Nation, the beginning of its entrance on its high prerogatives.
If the consecration of Judah as "His sanctuary" took place when
Israel went forth from Egypt, there can be no reference to the later
erection of the material sanctuary in Jerusalem, and the names of
Judah and Israel must both apply to the people, not to the land,
which it would be an anachronism to introduce here. That deliverance
from Egypt was in order to God's dwelling in Israel, and thereby
sanctifying or setting it apart to Himself, "a kingdom of priests
and an holy nation." Dwelling in the midst of them, He wrought
wonders for them, as the psalm goes on to hymn; but this is the grand
foundation fact, that Israel was brought out of bondage to be God's
temple and kingdom. The higher deliverance of which that Exodus is
a foreshadowing is, in like manner, intended to effect a still more
wonderful and intimate indwelling of God in His Church. Redeemed
humanity is meant to be God's temple and realm.
The historical substratum for vv. 3, 4, is the twin miracles of
drying up the Red Sea and the Jordan, which began and closed the
Exodus, and the "quaking" of Sinai at the Theophany accompanying the
giving of the Law. These physical facts are imaginatively conceived
as the effects of panic produced by some dread vision; and the
psalmist heightens his representation by leaving unnamed the sight
which dried the sea, and shook the steadfast granite cliffs. In
the third pair of verses he changes his point of view from that of
narrator to that of a wondering spectator, and asks what terrible
thing, unseen by him, strikes such awe? All is silent now, and the
wonders long since past. The sea rolls its waters again over the
place where Pharaoh's host lie. Jordan rushes down its steep valley
as of old, the savage peaks of Sinai know no tremors;--but these
momentary wonders proclaimed an eternal truth.
So the psalmist answers his own question, and goes beyond it in
summoning the whole earth to tremble, as sea, river, and mountain had
done, for the same Vision before which they had shrunk is present
to all Nature. Now the psalmist can peal forth the Name of Him, the
sight of whom wrought these wonders. It is "the Lord," the Sovereign
Ruler, whose omnipotence and plastic power over all creatures were
shown when His touch made rock and flint forget their solidity and
become fluid, even as His will made the waves solid as a wall, and
His presence shook Sinai. He is still Lord of Nature. And, more
blessed still, the Lord of Nature is the God of Jacob. Both these
names were magnified in the two miracles (which, like those named in
ver. 3, are a pair) of giving drink to the thirsty pilgrims. With
that thought of omnipotence blended with gracious care, the singer
ceases. He has said enough to breed faith and hearten courage, and he
drops his harp without a formal close. The effect is all the greater,
though some critics prosaically insist that the text is defective and
put a row or two of asterisks at the end of ver. 8, "since it is not
discernible what purpose the representation [_i.e._, the whole psalm]
is to serve" (Graetz)!