Psalms Chapter 114 (JPS)

minutes - words.

Jump to Chapter

Switch Translation

Reading Tools

Tap a verse to highlight it

1 When Israel came forth out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;

2 Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion.

3 The sea saw it, and fled; the Jordan turned backward.

4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like young sheep.

5 What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest? thou Jordan, that thou turnest backward?

6 Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams; ye hills, like young sheep?

7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the L-rd, at the presence of the G-d of Jacob;

8 Who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters.

It recalls Israel's exodus from Egypt (v.1) and is retold through poetic imagery: "the sea saw it, and fled," and "Jordan was driven back" (v.3).

V.4 pictures the mountains skipping "like rams" and the hills "like lambs," dramatizing creation's trembling response to God's presence.

V.8 reads, "which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters," recalling God providing water out of rock.

Today's Verse

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, Wherein are things creeping innumerable, Both small and great beasts.