Question 1

What is the effect of the repeated “What was it…?” questions in verses 5–6?

Accepted Answer

The repeated questions slow the poem down and make the already-stated wonders feel surprising again. Instead of telling the listener what happened, the speaker acts as if the sea, the Jordan, and the mountains need to explain their behavior. That choice highlights how unnatural the actions are: seas don’t “flee,” rivers don’t “turn back,” and mountains don’t “skip.” The questions also create suspense. They imply there is a hidden cause greater than these powerful natural features, but verses 5–6 hold that cause back for the moment.

Question 2

Which parts of nature are addressed, and what does their variety add to the meaning?

Accepted Answer

The speaker addresses four features: the sea, the Jordan River, mountains, and little hills. This spreads the scene across different kinds of creation—waters and landforms, massive features and smaller ones. The variety suggests the poet is not describing a small, local oddity but an event with whole-landscape scale. It also portrays nature as a unified witness: different elements “react” in parallel ways. That widens the sense of wonder and sets up the idea that the cause behind these reactions is not limited to one spot.

Question 3

What do “fled” and “turned back” communicate about the waters’ behavior?

Accepted Answer

Both verbs communicate retreat and reversal. “Fled” pictures the sea as moving away quickly, almost like an instinctive reaction. “Turned back” pictures the Jordan reversing direction or pulling away from its normal course. The text does not explain the mechanism; it frames the behavior as surprising and reactive. Taken together, the two lines make the waters seem overpowered by something else. The wording also links the sea and the river as parallel examples, encouraging the listener to connect them to the same larger story and cause.

Question 4

Why compare mountains and hills to rams and lambs?

Accepted Answer

The comparison makes an impossible image feel emotionally vivid. Mountains and hills are the very picture of stability, but rams and lambs are living creatures that can jump suddenly. By using these animals, the poet turns the landscape into something responsive and animated. The pairing of “rams” (stronger animals) with “lambs” (smaller ones) also matches “mountains” with “little hills,” reinforcing the idea that from large to small, the land is caught up in the same startling movement. The point is amazement, not geology.

Question 5

Do verses 5–6 identify the cause of these events? How does that shape interpretation?

Accepted Answer

No. Verses 5–6 only ask what could have made these things happen; they do not name the agent. That omission is deliberate: it makes the reader feel the strangeness before receiving an explanation later in the psalm. Because the cause is not stated here, interpretation has to distinguish what is explicit (nature’s unusual behavior, framed as a question) from what is inferred (that a divine presence or action must lie behind it). The passage works like a spotlight: it illuminates the “effect” and makes the “cause” the next question.

Question 6

What does addressing nature “as if it can hear” suggest about the poem’s view of creation?

Accepted Answer

It suggests creation is not treated as an independent force with the final say. By speaking to the sea and mountains directly, the poet treats them as actors that can be called to account for their unusual behavior. This personification does not require the claim that nature literally talks back; it functions to underline that even the most untamable elements are not ultimate. They are pictured as reacting to a higher reality. The rhetorical approach turns the natural world into a witness that points beyond itself to a greater power at work in Israel’s story.

Question 7

How do verses 5–6 relate to the earlier statements in the psalm (that the sea fled and the Jordan turned back)?

Accepted Answer

They restate the same wonders, but with a different angle. Earlier lines report the events directly; verses 5–6 re-voice them as questions. That shift changes the tone from description to interrogation and amazement. It also invites the listener to replay the events mentally and feel their oddity rather than simply hearing them listed. In other words, verses 5–6 do not add new data; they deepen the impact of what has already been said and prepare for the explanation that follows later.

Psalms 114:5-6

Scripture