When YHWH Went Forth: A New Reading of Psalm 114

It is recited as part of the Hallel on holidays and also (in the Vilna Gaon’s tradition) serves as the Psalm of the Day on the first day of Passover.

The psalm has four stanzas. For the poem’s structure and language, with a different explanation of its meaning, see Marc Zvi Brettler, “Encouraging Babylonian Jews to Return, Psalm 114 Tells a Unique Exodus Story,” TheTorah (2020).

See, e.g., Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations, FOTL 15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 282.

This emendation has been suggested by Arnold Ehrlich, H. L. Ginsberg, Frank Cross and others. The Masoretic reading in verse 7 makes it a command: מִלִּפְנֵי אָדוֹן חוּלִי אָרֶץ “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord.” This, however, is a difficult reading. The reference to the indefinite “earth” is strange within the context of a Psalm that continuously uses the definite article with reference to geographic entities. It is also unclear how the call to “earth” to tremble relates to and forms a continuity with verses 5—6, where the poet addresses the Sea, the Jordan, the mountains and the hills and asks them why they exhibit such extreme agitation. One might naturally expect to find in verse 7 a lucid response to the rhetorical question. A charge to “earth” seems like a non sequitur and is hardly anticipated. Finally, the word אדון alone is never used in the Bible to refer to God. In contrast, the emendation above makes perfect sense and the reference to YHWH as אָדוֹן כָּל הָאָרֶץ is found in Joshua 3:11, 13; Micah 4:13; Zechariah 4:14; 6:5 and Psalm 97:5. Aside from the Joshua text, which is related to Gilgal, the other texts cited are all grounded in Judah and Zion (as is Psalm 114). Psalm 97:5 provides a particularly instructive parallel to our verse:

^{תהלים צז:ה} הָרִים כַּדּוֹנַג נָמַסּוּ מִלִּפְנֵי יְ־הוָה מִלִּפְנֵי אֲדוֹן כָּל הָאָרֶץ.

^{Ps 97:5} Mountains melt like wax at YHWH’s presence, at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.

Both passages depict a theophany in which the forces of nature tremble or melt at the appearance of God and both employ the same poetic structure, with the repetition of the words מִלִּפְנֵי אֲדוֹן. See Arnold B. Ehrlich, Die Psalmen (Berlin: M. Poppelauer, 1905), 288; H. L. Ginsberg, “Some Emendations in Psalms,” HUCA 23 (1950–1951), 102–103; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 138; Stephan A. Geller, “The Language of Imagery in Psalm 114,” in Lingering Over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, ed., Tzvi Abusch, John Huehnergard, and Piotr Steinkeller, HSS 37 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 180 [n. 5].

Theoretically, one could claim that the subject of קדשו and ממשלותיו is the “Israel” and “house of Jacob” of verse 1. Taken together, verses 1-2 would then state that when “Israel” as a people left Egypt the territory of Judah became her sanctuary and the territory of “Israel” became her dominion. In my view, this construction is extremely awkward since it has the same word (“Israel”) functioning in two senses in relation to one another in a single sentence. The idea that Israel became YHWH’s dominion is much more natural than the idea that Israel became Israel’s dominion. Furthermore, a “sanctuary” (v. 2) is generally spoken of with reference to its deity rather than the nationality of its worshippers. The subject of בקדשו in the Bible is always the deity, not the people (Amos 4:2; Pss 60:8; 108:8; 150:1).

The difficulty was highlighted by Meir Weiss, who interpreted it in literary terms. Weiss writes:

This surprising stylistic feature is a rhetorical and psychological means of delay, heightening tension and so intensifying the effect. This is evident from the fact that God is not mentioned until the end of the psalm, in reply to the psalmist’s question (verse 7).

See Meir Weiss, The Bible from Within: The Method of Total Interpretation (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), 352–378. This piece modifies Weiss’ earlier views on the Psalm, which he expressed in the Hebrew version of the same volume, המקרא כדמותו (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1967), 181–188.

Israel and Judah are generally masculine names, but here the author has employed a feminine verb form, הָיְתָה. Interpreters usually take the two names in this verse as geographic references (Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3: A Commentary on Psalms 101–150, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011], 194).

For example, in 1 Sam. 12:8, Samuel states, “When Jacob came to Egypt your ancestors cried out to YHWH and he sent Moses and Aaron and they took your ancestors out of Egypt and settled you in this place.” The narrator collapses all that transpired between Jacob’s descent to Egypt to the settlement in the land within a single sequence.

Perhaps it refers to Northern Israel alone, in contradistinction from “Judah.”

It is unusual to speak of YHWH leaving a people as opposed to an uninhabited region (see discussion below). While it is tempting to postulate an early tradition concerning a divine exodus from Egypt, there is little additional evidence that such a tradition existed. It thus seems safer to assume that verse 1, in its original form, spoke of YHWH’s exodus from the south. If so, then we would have to reconstruct the original verse in a limited fashion:

*בְּצֵאת יְ־הוָה מִ??? אֱלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב מֵ???

When YHWH went forth from ???, the God of Jacob from ???

One possibility for the second term is that instead of מעם לעז it read מעמלק “from Amalek,” perhaps a reference to the Amalekite Hills (Judg 12:15). Notably, Ephraim is said to have its roots in Amalek (Judg 5:14), perhaps also a reference to this geographical location. Nevertheless, this is a very speculative suggestion, and I prefer to leave it as unknown.

Yet another tradition holds that YHWH found Israel in the wilderness. See my, “Exodus: Not the Only Tradition About Israel’s Past,” TheTorah (2015). One version of this latter tradition, that is quite similar to Psalm 114, is the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15. See my, “The Song of the Sea and the History of Ancient Israel and Judah,” TheTorah (2016). The main difference is that in Exodus 15, the people are at the Sea of Edom and God saves them from the enemy and brings them with him into the land. In Psalm 114, however, Judah and Israel exist in their land already, and YHWH enters the land and establishes his reign there.

Editor’s note: On the exodus as a later development in other biblical texts, see David Frankel, “Integrating the Exodus Story into the Festivals,” TheTorah (2015).

The historicization of the chaoskampf and its assimilation with the exodus tradition is already found in the Bible. See John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1985), 88–100.

For this aspect of the theophany, and ancient near eastern parallels, see Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures, AOAT 204 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1980), 173–189.

Though this text refers to the “coming of YHWH” rather than his “going out,” it is clear from verse 13, יָצָאתָ לְיֵשַׁע עַמֶּךָ לְיֵשַׁע אֶת־מְשִׁיחֶךָ... “you went out to deliver your people, to deliver your anointed one,” that YHWH’s “arrival” and his “going forth” can refer to the same phenomenon.

It is likely that these two names belong to a parallelism and therefore represent a single foe. Nonetheless it is surely telling that the two names, representing Sea and River, are echoed in the reference to the Mediterranean and the Jordan in Psalm 114.

For an accessible presentation and analysis of the relevant Ugaritic material see Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea, 4–18.

This is only to be expected in a psalm which speaks of the territories of Judah and Israel and refers to the waters of the Mediterranean and the Jordan. In such a geographical context, reference to Lebanon and Siryon in the far north would be out of place. It is thus best to see the mountains and hills of Ps 114 as those situated between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

Note also Micah 7:12. Here we find that Sea, Nahar and Har are all used to refer to the topography of Israel. See Moshe Weinfeld, מיהושע ועד יאשיה: תקופות מפנה בתולדות ישראל מההתנחלות ועד חורבן בית ראשון [From Joshua to Josiah: Turning Points in the History of Israel from the Conquest of the Land until the Fall of Judah] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 118.

Imagery of turning enemies into water also appears in Ps 58:8, while Ps 46:3, 7 and Hab 3:6 depict mountains as nations. Furthermore, cosmic waters metaphorically represent national enemies in Pss 18:15-18; 46:3-6; 144:5–7.

Note also the connection between control over Yam and Neharot and divinely ordained human kingship in Psalm 89:19 and 26.

Editor’s note: For additional discussion of this passage, see Alexander Rofé, “YHWH Is Enthroned at Gad’s Temple: The Site of Moses’ Tomb,” TheTorah (2020).

Israel here can refer either to the area north of Judah or to the entire region.

While the current version of the verse has this ancient abode in Egypt, it seems like, as noted above, that the editors changed the location to “Egypt” when they presented Israel as the subject and identified the Psalm with the exodus tradition. Presumably, the original home was somewhere in the south, Sinai, Teman, Edom, or some parallel southern location, as it is in other psalms of this type.

The translation of verse 18b reflects an alternate reading of the Hebrew text as אֲדֹנָי בָא מִסִּינַי בַּקֹּדֶשׁ. The emendation requires changing the word division so that the final mem in בָם becomes an initial mem on סִינַי “from Sinai.” In addition, בָם, now without the mem, becomes בָא “he came.” A late echo of the idea that YHWH moved from his early abode in Sinai into the land can be seen in the Priestly tradition of Exodus and Joshua, which presents the Tabernacle as housing the Glory (kavod) of Mt. Sinai and bringing it to its new home in Shiloh in the land.

Psalm 114 is similar to the Zion song in Psalm 76. Zion songs were part of the Jerusalem liturgy, and thus, Psalm 114 likely played a liturgical role in the Jerusalem cult, like the other Zion songs. See Ben C. Ollenburger, Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult, JSOTSup 41 (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987).

Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 191.

The theme of the role of a temple and temple building in providing water and fertility to the land in which it is situated is prominent both in the Zion tradition (cf. Joel 4:18; Ps. 36:9; 65:5, 10–14) and in ancient Near Eastern literature in general.