“Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?”
The psalmist's personification of mountains fleeing like rams establishes that even the most stable and seemingly immobile features of creation respond to the presence of God's power with fear and flight. This verse employs the dramatic imagery of cosmic upheaval to convey the overwhelming nature of divine presence and power, suggesting that when God acts to intervene in history even the foundational structures of creation are displaced and transformed. The comparison of mountains to frightened rams transforms the majestic and immobile into the vulnerable and fleeing, establishing a radical inversion where the seemingly powerful capitulate before the greater power of God. By depicting creation itself responding to God's presence with fear, the psalmist establishes that all existence, including its most seemingly stable and permanent features, remains subordinate to and responsive to divine will and action.
Church Fathers on Psalms 114:6
1. The river Jordan, when they were entering across it into the land of promise, when touched by the feet of the priests who bore the Ark, stood still from above with bridled stream, while it flowed down from below, where it ran on into the sea, until the whole people passed over, the priests standing on the dry ground. Joshua 3:15-17 We know these things, but yet we should not imagine in this Psalm, to which we have now answered by chanting Allelujah, that it is the purpose…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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