Psalms 114

Psalms 114:1-8

the Mighty God Uplifteth the Lowly Psalms 113:1-9; Psalms 114:1-8 We detect the song of Samuel’ s mother in the first of these psalms. She sang the Old Testament “ Magnificat” and it was embalmed by the psalmist here. Thus it passed into the psalter of the Church. Note the universality of this ascription of praise. For all time, Psalms 113:2; through all the earth, Psalms 113:3; and above all heavens, Psalms 113:4. What a wonderful God is ours! Heaven cannot contain Him, but He lifts the poor and needy out of the dust. Largeness is not greatness, and the babe in the cot is more important than the palace. In Psalms 114:1-8 Egypt represents the tyranny of sin; but we have been redeemed. Like Israel we have gone forth. We belong no more to the present world with its strange tongue. Ours is the language of Canaan, our home. This exodus of ours has made us the temple and sanctuary of God. If once the Church realized that she is God-possessed, she would become irresistible. Seas would divide, rivers would start back, mountains would cleave, and the hills would remove. “ Impossible” would be blotted from our vocabulary. The power that made Sinai tremble gave earth water-springs. When the soul finds its all in God, the world ceases to affright or attract it, and the rocks yield refreshing streams.

The sea saw it, and fled! The authorship of this Psalm cannot be traced. It clearly belongs to the period of return from the Captivity. The writer seeks comfort, under much discouragement, in the recollection of the blessed and glorious past.

Psalms 114:1. Israel Jacob The two names of the patriarch occur in the same verse. Israel must never forget that he was once Jacob. All Jacobs may yet become Israels, by the grace of God. We all have our Egypts and our people of strange tongue. But when the lesson of our bondage is learned, our God brings us out.

Psalms 114:2. Judah was his sanctuary The Eternal finds his home in the midst of his people (Deuteronomy 33:12; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3). Is thy heart his sanctuary and dominion?

Psalms 114:3-6. The sea saw, and fled A poetical description of the passage of the Red Sea and of the Jordan, also of the giving of the law (Psalms 68:16).

Psalms 114:7. The presence of the God of Jacob How gracious that God should call Himself the God of Jacob! (Isaiah 41:14). The Divine presence is always with us (Matthew 28:20), though so often we are insensible to its majestic glory. And if earth should tremble before Him, much more should we; not with the fear of slaves, but with the godly fear which dares not grieve his Holy Spirit.

Psalms 114:8. Who turned the rock into a standing water Many such miracles doth He still. The most unlikely things yield the streams which quench our thirst and satisfy our souls. Work such miracles, blessed God, on the rocks and flints which glaciers of trouble have brought down into our lives!