At the presence of the Lord Having aroused the senses of men by interrogations, he now furnishes a reply, which many understand to be a personification of the earth; because they take y, yod, to be the affix of the verb chvly, 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 subjoined. Others, with more propriety, considering the y, yod, in this, as in many other passages, to be redundant, adopt this interpretation: It is reasonable and becoming that the earth should tremble in the presence of the Lord. Again, the term chvly, chuli, is by many rendered in the imperative mood; which interpretation I readily adopt, as it is most probable that the prophet again makes an appeal to the earth, that the hearts of men may be the more sensibly moved. The meaning is the same, -- It must be that the earth quake at the presence of her King. And this view receives confirmation from the term 'dvn, adon, being used, which signifies a lord or a master. He then immediately introduces the name of the God of Jacob, for the purpose of banishing from men all notions of false gods. Their minds being 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 passage of the people 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 one day only, on the departure of the people; it constantly shone in his other works, as when a stream suddenly issued out of the dry rock, Exodus 17:6. Waters may be found trickling out from among rocks and stony places, but to make them flow out of a dry rock, was unquestionably above the ordinary course of nature, or miraculous. I have no intention of entering into any ingenious discussion, how the stone was converted into water; all that the prophet means amounts simply to this, that water flowed in places formerly dry and hard. How absurd, then, is it for the sophists to pretend that a transubstantiation takes place in every case in which the Scripture affirms that a change has been produced? The substance of the stone was not converted into water, but God miraculously created the water, which gushed out of the dry rock.

Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord - This is at the same time an explanation of the facts referred to in the previous verses, and the statement of an important truth in regard to the power of God. The true explanation - as here implied - of what occurred to the sea, to the Jordan, to the mountains, and to the hills, was the fact that God was there; the inference from that, or the truth which followed from that, was, that before that God in whose presence the very mountains shook, and from whom the waters of the sea fled in alarm the whole earth should tremble.

Tremble, thou (d) earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;
(d) Ought then his people to be insensible when they see his power and majesty?

Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord,.... Or, "the earth has trembled at the presence of the Lord"; so the Syriac and Arabic versions render it; the imperative is sometimes put for the preterite or past tense, see Psalm 22:9, likewise the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions thus render it, "the earth is moved at the presence of the Lord"; and then the sense is by a prosopopoeia. Is it to be wondered at, that we, the sea, the river of Jordan, the mountains and hills, have fled, or have been driven back, or have skipped like rams and lambs, when the whole earth, of which we are a part, has trembled at the presence of God? who, when he does but look, the earth trembles; and when he touches the hills, they smoke, Psalm 104:32. It is at the same presence of God we have been thus moved, the power of which we have felt, even
at the presence of the God of Jacob; who brought Jacob out of Egypt, led him through the sea, and gave him the law on Sinai. This is not to be understood of the general and common presence of God, which is everywhere, and with all his creatures for this is not attended with such wonderful phenomena as here mentioned, either in the literal or mystic sense; but of the majestic, powerful, and gracious presence of God; such as he sometimes causes to attend his ministers, his word, his churches, his martyrs and confessors; and so as to strike an awe upon, and terror into, their greatest enemies, as well as to convert his own people.

at the presence of--literally, "from before," as if affrighted by the wonderful display of God's power. Well may such a God be trusted, and great should be His praise.

Tremble - The mountains did more than what was fit at the appearance of the great God.