Psalm 114

"When Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from among the strange people" [Psalm 114:1], "Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion" [Psalm 114:2]; "the sea saw that and fled, Jordan was driven back" [Psalm 114:3]. Think not that past deeds are related unto us, but rather that the future is predicted; since, while those miracles also were going on in that people, things present indeed were happening, but not without an intimation of things future....Some things he has related differently to what we have learned and read there: that he might not truly be thought to be repeating past acts rather than to be prophesying future things. For in the first place, we read not that the Jordan was driven back, but that it stood still on the side nearest the source of its streams, while the people were passing through; next, we read not of the mountains and hills skipping: all which he has added, and repeated. For after saying, "The sea saw that, and fled; Jordan was driven back:" he added, "The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like young sheep" [Psalm 114:4]: and then asks, "What ails you, O thou sea, that you fled, and thou, Jordan, that you were driven back?" [Psalm 114:5]. "You mountains, that you skipped like rams; and you little hills, like young sheep?" [Psalm 114:6].

"Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob" [Psalm 114:7]. What means, "at the presence of the Lord," save at the presence of Him who said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." [Matthew 28:30] For the earth trembled; but because it had remained slothful, it was made to tremble, so that it might be more firmly fixed at the presence of the Lord.

"Who turned the hard rock into standing waters, and the flint stone into springing wells" (ver. 8). For He melted Himself, and what may be called His hardness to water those who believe on Him, that He might in them become "a fountain of water gushing forth unto everlasting life;" because formerly, when He was not known, He seemed hard. Hence they who said, "This is an hard saying, who can bear it?" were confounded, and waited not until He should flow and stream upon them when the Scriptures were revealed. The rock, that hardness, was turned into pools of water, that stone into fountains of waters, when on His resurrection, "He expounded unto them, commencing with Moses and all the prophets, how Christ ought to suffer thus;" and sent the Holy Ghost, of whom He said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."