Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When Israel came out of Egypt,
    Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
Judah became God’s sanctuary,
    Israel his dominion.
The sea looked and fled,
    the Jordan turned back;
the mountains leaped like rams,
    the hills like lambs.
Why was it, sea, that you fled?
    Why, Jordan, did you turn back?
Why, mountains, did you leap like rams,
    you 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,
    the hard rock into springs of water.

• Psalm 114:1-8

I quoted the entirety of Psalm 114.  The entire psalm tells a single story.

The psalmist starts by saying that Judah was God’s sanctuary, Israel His dominion.  The grouping of psalms from Psalm 113-118 are recited in their entirety during Jewish holidays as a reminder of how awesome God is and how Israel should be eternally grateful.  Whoever wrote this psalm is probably thinking of Jerusalem, in Judah, being where the temple was built or would be built (if the author is David).

Then two specific miracles in the Exodus are alluded to.  The sea fled is in reference to the Red Sea allowing the people of Israel to cross on dry land.  The Jordan River turning back was a similar miracle when Joshua led the people into the promised land while the Jordan River, at flood stage, stopped flowing so the people could cross on dry land.

Before we go further, I have walked “dry” lake beds.  They are far from dry.  We camped a couple of times near lakes that had been drained to repair the dam or outflow system.  Months later, what looked like dry ground was so soft, in one case a boy sunk up to his waste.  This was not quicksand, just mud with a crust of fairly dry soil on top.  Sadly, one of the boy’s shoes came off when rescued and an adult leader crawled out and fished his shoe from the hole.  But if you were thinking quicksand, there was a lot of that.  So, stopping the water was only half the miracle.

But the part about the mountains leaping like rams refers to the earthquakes that must have occurred when Moses ascended Mount Sinai.  And the response was that the mountains trembled in the presence of God.

I have had people arrogantly boast that they will walk right up to God and shake His hand when he arrives in heaven.

Really?!  I will be like the mountain.  I will tremble in His presence.  We have no capacity to imagine how awesome God is.  I scarcely will take in a fraction before I am like the Apostle John who fell down before Jesus as if he were dead in the beginning of Revelation.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory