Seeznak

We Would Be Poets; Or, Wondering Why Psalm 114 Exists

Psalm 114

When Israel went out from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled;
Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.

5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
6 O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turns the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a spring of water.

Have you ever wondered why a particular passage is in the Bible? When I read Psalm 114 a few days ago, I had to wonder why it even exists. It’s ‘plot’ is simply another retelling of the exodus, which has already been versified in previous Psalms (take 78, 105, 106, and others) and that more thoroughly. The Psalm’s only exhortation is for the earth to ‘tremble’ in verse 8, which, again, has been amply covered elsewhere. So Psalm 114 does not exist to tell us history we didn’t know, and it doesn’t exist to tell us to do something we don’t already know we should do.

So why this little song? I can see two attributes of Psalm 114 that I think may point us to an answer:

1. The Psalm is telling us about what God has done, and

2. It is telling us about what God has done in the form of poetry.

From the first point, I conclude that theology (the study of who God is and what He has done) is application.That is to say, to learn about God is to glory in who God is. So when we read and learn and talk about what God has done, that is enough; He is pleased. And this is exactly why the second point is important: reading and learning and talking about God is not the stuff of dusty textbooks and pretentious classrooms and the recitation of rote words and phrases. It (that is to say, theologizing) is the stuff of poets. Learning about God should make me think about skipping mountains and how the ocean might look if it was terrified and, more importantly, why the ocean might be terrified. I should wonder why such a big God would choose to display His might by bringing the water of life out of a dead, dry rock. I should think about God in terms of an exuberant song. I should learn to be a poet.