Bible Commentaries

Commotion of Nature before God the Redeemer out of Egypt

To the side of the general Hallelujah Psalm 113:1-9 comes an historical one, which is likewise adorned in Psalm 114:8 with the Chirek compaginis, and still further with Cholem compaginis, and is the festival Psalm of the eighth Passover day in the Jewish ritual. The deeds of God at the time of the Exodus are here brought together to form a picture in miniature which is as majestic as it is charming. There are four tetrastichs, which pass by with the swiftness of a bird as it were with four flappings of its wings. The church sings this Psalm in a tonus peregrinus distinct from the eight Psalm-tones.

Egypt is called עם לעז (from לעז,cogn. לעג, לעה), because the people spoke a languageunintelligible to Israel (Psalm 81:6), and as it were a stammering language. Thelxx, and just so the Targum, renders åëáïõâáñâá(from the Sanscrit (barbaras), just as onomatopoetic as (balbus), cf. Fleischerin Levy's Chaldäisches Wörterbuch, i. 420). The redeemed nation is calledJudah, inasmuch as God made it His sanctuary (קדשׁ) by settingup His sanctuary (מקדּשׁ, Exodus 15:17) in the midst of it, forJerusalem ((el) (ḳuds)) as Benjamitish Judaean, and from the time of Davidwas accounted directly as Judaean. In so far, however, as He made thispeople His kingdom (ממשׁלותיו, an amplificative pluralwith (Mem) (pathachatum)), by placing Himself in the relation of King (Deuteronomy 33:5) to the people of possession which by a revealed law He establishedcharacteristically as His own, it is called Israel. 1 The predicate takes theform ותּהי, for peoples together with country and city arerepresented as feminine (cf. Jeremiah 8:5). The foundation of that new beginning in connection with the history ofredemption was laid amidst majestic wonders, inasmuch as nature wasbrought into service, co-operating and sympathizing in the work (cf. Psalm 77:15.). The dividing of the sea opens, and the dividing of the Jordancloses, the journey through the desert to Canaan. The sea stood aside,Jordan halted and was dammed up on the north in order that the redeemedpeople might pass through. And in the middle, between these greatwonders of the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into Canaan, arises the not less mighty wonder of the giving of the Law: the skipping of the mountains like rams, of the ills like בּני־צאן, i.e., lambs (Wisd. 19:9), depicts the quaking of Sinai and its environs (Exodus 19:18, cf. supra Psalm 68:9, and on the figure Psalm 29:6).

The poet, when he asks, “What aileth thee, O sea, that thou fleest … ?” livesand moves in this olden time as a contemporary, or the present and theolden time as it were flow together to his mind; hence the answer hehimself gives to the question propounded takes the form of a triumphantmandate. The Lord, the God of Jacob, thus mighty in wondrous works, itis before whom the earth must tremble. אדון does not take thearticle because it finds its completion in the following יעקב (אלוהּ); it is the same epizeuxisas in Psalm 113:8; Psalm 94:3; Psalm 96:7, Psalm 96:13. ההפכי has the constructive (ı̂) out of the genitival relation; and inלמעינו in this relation we have the constructive (ô), which as arule occurs only in the genitival combination, with the exception of thispassage and בּנו באר, Numbers 24:3, Numbers 24:15 (not, however, inProverbs 13:4, “his, the sluggard's, soul”), found only in the name for wildanimals חיתו־ארץ, which occurs frequently, and first of all in Genesis 1:24. The expression calls to mind Psalm 107:35. הצּוּר is takenfrom Exodus 17:6; and חלּמישׁ (lxx ôçáthat whichis rugged, abrupt)

(Note: One usually compares Arab. (chlnbûs), (chalnabûs) the Karaite lexicographer Abraham ben David writes חלמבוס ]; but this obsolete word, as a compound from Arab. (chls), to be black-grey, and Arab. (chnbs), to be hard, may originally signify a hard black-grey stone, whereas חלמישׁ looks like a mingling of the verbal stems Arab. (ḥms), to be hard, and Arab. (ḥls), to be black-brown (as Arab. (jlmûd), a detached block of rock, is of the verbal stems Arab. (jld), to be hard, and Arab. (jmd), to be massive). In Hauran the doors of the houses and the window-shutters are called Arab. (ḥalasat) when they consist of a massive slab of dolerite, probably from their blackish hue. Perhaps חלמישׁ is the ancient name for basalt; and in connection with the hardness of this form of rock, which resembles a mass of cast metal, the breaking through of springs is a great miracle. - Wetzstein. For other views vid., on Isaiah 49:21; Isaiah 50:7.)

stands, according to Deuteronomy 8:15, poetically for סלע, Numbers 20:11, for it is these two histories of the giving of water to which the poet points back. But why to these in particular? The causing of water to gush forth out of the flinty rock is a practical proof of unlimited omnipotence and of the grace which converts death into life. Let the earth then tremble before the Lord, the God of Jacob. It has already trembled before Him, and before Him let it tremble. For that which He has been He still ever is; and as He came once, He will come again.