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Illustration for Psalm 114: God's Power at the Exodus

Psalm 114

God's Power at the Exodus

Adventure

This psalm celebrates when God brought Israel out of Egypt. The Red Sea saw God coming and fled! The Jordan River stopped flowing! The mountains skipped like rams! Nature itself was amazed by God. He can turn rocks into pools of water.

  1. 1When Israel came out of Egypt, Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
  2. 2Judah became God's sanctuary, Israel His dominion.
  3. 3The sea looked and fled; the Jordan turned back.
  4. 4The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
  5. 5Why was it, O sea, that you fled? O Jordan, why did you turn back?
  6. 6Why, O mountains, did you skip like rams, and you hills, like lambs?
  7. 7Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
  8. 8who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.

What it means

This psalm is full of joy: the sea runs away, the river stops, and the mountains skip about like lambs. It is a playful way of saying that nothing in creation can stand in God's way when He decides to rescue His people.

A little prayer

God, nothing can stand in Your way — even the sea and the mountains move when You come. Thank You that You rescue Your people. Nothing is too hard for You. Amen.

Memory verse

“Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the God of Jacob,”

Psalm 114:7 (BSB)

It turns a rescue into something the whole landscape reacted to.

Talk about it

Questions with no single right answer — for a family table or a Sunday-school circle.

  1. The psalm says the sea saw God coming and ran away. What a picture — why write it like that?
  2. It asks the mountains why they skipped like rams. Do you ever talk to things that cannot answer?
  3. Why might a poem say more about an event than a report would?
  4. What is the most amazing escape story you know?

Try this

Ask the sea

Write four questions to things that cannot answer — the sky, the sea, a hill, a river. Read them out. Then read verses 5 and 6 and see whose questions are better.

You will need: Paper and a pen.

Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB)