Psalm 148
148:1. Praise ye the Lord. Whoever you may be that hear this word, you are invited, intreated, commanded to magnify Jehovah. Assuredly he has made you, and, if for nothing else, you are bound, upon the ground of creatureship, to adore your Maker. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens. Since you are nearest to the High and Lofty One, be sure to lead the song. Angels, cherubim and seraphim, and all others who dwell in the precincts of his courts, praise Jehovah. Keep not your worship to yourselves, but let it fall like a golden shower from the heavens on people beneath. Praise him in the heights. God is not only to be praised from the heights, but in them: the adoration is to be perfected in the heavens from which it takes its rise. No place is too high for the praises of the Most High. See how the psalmist trumpets out the word Praise. It sounds forth some nine times in the first five verses of this song. Praise not his servants nor his works, but praise him.
148:2. Praise ye him, all his angels. Living intelligences, perfect in character and in bliss, lift up your loudest music to your Lord. Cease not, you messengers of Jehovah, to sound forth his praise while you move at his bidding. Praise ye him, all his hosts. This includes angelic armies, but groups with them all the heavenly bodies. Though they be inanimate, the stars, clouds, the lightnings, have their ways of praising Jehovah. The countless armies are all his by creation, and preservation, and consequent obligation. Both these sentences claim unanimity of praise from those in the upper regions who are called upon to commence the strain—all his angels, all his hosts. That same hearty oneness must pervade the whole orchestra of praising ones; hence, further on we read of all starts of light, all deeps, all hills, all cedars, and all people. How well the concert begins when all angels, and all the heavenly host, strike the first joyful notes! In that concert our souls would at once take their part.
148:3. The sun and moon, as joint rulers of day and night, are paired in praise: the one is the complement of the other, and so they are closely associated in the summons to worship. There is a perpetual adoration of the Lord in the skies: it varies with night and day, but it ever continues while sun and moon endure. There is ever a lamp burning before the high altar of the Lord. Nor are the greater luminaries allowed to drown with their floods of light the glory of the lesser brilliants, for all the stars are bidden to the banquet of praise. Their light is praise in a visible form. Light is song glittering before the eye instead of resounding in the ear. Christians without light rob the Lord of his glory. However small our beam, we must not hide it: if we cannot be sun or moon we must aim to be one of the stars of light, and our every twinkling must be to the honor of our Lord.
148:4. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens. By these means are meant those regions which are heavens to those who dwell in our heavens; or those most heavenly of abodes where the most choice spirits dwell. As the highest of the highest, so the best of the best are to praise the Lord. There can be none so great and high as to be above praising Jehovah. And ye waters that be above the heavens. Let the clouds roll up the volumes of adoration. Let the sea above roar at the presence of Jehovah, the God of Israel. There is something of mystery about these supposed reservoirs of water; but let them be what they may, they shall give glory to the Lord our God. Let the most unknown and perplexing phenomena take up their parts in the universal praise.
148:5. The Maker should have honor from his works; they should tell forth his character by their praise; and thus they should praise his name—by which his character is intended. The name of Jehovah is written legibly upon his works, so that his power, wisdom, goodness, and other attributes are therein made manifest to thoughtful people, and thus his name is praised. The highest praise of God is to declare what he is. We can invent nothing which would magnify the Lord: we can never extol him better than by repeating his name, or describing his character. The Lord is to be extolled as creating all things that exist, and as doing so by the simple agency of his word. He created by a command; what a power is this! Well may he expect those to praise him who owe their being to him. Evolution may be atheistic, but the doctrine of creation logically demands worship; and hence, as the tree is known by its fruit, it proves itself to be true. Those who were created by command are under command to adore their Creator. The voice which said, “Let them be,” now says, “Let them praise.”
148:6. He hath also stablished them for ever and ever. The continued existence of celestial beings is due to the supporting might of Jehovah, and to that alone. They do not fail because the Lord does not fail them. Without his will these things cannot alter; he has impressed upon them laws which only he himself can change. Therefore ought the Lord to be praised because he is Preserver as well as Creator, Ruler as well as Maker. He hath made a decree which shall not pass. The heavenly bodies are ruled by Jehovah’s decree: they cannot pass his limit, or trespass against his law. His rule and ordination can never be changed except by himself, and in this sense his decree shall not pass. Moreover, the highest and most wonderful of creatures are perfectly obedient to the statutes of the great King, and thus his decree is not passed over. This submission to law is praise. His almighty power upholds all things in their spheres, securing the march of stars and the flight of seraphs; and thus the music of the upper regions is never marred by discord, nor interrupted by destruction. The eternal hymn is forever chanted; even the solemn silence of the spheres is a perpetual psalm.
148:7. Praise the Lord from the earth. The song descends to our abode, and so comes nearer home to us. We who are “bodies terrestrial” are to pour out our portion of praise. Jehovah is to be praised not only in the earth from from the earth, as if the adoration ran over from this planet into the general accumulation of worship. In the first verse the song was “from the heavens”; here it is “from the earth”: songs coming down from heaven are to blend with those going up from earth. The earth here meant is our entire globe of land and water. Ye dragons, and all deeps. It would be idle to inquire what special sea-monsters are here meant; but we believe all of them are intended, and the places where they abide are indicated by all deeps. Terrible beasts or fishes, whether they roam the earth or swim the seas, are bidden to the feast of praise.
148:8. Fire and hail. Lightning and hailstones go together. In the plagues of Egypt they cooperated in making Jehovah known in all the terrors of his power. Fire and ice-morsels are a contrast in nature, but they are combined in magnifying the Lord. Snow, and vapors. Offsprings of cold, or creations of heat, are to be equally consecrated to his praise. Stormy wind fulfilling his word. Though rushing with incalculable fury, the storm-wind is still under law, and moves in assigned order, to carry out the designs of God. It is a grand orchestra which contains such wind-instruments as these!
148:9. Mountains, and all hills. Towering steeps and swelling knolls alike declare their Creator. All hills are to be consecrated: we have no longer Ebal and Gerizim, the hill of the curse and the hill of the blessing, but all are to rejoice in the name of the Lord. Fruitful trees, and all cedars. Fruit trees and forest trees are equally full of benevolent design, and alike subserve some purpose of love; therefore for all and by all let the great Designer be praised. Varieties in the landscape are produced by the rising and falling of the soil, and by the many kinds of trees which adorn the land: yet all, and all alike, glorify their one Lord. When the trees clap their hands in the wind, or their leaves rustle, they sing out unto the Lord.
148:10. Beasts, and all cattle. Animals fierce or tame; wild beats and domestic cattle; let all these show forth the praises of Jehovah. Those are worse than beasts who do not praise our God. Creeping things, and flying fowl. The multitudes that throng the earth and the air; insects of every form and birds of every wing are called upon to join the universal worship. No one can become familiar with insect and bird life without feeling that they constitute a wonderful chapter in the history of divine worship. The minute insect marvelously proclaims the Lord’s handiwork: when placed under the microscope it tells a wondrous tale. So, too, the bird which soars aloft displays in its adaptation for an aerial life an amount of skill which our balloonists have in vain attempted to emulate. True devotion not only hears the praises of God in the sweet song of leathered minstrels, but even discovers it in the croaking from the marsh, or in the buzz of “the blue fly which singeth in the window-pane.” More base than reptiles, more insignificant than insects, are songless people.
148:11. Now the poet has reached our own race, and very justly he would have rulers and subjects, chieftains and magistrates, unite in worshiping the sovereign Lord of all. Monarchs must not disdain to sing, nor must their people refrain from uniting with them. Those who lead in battle and those who decide in courts must neither of them allow their vocations to keep them from reverently adoring the Chief and Judge of all. All people, and all judges, must praise the Lord of all. Let us pray that the song of the psalmist may be realized in fact.
148:12. Both sexes and all ages are summoned to the blessed service of song. Those who usually make merry together are to be devoutly joyful together; those who make up the ends of families, that is to say, the elders and the juveniles, should make the Lord their one and only end. Old men should by their experience teach children to praise; and children by their cheerfulness should excite old men to song. None can be dispensed with: all parts of creation must take their parts in devotion.
148:13. Let them praise the name of the Lord. All that is contained in the name or character of Jehovah is worthy of praise, and all the objects of his creating care will be too few to set it forth in its completeness. For his name alone is excellent. It alone deserves to be exalted in praise, for alone it is exalted in worth. There is none like unto the Lord, none that for a moment can be compared unto him. His unique name should have a monopoly of praise. His glory is above the earth and heaven; it is therefore alone because it surpasses all others.
148:14. He also exalteth the horn of his people. He has made them strong, famous, and victorious. His goodness to all his creatures does not prevent his having a special favor to his chosen nation: he is good to all, but he is God to his people. He lifts up the down-trodden, but he in an especial manner lifts up his people. When they are brought low he raises up a horn for them by sending them a deliverer; when they are in conflict he gives them courage and strength, so that they lift up their horn amid the fray; and when all is peaceful around them, he fills their horn with plenty, and they lift it up with delight. The praise of all his saints. He is their glory: to him they render praise; and he by his mercy to them evermore gives them further reasons for praise, and higher motives for adoration. He lifts up their horn, and they lift up his praise. He is their God, and they are his saints; he makes them blessed, and they bless him in return. Even the children of Israel. The Lord knows them that are his. He knows the name of him with whom he made a covenant, and how he came by that name, and who his children are, and where they are. All nations are bidden in verse 11 to praise the Lord; but here the call is especially addressed to his elect people, who know him beyond all others. Those who are children of privilege should be children of praise. A people near unto him, near by kin and by care. This is true even more emphatically of the spiritual Israel. This nearness should prompt us to perpetual adoration. The Lord’s elect are the children of his love, and therefore they are bound beyond all others to be filled with reverence for him, and delight in him. Praise ye the Lord.
Excerpt from:
The Treasury of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
e-Sword v 9.5.1 Copyright 2000-2009 Rick Meyers
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