Creation Groans and Dances Text: Psalm 114
Introduction: The God Who Makes Nature Nervous
We live in a world that has been systematically taught to be bored with God. Our secular age has done everything it can to domesticate the wildness of the Almighty, to render Him a safe, predictable, and ultimately irrelevant deity. He is a God, they say, who set things in motion and then retired to some distant corner of the universe, a celestial clockmaker who has long since abandoned His workshop. Nature, in this view, is a closed system of impersonal laws, a machine that runs on its own. It is uniform, it is predictable, and it is most certainly not personal.
Psalm 114 is a stick of dynamite tossed into that tidy, boring little workshop. This psalm is part of the Hallel psalms, the songs of praise sung at Passover, and it is a song of historical remembrance. But it does not remember history the way a secular historian does, as a mere catalogue of human events. It remembers history as the stage upon which the living God has acted, and acted in such a way that the stage itself was rearranged. This psalm teaches us that when God shows up, the created order gets the jitters. The sea, the river, the mountains, the hills, they all react. They are not impassive. They are not neutral. The presence of the Lord makes nature nervous, and it makes nature dance.
The Christian faith is not a set of abstract doctrines. It is a faith in a God who intervenes, a God who acts in history. Our faith is grounded in historical events, deeds rich with theological meaning. The central event of the Old Testament is the Exodus, the great deliverance of Israel from Egypt. And this psalm recounts that event, not from the perspective of the Israelites or the Egyptians, but from the perspective of creation itself. The sea saw God and fled. The Jordan River saw God and turned back. The mountains saw God and skipped like rams. This is not mere poetic flourish; it is a profound theological statement about the nature of reality. The universe is not a closed system. The Creator is not an absentee landlord. He is the Lord, and when He walks onto the stage of His own creation, the props and the scenery respond to their Director.
This has massive implications for us. We are often tempted to believe that our problems, our bondages, our enemies, are as fixed and immovable as mountains. We look at the cultural Jordan River, flowing powerfully in one direction, and assume it can never be turned back. We look at the Red Sea of impossibility before us and the Egyptian army of our past sins or present troubles behind us, and we despair. This psalm is God's word to us in that moment. It reminds us that the God we worship is the God before whom the sea flees and the mountains skip. And if He is for us, who can be against us?
The Text
When Israel went out from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
Judah became His sanctuary,
Israel, His dominion.
The sea looked and fled;
The Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
The hills, like lambs.
What disturbs you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?
Tremble, O earth, before the Lord,
Before the God of Jacob,
Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a spring of water.
(Psalm 114:1-8 LSB)
A People Remade (v. 1-2)
The psalm begins by grounding us in the central redemptive event of the Old Testament.
"When Israel went out from Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became His sanctuary, Israel, His dominion." (Psalm 114:1-2)
The Exodus was not a jailbreak. It was a divine reclamation project. God came down to claim His people. Notice the parallel terms: Israel and the house of Jacob. This is the covenant family, descended from the patriarchs. They were rescued from "a people of strange language." This is not just a linguistic observation; it signifies a people who were culturally and spiritually alien. Egypt was the paragon of paganism, a world steeped in idolatry, magic, and the worship of death. To be brought out of Egypt was to be brought out of a worldview, out of a false religion, out of a system of slavery that was both physical and spiritual.
And what did they become? God did not just rescue them from something; He rescued them for something. He made them His own possession. "Judah became His sanctuary, Israel, His dominion." A sanctuary is a holy place, a place where God dwells. Dominion refers to a kingdom, a place where God rules. God took a rabble of slaves and constituted them as His temple and His kingdom. The presence of God was now uniquely located among this people. This is the central point. The reason creation is about to react so violently is that God is on the move with His people. He has established His beachhead on earth. His sanctuary is mobile, and His kingdom is on the march.
This sets the pattern for the New Covenant. The church is the new Israel. We have been rescued from the Egypt of our sin and from the strange language of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And what have we become? We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). We are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God's own special people (1 Peter 2:9). God's sanctuary, His dwelling place, is the church. His dominion, His kingdom, is advancing through the church. When we understand this, we understand why the world reacts to the presence of faithful Christians. We are the sanctuary of God, and our very presence is a disruption to the established pagan order.
Creation in Convulsions (v. 3-4)
The psalmist now describes the reaction of the natural world to the presence of God with His people.
"The sea looked and fled; The Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, The hills, like lambs." (Psalm 114:3-4)
This is glorious poetic personification, but it is describing literal, historical events. The Red Sea did, in fact, part, allowing Israel to pass through on dry land. Forty years later, at the end of their wilderness wanderings, the Jordan River did, in fact, stop flowing, piling up in a heap so that the next generation could enter the promised land. And at Mount Sinai, the mountain itself quaked and trembled violently at the descent of God to give the law (Exodus 19:18).
The psalmist says the sea "looked" and fled. What did it see? It saw the presence of the Lord. It saw God's sanctuary in Judah and His dominion in Israel. The created order recognizes its Creator. The sea is not a rival deity to be conquered, as in the pagan myths. It is a creature, and when its Master approaches, it gets out of the way. The Jordan, that great barrier to the promised land, turns and runs upstream. The mountains, those ancient symbols of stability and permanence, are so agitated by the presence of God that they jump about like startled livestock. The great and mighty mountains skip like rams, and the smaller hills frolic like lambs.
This is a polemic against every form of naturalism and materialism. Nature is not a self-contained, impersonal machine. It is responsive to its King. Jesus demonstrated this same authority throughout His ministry. He rebuked the wind and the sea, and they obeyed Him. He walked on the water. He cursed a fig tree, and it withered. The Son of God, the one through whom the world was made, walked among His creation, and it knew Him. The rocks knew Him. When the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His disciples at the triumphal entry, He replied that if they were silent, the very stones would cry out (Luke 19:40). Creation is not neutral.
The Cosmic Interrogation (v. 5-6)
The psalmist then turns and directly addresses the created elements, demanding an explanation for their bizarre behavior.
"What disturbs you, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?" (Psalm 114:5-6)
This is a brilliant rhetorical device. The psalmist plays the part of a bewildered observer, asking what could possibly cause such a cosmic commotion. What's wrong with you, sea? Why are you running away? Jordan, what's gotten into you? Mountains, why are you behaving like giddy sheep? The questions hang in the air, creating a dramatic tension. Of course, the sea and the mountains cannot answer. But the question is not for them; it is for us. It forces us to look for the cause, to identify the power that can so utterly disrupt the natural order.
This is the question our modern world refuses to ask. When things go haywire, when societies tremble, when the established orders are overturned, the modern man looks for a naturalistic explanation. He will blame economics, or sociology, or politics. He will analyze the material causes down to the last detail. But he will not look up. He will not consider the possibility that the Lord is present and on the move. But the psalmist forces the question. What is the ultimate cause behind these great upheavals in history? What power can make the sea flee and the mountains dance?
The Answer: The Presence of the Lord (v. 7-8)
The final verses provide the stunning, simple answer to the interrogation.
"Tremble, O earth, before the Lord, Before the God of Jacob, Who turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a spring of water." (Psalm 114:7-8)
The answer is the presence of the Lord. The Hebrew word for Lord here is Adon, the sovereign master. He is also the God of Jacob, the covenant-keeping God who made promises to the patriarchs and is now fulfilling them. The entire earth is commanded to tremble before Him. The reaction of the sea and the mountains was not an overreaction. It was the only sane and appropriate response. When the Creator shows up, the creation had better tremble.
And the psalmist concludes with one more historical reference to seal the case. This God is the one "Who turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a spring of water." This refers to the miracles at Horeb and Kadesh, where God provided water for the grumbling Israelites by having Moses strike a rock (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11). Think about what is being said here. God does not just command the fluid things, like seas and rivers. He commands the solid things. He can make the most unyielding, barren, and lifeless object, a flinty rock in the desert, become a source of abundant life. He brings water from the rock. He brings life from death.
The apostle Paul tells us that this rock was a type of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). "They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." When Jesus was struck on the cross, what flowed from His side? Blood and water. He is the flinty rock who, when struck by the judgment of God, became for us a fountain of living water. He is the one who satisfies our deepest thirst.
Conclusion: The Greater Exodus
This psalm is a celebration of the first Exodus, but it points us forward to a far greater one. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke with Jesus. And what did they speak of? They spoke of His "exodus," which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). The cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the ultimate Exodus.
In this new Exodus, Jesus confronted the Red Sea of God's wrath against our sin and parted it, allowing us to pass through safely. He confronted the Jordan River of death, and by His resurrection, He turned it back, opening the way for us into the true promised land of eternal life. At His death, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split (Matthew 27:51). The mountains of our guilt and sin, which seemed so permanent, have been skipped over and removed.
The presence of the Lord is now with us in the person of His Son, Jesus, and by His Spirit who dwells in the church. And this means that the same power that made the sea flee and the mountains skip is at work on our behalf. We are His sanctuary. We are His dominion. Therefore, we should not be surprised when the pagan seas of our culture rage and flee before the advance of the gospel. We should not be surprised when the mighty mountains of entrenched, godless ideologies begin to tremble and skip.
The question for us is the same one the psalmist poses. What is it that disturbs the world? What makes the powers and principalities tremble? It is the presence of the Lord. It is the presence of the God of Jacob in the midst of His people. Our task is not to be clever, or powerful, or impressive in the world's eyes. Our task is to be a faithful sanctuary, a people in whom the Lord is pleased to dwell. And if God is with us, then the earth will tremble. Not just in fear, but ultimately, in joyful dance. For the same God who makes the mountains skip in terror is the God who turns the flinty rock of our hearts into a spring of living water.