Psalm 114:2

Verse 2. Judah was his sanctuary. Meaning not the tribe of Judah only, though they in many things had the preeminence; the kingdom belonged to it, the chief ruler being out of it, especially the Messiah; its standard was pitched and moved first; it offered first to the service of the Lord; and the Jews have a tradition, mentioned by Jarchi and Kimchi, that this tribe with its prince at the head of it, went into the Red Sea first: the others fearing, but afterwards followed, encouraged by their example. In this place all the tribes are meant, the whole body of the people. --John Gill.

Verse 2. One peculiarity of the second verse requires attention. It twice uses the word "his", without naming any one. There are two theories to account for this circumstance. One is that Psalm 114 was always sung in immediate connection with 113, in which the name of God occurs no less than six times, so that the continuance of the train of thought made a fresh repetition of it here unnecessary. But this view, to be fully consistent with itself, must assume that the two Psalms are really one, with a merely arbitrary division, which does not, on the face of the matter, seem by any means probable, as the scope of thought in the two is perfectly distinct. The other, which is more satisfactory, regards the omission of the Holy Name in this part of the Psalm as a practical artifice to heighten the effect of the answer to the sudden apostrophe in verses five and six. There would be nothing marvellous in the agitation of the sea, and river, and mountains in the presence of God, but it may well appear wonderful till that potent cause is revealed, as it is most forcibly in the dignified words of the seventh verse. --Ewald and Perowne, in Neale and Littledale.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 2. The church the temple of sanctity and the domain of obedience.