Psalm 114 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Psalm 114 Short Summary:

Psalm 114 is a recounting of how the natural elements of the wilderness and Promised Land responded to seeing God’s presence in the Israelite Camp. The Red Sea divided, the mountains trembled, the rocks turned to pools of water, and the Jordan River stopped flowing in obedience to the Lord’s command.

Psalm 114 Summary

AUTHOR:

• The author of Psalm 114 is unknown.

NEW TESTAMENT REFERENCES:

• No New Testament References.

THEMES:

• The natural world trembles at the presence of the Lord and obeys His commands.

DEFINITIONS:

• Jacob (114:1) - Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and the son of Isaac. Jacob was the father of the 12 patriarchs, the men from which the 12 tribes of Israel would take their names. Sense he was the father of the nation of Israel, his name is sometimes used to refer to the nation collectively. You’ll see it used this way in Psalm 114:1.

OUTLINE:

• TREMBLE, O EARTH, AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD (114:1-8):

  • Psalm 113-118 were used as part of the Feast of Passover every year.

  • Being a Passover psalm, it makes sense that the author of Psalm 114 wrote about the events immediately following the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. When the people of Israel left Egypt behind, God went

  • with them and His presence was in their camp.

  • In Psalm 114, the writer discussed how the geological features of the earth responded when God’s presence approached them.

  • The Red Sea split (“fled”), allowing the people to cross on dry land to escape the Egyptians (114:3, see Exodus 14). The mountains and hills, things you would usually think of us fixed and stable, were unsettled. Figuratively,

  • they “skipped like rams, the hills like lambs” (114:4).

  • The rocks were turned into pools of water (114:8). By this the author was probably referring to the numerous times God brought water out of a rock in the wilderness to satisfy His thirsty people.

  • The Jordan River “turned back” when God stopped its waters to permit the Israelites and the Ark of the Covenant to pass into the Promised Land (Joshua 3:13).

  • The psalmist wrote that is was right for the natural world to “tremble” at the presence of God.

APPLICATION:

• There are 61,552,090,000,000,000,000,000 (sextillion) gallons of water in the Red Sea.

• Every droplet of that water trembles at the presence of the Lord and awaits His word to comply with His command.

• If our response to the words of the Lord is any different, we are terribly mistaken about who we are and our proper place in God’s universe.