When Israel came out of Egypt — the house of Jacob from a people who spoke a foreign language — Judah became His sanctuary, Israel, His dominion. The sea looked and fled; the Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the hills, like lambs. Why was it, sea, that you fled? Jordan, that you turned back? Mountains, that you skipped like rams? Hills, like lambs? Tremble, 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 spring of water.
Psalms 114:1-8
Psalm 114’s author is unknown, but the text tells us that it was written later than 796 bc, the year that the 10 Northern Tribes of Israel suceeded King Rehoboam, King David Grandson’s Kingdom, retaining the name Israel while leaving only the 2 remaning tribes, including the Capitol City of Jerusalem under his rulership, taking the name “Judea”.
This Psalm, which covers hundreds of years of Israeli history, opens with the Exodus of Israel from Eygpt, then fast fowards approximently 650 years, naming both Kingdoms in verse 2, as the place where God, Himself inhabits-His sancuary and dominion!
While traveling from Eygpt to present-day Israel, God did miraculous things for Israel. The Red Sea parted and they walk through on dry land. The Jordan river dried up from being at flood stage long enough for them to walk across on dry land, thus entering the Promised Land. The mountains rumbled and shook when Moses met with God on its summit. The Psalm writer asks a rhetorical question in vss 5-6: “Why was it, sea, that you fled? Jordan, that you turned back? Mountains, that you skipped like rams?” In vss 7-8, he answers his own question with “Tremble, 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 spring of water.”
All these Miracles – all of these marvelous works, happened when these objects collided with the presence of God!
Think about it!
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