John Calvin Commentary Psalms 114:7

"Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the God of Jacob," — Psalms 114:7 (ASV)

At the presence of the Lord — Having aroused people's senses with questions, he now provides an answer, which many understand to be a personification of the earth. They interpret it this way because they take י (yod) to be the affix of the verb חולי (chuli), and they represent the earth as saying, "It is my duty to tremble at the presence of the Lord."

This fanciful interpretation is untenable, for the term earth is immediately added. Others, more appropriately, considering the י (yod) in this, as in many other passages, to be redundant, adopt this interpretation: "It is reasonable and fitting that the earth should tremble in the presence of the Lord." Again, the term חולי (chuli) is rendered by many in the imperative mood. I readily adopt this interpretation, as it is most probable that the prophet again appeals to the earth, so that people's hearts may be more deeply moved.

The meaning is the same: the earth must quake at the presence of her King. This view is confirmed by the use of the term אדון (adon), which signifies a lord or a master. He then immediately introduces the name of the God of Jacob to banish all notions of false gods from people's minds.

Since their minds are prone to deceit, they are always in great danger of allowing idols to usurp the place of the true God. Another miracle is mentioned in which God, after the people passed through the Red Sea, gave an additional splendid manifestation of His power in the wilderness.

The glory of God, as he informs us, did not appear for only one day when the people departed; it constantly shone in His other works, such as when a stream suddenly issued from the dry rock (Exodus 17:6). Waters may be found trickling from among rocks and stony places, but for them to flow from a dry rock was unquestionably beyond the ordinary course of nature, or miraculous.

I have no intention of entering into any ingenious discussion about how the stone was converted into water; all that the prophet means amounts simply to this: water flowed in places formerly dry and hard. How absurd, then, is it for the sophists to pretend that transubstantiation takes place in every case in which Scripture affirms that a change has occurred? The substance of the stone was not converted into water; instead, God miraculously created the water, which gushed from the dry rock.