The Meaning of Psalms 114:4 Explained

Psalms 114:4

KJV: The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.

YLT: The mountains have skipped as rams, Heights as sons of a flock.

Darby: The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.

ASV: The mountains skipped like rams, The little hills like lambs.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

The mountains  skipped  like rams,  [and] the little hills  like lambs. 

What does Psalms 114:4 Mean?

Context Summary

Psalms 114:1-8 - The Mighty God Uplifteth The Lowly
We detect the song of Samuel's mother in the first of these psalms. She sang the Old Testament "Magnificat" and it was embalmed by the psalmist here. Thus it passed into the psalter of the Church. Note the universality of this ascription of praise. For all time, Psalms 113:2; through all the earth, Psalms 113:3; and above all heavens, Psalms 113:4. What a wonderful God is ours! Heaven cannot contain Him, but He lifts the poor and needy out of the dust. Largeness is not greatness, and the babe in the cot is more important than the palace.
In Psalms 114:1-8 Egypt represents the tyranny of sin; but we have been redeemed. Like Israel we have gone forth. We belong no more to the present world with its strange tongue. Ours is the language of Canaan, our home. This exodus of ours has made us the temple and sanctuary of God. If once the Church realized that she is God-possessed, she would become irresistible. Seas would divide, rivers would start back, mountains would cleave, and the hills would remove. "Impossible" would be blotted from our vocabulary. The power that made Sinai tremble gave earth water-springs. When the soul finds its all in God, the world ceases to affright or attract it, and the rocks yield refreshing streams. [source]

Chapter Summary: Psalms 114

1  The miracles wrought by God, when he brought his people out of Egypt,
7  are a just ground of fearing him

What do the individual words in Psalms 114:4 mean?

The mountains skipped like rams the little hills like lambs
הֶֽ֭הָרִים רָקְד֣וּ כְאֵילִ֑ים גְּ֝בָע֗וֹת כִּבְנֵי־ צֹֽאן

הֶֽ֭הָרִים  The  mountains 
Parse: Article, Noun, masculine plural
Root: הַר  
Sense: hill, mountain, hill country, mount.
רָקְד֣וּ  skipped 
Parse: Verb, Qal, Perfect, third person common plural
Root: רָקַד  
Sense: to skip about.
כְאֵילִ֑ים  like  rams 
Parse: Preposition-k, Noun, masculine plural
Root: אַיִל 
Sense: ram.
גְּ֝בָע֗וֹת  the  little  hills 
Parse: Noun, feminine plural
Root: גִּבְעָה  
Sense: hill.
כִּבְנֵי־  like 
Parse: Preposition-k, Noun, masculine plural construct
Root: בֵּן 
Sense: son, grandson, child, member of a group.
צֹֽאן  lambs 
Parse: Noun, common singular
Root: צֹאן  
Sense: small cattle, sheep, sheep and goats, flock, flocks.