Psalms 114:1

"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].

When Israel went out of Egypt. The song begins with a burst, as if the poetic fury could not be restrained, but overleaped all bounds. The soul elevated and filled with a sense of divine glory cannot wait to fashion a preface, but springs at once into the middle of its theme. Israel emphatically came out of Egypt, out of the population among whom they had been scattered, from under the yoke of bondage, and from under the personal grasp of the king who had made the people into national slaves.

When Israel went out of Egypt. The song begins with a burst, as if the poetic fury could not be restrained, but overleaped all bounds. The soul elevated and filled with a sense of divine glory cannot wait to fashion a preface, but springs at once into the middle of its theme. Israel emphatically came out of Egypt, out of the population among whom they had been scattered, from under the yoke of bondage, and from under the personal grasp of the king who had made the people into national slaves. Israel came out with a high hand and a stretched out arm, defying all the power of the empire, and making the whole of Egypt to travail with sore anguish, as the chosen nation was as it were born out of its midst. The house of Jacob from a people of strange language. They had gone down into Egypt as a single family— "the house of Jacob"; and, though they had multiplied greatly, they were still so united, and were so fully regarded by God as a single unit, that they are rightly spoken of as the house of Jacob. They were as one man in their willingness to leave Goshen; numerous as they were, not a single individual stayed behind. Unanimity is a pleasing token of the divine presence, and one of its sweetest fruits. One of their inconveniences in Egypt was the difference of languages, which was very great. The Israelites appear to have regarded the Egyptians as stammerers and babblers, since they could not understand them, and they very naturally considered the Egyptians to be barbarians, as they would no doubt often beat them because they did not comprehend their orders. The language of foreign taskmasters is never musical in an exile's ear. How sweet it is to a Christian who has been compelled to hear the filthy conversation of the wicked, when at last he is brought out from their midst to dwell among his own people!

IF I were to put to you the question, "Do you pray?" the answer would be very quickly given by every Christian person, "Of course I do." Suppose I then added, "And do you pray every day?" the prompt reply would be, "Yes, many times in the day. I could not live without prayer." This is no more than I expect and I will not ask the question. But let me change the enquiry and ask, "Do you bless God every day? Is praise as certain and constant a practice with you as prayer?" I am not sure that the answer would be quite so certain, so general, or so prompt. You would have to stop a little while before you gave the reply and, I fear in some cases, when the reply did come, it would be, "I am afraid I have been negligent in praise." Well, then, dear Friend, have you not been wrong? Should we omit praise any more than we omit prayer? And should not praise come daily and as many times in the day as prayer does? It strikes me that to fail in praise is as unjustifiable as to fail in prayer! I shall leave it with your own heart and conscience, when you have asked and answered the question, to see to it in the future that far more of the sweet frankincense of praise is mingled with your daily oblation of devotion. Praise is certainly not at all so common in family prayer as other forms of worship. We cannot, all of us, praise God in the family by joining in song, because we are not all able to raise a tune, but it would be well if we could. I agree with Matthew Henry when he says, "They that pray in the family do well; they that pray and read the Scriptures do better; but they that pray, read and sing do best of all." There is a completeness in that kind of family worship which is much to be desired. Whether in the family or not, yet personally and privately, let us endeavor to be filled with God's praise and with His honor all the day.

IF I were to put to you the question, "Do you pray?" the answer would be very quickly given by every Christian person, "Of course I do." Suppose I then added, "And do you pray every day?" the prompt reply would be, "Yes, many times in the day. I could not live without prayer." This is no more than I expect and I will not ask the question. But let me change the enquiry and ask, "Do you bless God every day? Is praise as certain and constant a practice with you as prayer?"