Psalm Devotional
Tremble Before the Lord!
Written by Kit Swartz. This devotional was first published in the December 2013 issue of The Reformed Presbyterian Witness.
The theme of public praise continues in Psalm 114 as part of the Hallel, which means “the praise” (Psalms 113–118). It does not begin or end with “Praise the Lord!” as other psalms in this series, so some think that the last line of 113:9 was originally the first line of Psalm 114. There is no evidence for this. Nevertheless, the call of verse 7, “Tremble, O land, before the Lord,” indicates that this psalm is intended for the public praise of God.
With its theme of the Exodus, Psalm 114 is particularly appropriate for use in the Passover. All the psalms of The Hallel were used in the Passover, as well as in the feasts of Weeks, Booths, New Moon and Dedication.
Structure and Flow
The beauty and power of this psalm has been long and widely recognized. It is very skillfully arranged with strong and purposeful parallelism in each verse, and inverted parallelism in its four sections, namely: (A) Exodus; (B) nature’s response; (B) nature’s response; (A) Exodus. A very striking feature is the antiphony between references to the Lord’s bringing Israel out of Egypt (Exodus) and His bringing Israel into the promised land (Eisodus). The point is that the Lord brought His people out of Egypt in order to bring them into Canaan (Deut. 6:23). Two other striking features are the lack of an antecedent for “His” in verse two and the inquiry of verses five and six. In these two things, it seems that the psalmist is hiding the Lord’s role in all the wonders of the Exodus and Eisodus in order to reveal Him suddenly and powerfully at the end of the psalm.
Exodus & Eisodus
The Lord brought Israel out of Egypt and brought him into Judah, from which place He ruled (sanctuary, v. 1) over His special possession, Israel (dominion, v. 1). When the Lord brought Israel out, the sea fled into walls so that the people walked on dry ground (vv. 3, 5; Ex. 14:22). When the Lord brought them into Canaan, the Jordan did the same thing (vv. 3, 5; Josh. 3:16, 17). At the Exodus, the mountains skipped at the earthquake (vv. 4, 6; Ex. 19:18). At the Eisodus, the psalm portrays the hills skipping with the same terror that the native people felt (vv. 4, 6; see Josh. 2:9). There is one more parallel event, presented as an encore to the overwhelming manifestation of the power and goodness of God. Shortly after the Exodus, the Lord turned the rock into a pool of water (v. 8; Ex. 17:6), and shortly before the Eisodus, He turned the flinty rock into a fountain of water (v. 8; Num. 20:11).
The Point
The Lord brought His people out of Egypt in order to bring them into Canaan (Deut. 6:23; Ps. 114). He didn’t bring them out so that they would find their own place and go their own way, but in order to give them His place and show them His way. He brought them out so that they might worship and serve Him (Ex. 10:3), not another god or themselves.
In the same way, the Lord “rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13; see 2:12) and turned us “from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). He brought us out of our sin and death in order to bring us into Christ’s righteousness and life (2 Cor. 5:21). He did not forgive our sins and then leave it to us to achieve our own righteousness (Gal. 3:3). We drink the cup and eat the bread in the Lord’s supper (see 1 Cor. 11:24-25). We trust Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and for the “giveness” of His righteousness. And He continues this work so that we, in Christ and by the Spirit, more and more put off our sins and more and more put on His righteousness (Shorter Catechism, 35; see Col. 2:20, 3:1, 9-10; 3:5ff., 12ff.). Last, He will fully and finally bring us out of our sin by putting our physical body to death (Rom. 6:7) and fully and finally bring us into His righteousness by raising our physical body to life (Rom. 8:11; 1 John 3:2).
Our Response
What can we possibly do in response to such good news? The first thing is to tremble (v. 7) with reverence and awe at the manifestation of such power and love for us (see Rom. 8:31ff.; Heb. 12:26-28)! The whole land (v. 7) where God did these wonders trembled before Him, and so should we. Yet this trembling is not merely the reverence that is the proper response to the demonstration of overwhelming power. It also includes the joy that is the proper response to this demonstration of overwhelming love. “Skipping” (vv. 4, 6) carries the sense of dance (Eccl. 3:4) and frolic (Isa. 13:21). So tremble at the power, and delight in the love, that brought you out of your sin and into Christ’s righteousness, knowing that He will not stop this work until it is perfected on the day of the Christ.
