Sea and mountains tremble at the exodus

The exodus is told as creation coming undone before a presence

When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion. The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.

The poem is almost all image. No king is named. Egypt is a strange language; Judah becomes sanctuary; Israel becomes dominion. Sea and Jordan—the two waters of exit and entry—flee. Mountains skip. The Hallel remembers the exodus as nature's panic before God, not as a military briefing.

The riddle is answered: tremble at the presence that turns rock to water

What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob; which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.

The questions tease the waters, then name the cause: presence. Rock becoming fountain recalls wilderness drink. The psalm is liturgy, not a geology lesson, and it is not a map for later conquest. It teaches a world that cannot stay stiff when this God comes near.