GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 114:1-2
114 When Israel went forth from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion. (RSV)
Psalm 114 sings the story of the exodus, a crucial moment in Israel’s history, when God moved forward his plan to bring the Savior into the world. These opening verses set the stage, reminding us that all of Israel was there in Egypt, and all of Israel came safely out.
Egypt is called “a people of strange language.” The word lo‘ez is similar to a word that means “stammer” or “mock,” but it doesn’t occur anyplace else in the Bible. Here is has a sense similar to the Greek word “barbarian,” both in the ancient sense of a foreigner who spoke a strange language and the modern sense of a brute or a bully.
Verse 2 leaves us with a little mystery. Who is meant by “his” in the two halves of the verse? It can’t be Israel, since Israel can’t be the dominion of itself. Later in the Psalm we will find out for certain. But consider what the writer is saying. This special one, “him,” was brought along by Judah out of Egypt (compare Hosea 11:1; Numbers 22:5), and yet Israel was his dominion. These thoughts are not parallel. In fact, they contrast one another. Judah was just one tribe in Israel, and Judah was the sanctuary or refuge of the special, unnamed one. Yet Israel, the whole of the twelve tribes, was the unnamed one’s dominion or kingdom. Of course, we are talking about the Savior who was going to come out of Judah as Israel’s great king. The Psalm sings about him like an infant king, the baby Jesus, cradled in Judah but monarch of all (Ezekiel 37:22), coming out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15).
There is another contrast between verse 1 and 2: the little group coming out of Egypt was the slave, the despised thing. But God gave them his holiness and the honor of bearing the ancestor of his Son. They were transformed by God’s almighty power into something new: the church of the one true God. He led them by fire, cloud, and prophet– yes, and even by the command of the Pharaoh– out from the land of their slavery. God gave them laws, a priesthood, and a high priest to point them toward the greater high priest who would one day atone for all of their sins and for the sins of the world. This is why “Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself” (Hebrews 3:3). And “Christ is faithful over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast” (Hebrews 3:6). The inspired writer says, “we are his house,” just as the Psalm says, “Judah became his sanctuary,” and yet “he is over God’s house” just as the Psalm says, “Israel is his dominion.” So what was once an enigma or mystery is now “as clear as the summer sun”: Christ is over all, the Son of God, the Son of Man, and Lord over all.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 114:1-2 Out of Egypt