The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.
Parallel translations
- KJV The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.
- BSB the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
- NKJV The mountains skipped like rams, The little hills like lambs.
- NASB The mountains skipped like rams, The hills, like lambs.
- NLT The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The mountains and hills leaped like rams and lambs at God's presence. Even the earth trembled with joy and awe before Him.
Overview
The skipping mountains likely recall the quaking of Sinai when God descended in fire (Exodus 19:18). The exuberant image personifies creation responding to its Maker's nearness. It conveys that all the earth is moved before the living God, whose presence shakes both nature and nations.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Judg 5:4–5“Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water.
- Exod 19:18All of Mount Sinai smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
- Exod 20:18All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance.
- Hab 3:6He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal.
- Jer 4:23–24I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
- Rev 20:11I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.
- 2 Pet 3:7–11But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
- Hab 3:8Was Yahweh displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation?
- Mic 1:3–4For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.
- Ps 29:6He makes them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young, wild ox.
- Ps 18:7Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the mountains quaked and were shaken, because he was angry.
- Nah 1:5The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.
- Ps 68:16Why do you look in envy, you rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign? Yes, Yahweh will dwell there forever.
- Ps 39:6“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 114:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.