Psalms 114:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Judah was his sanctuary— The tribe of Judah is here put for the Jews in general, because Judah was the principal tribe. See Numbers 2:3; Numbers 7:12; Numbers 10:14. A correspondent of Sir Richard Steele's (Spectator, No. 461.) has translated this psalm into English verse; and in doing it he perceived a beauty, which was entirely new to him, and which, he says, he was going to lose; and that is, that the poet utterly conceals the presence of God in the beginning of it, and rather lets the possessive pronoun go without a substantive, than he will so much as mention any thing of the divinity there. Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion. The reason now seems evident, and this conduct necessary; for if GOD had appeared before, there could be no wonder why the mountains should leap, and the sea retire; therefore, that this convulsion of nature may be brought in with due surprise, his name is not mentioned till afterward; and then, with a very agreeable turn of thought, God is introduced at once in all his majesty. Mr. Cowley, in his Davideis, makes David perform this ode before Saul, when he relieved him from his melancholy; and it was a pretty thought of his, for the subject of it is very well calculated for such a purpose: but from this verse it appears as if it was written after the division of the ten tribes from the kingdom of Judah. So that it was, probably, not composed by David, but by some other person, as a paschal hymn. The reader will observe how exactly the alternate lines correspond with those preceding them throughout the psalm.