Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah from the heavens; praise him in the heights.
Psalm 148 opens the last burst of praise in the book of Psalms, and its first call goes upward — to the heavens and their highest reaches. That raises two questions: what does the opening shout mean, and who does the psalm summon in "the heights"?
Behind the English "Praise the LORD!" stands one Hebrew word.
In its Hebrew form this is Hallelujah, Praise the LORD, or Jah. The last five Psalms begin and end with this word, this note of praise.
One writer places this psalm inside that group of five:
The five closing Psalms form a group by themselves. Each Psalm calls for praise, yet each gives different reasons why the praise should be given to Him. There seems to be an increasing fervour in the call until the climax comes in Psalm 150.
The call moves in order. It starts at the top and works downward, gathering everything as it goes.
The heavens are called to praise the Lord. The great host of angelic beings are called to praise. Then, descending to creation, the sun, moon, and stars of light add their praise. The highest heavens with the clouds above the lower heavens are called to praise. Let the heavens praise the Lord, for He commanded and they were created, "He spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9). He established the spheres forever. He decreed their movements, and they will not turn aside from them.
The next verse names the angels, so the phrase in verse 1 is harder to pin down. One writer looks ahead to a coming age of praise and reads that gap as deliberate.
This psalm looks ahead to the glorious praise which will fill the millennial scene. Verses 1 to 6 are taken up with the praises that will fill the heavens. We can hardly dismiss this as a poetic reference to the angels, for the next verse names them. We would suggest it is another of those Old Testament sayings left vague on purpose for the time being. The New Testament gives us added light. Now we can see that God will have a mighty host of heavenly saints in their appointed place when the millennial age comes. Through grace we shall be among them.
Another writer notices the same silence at the head of the list and turns it into worship:
There is no hint of the human praises which will one day fill heaven. The only hint is the blank place left at the beginning. That place is indeed ours, and the words "in the heights" may well remind us of it. God is going to show even to rulers and authorities in the heavenly places the immeasurable riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3). How it should affect our souls to realise that in us the value of the work of Christ is to find its fullest expression.
Commentators differ on how far this can be pressed. J. N. Darby holds that Old Testament words like these are not about the church's heavenly place. That was a mystery hidden for ages, though believers now know their place in it.
Stars and clouds cannot sing. The psalm commands them anyway, and the reason given is their origin.
These are not intelligent creations of God, yet they are His creation. The very fact of this creation is material for praise to God. "He commanded and they were created." His creative power is celebrated, and so is His establishing and sustaining power that keeps them "forever and ever" (v. 6). His decree can never fail.
The psalm sweeps through heaven and earth. Then it narrows to one people, and that ending reaches beyond Israel.
All creation is called to praise God, but with the added word — He exalts the horn of His people. It is more than deliverance and mercy. He exalts them in the creation as the people of His favour on earth. He is the praise of His saints, a people near Him. That is a blessed thought. But how far more blessed for us, who will be near Himself, with no veil, in His house and in His presence! Israel is near the Creator, as His people on the earth; we with God our Father in heaven, like the Lord Jesus His only Son.
- The call. "Hallelujah" is the frame of the last five psalms — each opens and closes with it, and the fervour rises until Psalm 150.
- The height. Praise starts at the top: heaven first, then angels, then sun, moon and stars, then downward to earth.
- The gap. The psalm names no human voice in the heights. Writers see in that empty opening the place grace has prepared for believers.
- The ground. Even lifeless creation must praise Him. He commanded and they were created, and His decree keeps them there.
- The nearness. The chorus ends in something personal. Israel is a people near the Creator on earth; believers are near the Father Himself.
Praise ye him, all his angels; praise ye him, all his hosts.
The call goes out to angels before it ever reaches earth. Two words carry it — "angels" and "hosts" — and both raise the same question: who exactly is God summoning? And if heaven's servants already praise Him, what part is left for us?
The psalm works downward. It opens in the highest place, then turns to the earth, calling each rank to praise the One who made it.
(vv. 1-6) The heavens are called to praise the Lord. The great host of angelic beings are called to praise. Then, descending to creation, the sun, moon, and stars of light add their share of praise. The highest heavens with the clouds above the lower heavens are called to praise. Let the heavens praise the Lord, for He commanded and they were created, "He spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9). He established the spheres forever, and decreed their movements, from which they will not turn aside.
The word "hosts" points to ranks of servants standing in their appointed places. They carry out God's commands with understanding.
Then come the glorious ranks of angels. They are the constant servants of God's blessed will — the "hosts" who always take their appointed places, and who understand and agree with the commands they carry out.
Commentators differ on how far the word reaches. One writer keeps it to angels. Another stretches it past them, to lights no one can count:
Angels will join in this spontaneous praise, then all the hosts of heaven, including sun, moon and stars, the number of which is beyond our comprehension.
The heavenly host that praised God at the birth of Jesus was not doing something new. This was its normal service, heard for once on earth.
It seems as though the angel's mention of that "Babe" on earth found a response in heaven. At once a heavenly host was there, praising God as their normal service (see Psalm 148:2) and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!" Men were silent at the birth of Christ, and did not know the greatness of Him who had been born among them. The heavenly company, though, spoke out in praise of the glory which had reached God in the highest.
Read the list and someone is missing. It names angels, hosts, sun, moon and stars — but no redeemed people in heaven.
The full praise of heaven and earth is now invoked, beginning with heaven. There is no hint of the human praises which will one day sound in heaven. We find it only in the blank space left at the start — the place that is truly ours, and which the words "in the heights" may well bring to mind. God is going to show even to the rulers and powers in heavenly places the surpassing riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We are the ones blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. How it should move our souls to realise that the value of the work of Christ is to find its fullest expression in us. We are members of Christ Himself and His joint-heirs, which angels can never be.
Angels have one note. Man, weak as he is, can be tuned.
When the Lamb comes out, they sing a new song. Notice that the angels never sing. People make them sing, but they never do in Scripture. Angels shout and cry, but there is only one note found with them. Man has all kinds of weaknesses, but he can be tuned; it takes someone like man to be tuned. The angels shout and praise, and that is lovely. And they stand. And at the tomb, two angels sat. But these elders sing a new song.
The praise this psalm calls for still lies ahead. One writer reads its opening call, made to the heavens and the heights, as wider than the angels of verse 2. It takes in people brought there by grace.
Psalm 148 follows with Hallelujahs which seem to echo throughout creation. It looks at the glorious praise which will fill the millennial age. The Lord is to be praised from the heavens and in the heights. We can hardly dismiss this as a poetic reference to the angels, for they are specifically mentioned in the next verse... God will have a mighty host of heavenly saints in their appointed place when the millennial age is reached, and that we through grace shall be among them.
- Order. Praise starts at the top — heavens, angels, hosts — then works down through sun, moon and stars to the earth.
- Hosts. The word pictures servants in their appointed places. They obey with understanding, not as machines.
- Habit. The praise heard at the birth of Christ was heaven's normal service, made audible on earth.
- Gap. No human voices appear in the list. The blank at the top is where the redeemed will stand, as members of Christ in a way angels cannot be.
- Song. Angels shout one note. Only rescued people can be tuned to sing, and their new song is what angels can never add.
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light.
This verse calls on the sun, the moon and the stars — not on people. None of them can speak. Yet the psalm puts them in a chorus that starts high in heaven, and the question is plain: how does a star praise God, and why does the psalm list the heavenly lights with angels?
The psalm starts higher up, with the heavens and the angels. Only then does it come down a step to what human eyes can see, and that is part of the point.
Then we come down to the sun and moon and stars. These are material things, and for that very reason they enter the sphere of what we can see. So they become symbols and witnesses of higher things.
Neither sun nor star has a will or a voice. Commentators answer that their praise lies in what they are: things God made, and things He holds in place.
These are not intelligent creations of God, yet they are still His creation, and their creation itself gives material for praise to God. "He commanded and they were created." And this praise takes in not only His power as Creator, but His power to establish and sustain, which keeps them "forever and ever" (v. 6). His decree can never fail.
Another writer points to the orbits themselves — the fixed paths these bodies keep.
He set the spheres in place forever, and fixed the movements they will never depart from.
No one could finish counting this choir.
Angels will join in this spontaneous praise. Then all the hosts of heaven will join, including sun, moon and stars, and their number is beyond what we can grasp.
Writers read this psalm as looking forward. The order it keeps also turns up again, on a much larger scale, in Revelation 5.
Then the angels will praise Him, along with all the hosts of those mighty spiritual beings that Ephesians 1:21 calls "rule and authority and power and dominion". After them come the sun, moon and stars, and everything else God created and set in place to fill the heavens. So in these verses we see the very thing that Revelation 5 shows in a much fuller way. We also see the same order there. In that chapter we first have the worship of the heavenly saints, represented by the twenty-four elders, then the voice of many angels around the throne, and then every creature joins in the praise.
Today creation is not a clean witness. One writer contrasts our own time with the day this psalm looks toward.
In that day the Devil will be bound in the Abyss. Now he has almost unlimited control over the elements of nature. God is above all, and He overrules Satan's activities for His own glory and for the good of His people. Still, the forces of nature do not always show the true character of God in a public way… But in that day the Psalm speaks of, everything will move only at God's command, and so will set forth His praises.
The psalm keeps coming down until it reaches people. Putting voiceless lights ahead of kings is not an accident.
But if those things praise Him, what about mankind? Great numbers of people today refuse to give honor to their Creator. But then the psalm calls on the "kings of the earth" to do so, and on "all peoples" too. That takes in princes, who hold places of dignity, and judges, who hold authority. It leaves no one out, for it calls "young men and maidens, old men and children" just as much to join in this great symphony of praise to the living God.
- Command — He spoke the lights into being and fixed their courses. His decree never fails, and their steady obedience is their song.
- Descent — The psalm steps down from angels to the sun, moon and stars. There the unseen becomes visible, and creation turns into a witness of higher things.
- Scale — The hosts called in are past counting, so the chorus is as wide as the sky itself.
- Day — Writers read the scene as still future. In that day everything will move only at God's command, and nature will show His true character in full.
- Answer — If voiceless bodies are called to praise, what about people? Many refuse today, yet the call reaches kings, princes, young and old alike.
Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens.
Psalm 148 is a call to praise that climbs to the very top of creation. Two questions meet the reader here: what are the "waters above the heavens," and how can things with no voice praise at all?
The older wording "the heaven of heavens" means the same as the ESV's "highest heavens" — the top of creation. One writer traces the psalm's climb to that summit:
The notes of praise swell higher and higher. In Psalm 148 it is heaven and earth which sing His praises. The heights above, the angels, the heavenly hosts, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the heaven of heavens — His eternal dwelling place — all praise Him.
Yet that phrase is not a box God fits inside. Another writer points to the same words spoken about the temple:
David realised that God's dwelling in the darkness of the holy place did not at all mean that God was confined there. In fact, "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You" (v. 27). God is infinite (unlimited) and omnipresent (present everywhere). Yet in pure grace He marked out the temple as the place of His dwelling, to focus Israel's thoughts on Him as the Centre of all Israel's interests.
Commentators differ on what the waters above the heavens are. Some read them straight from the creation account, where God divided the waters and named the expanse:
"The waters above the heavens" are no doubt those spoken of in Genesis 1:7. There God called the expanse "heaven" — the heaven close to the earth, the atmospheric heaven.
Another writer weighs a second reading, then admits the phrase resists a tidy answer:
Most take the "waters that are above the heavens" to be some immense unknown reservoir of waters lying beyond the expanse… But the "waters above the expanse" of the fourth day are simply those stored up in the clouds, and can be nothing else… The use of the expression "heaven of heavens," however, is a difficulty for which I have no explanation; and the truth may lie in another direction.
Another writer makes the mystery itself part of the praise:
It is a glorious celebration of Him who fills all things. He is over all, blessed for ever, and He will have worship from His creatures — heavenly, earthly, or in those deeper places human thought may not explore. The waters above the heavens lift up their hands to praise the only Lord (verse 4), though their limits and the purpose of their creation are still hidden from man.
The next verses give the reason. These things have no mind, yet they are His work:
Though these are not intelligent creations of God, yet they are His creation, and the very fact of this creation is material for praise to God. "He commanded and they were created." The psalm celebrates not only His power to create, but His power to establish and sustain, keeping them "for ever and ever" (v. 6). His decree can never fail.
That decree covers movement as well as existence:
The highest heavens with the clouds above the lower heavens are called to praise. Let the heavens praise the Lord, for He commanded and they were created, "He spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9). He established the spheres for ever, and decreed their movements, from which they will never stray.
The praise "from the heavens" is not only angelic — angels get their own verse. One writer sees room left open on purpose:
We can hardly dismiss this as being a poetic reference to the angels, for they are specifically mentioned in the next verse. We venture to think it is another of those Old Testament sayings purposely left vague for the moment. The added light of the New Testament shows us more. When the millennial age comes, God will have a mighty host of heavenly saints in their appointed place, and through grace we shall be among them.
And the psalm names the Creator whom heaven and earth must praise:
Psalm 148 calls first on heaven, and all in it, to take their part in the great Hallelujah. It calls them to praise the LORD, who created them and sustains them in their place… The great Creator whom heaven and earth must praise is the God of Israel, and Israel is His people.
- Command. The reason for praise is not feeling but fact. "He commanded and they were created," and His power holds them in place for ever.
- Created. Even things with no mind are His work, and that alone makes them material for praise.
- Contained. The psalm calls the heaven of heavens His dwelling place, yet it cannot hold Him. He is unlimited and everywhere at once.
- Concealed. Commentators differ on the waters above the heavens. Some say the clouds of Genesis 1:7; others an unknown reservoir beyond. One admits he cannot explain the phrase.
- Chorus. The praise from the heavens is wider than angels. A host of heavenly saints will join it, and the Creator all heaven praises is the God of Israel.
Let them praise the name of Jehovah, for he it is that commanded, and they were created
This verse gives the reason for the long call to praise that runs before it: God spoke, and the heavens and all in them came to be. So two questions follow — what can things that cannot speak offer God, and why is being created reason enough for praise?
Most of what the psalm calls on cannot think or speak. Yet the psalm argues from one thing only: they exist because God made them. One writer adds that the word which made them also keeps them:
Though these are not intelligent creations of God, yet they are His creation, and their creation itself is reason for praise to God. "He commanded and they were created." This praises not only His power as Creator, but also His power to establish and sustain them "forever and ever" (v. 6). His decree can never fail.
The "them" reaches back over everything the psalm has already named: angels, sun, moon, stars, and the highest heavens. The call moves down through the ranks, and one reason covers them all:
The psalm calls the heavens to praise the Lord. It calls the great host of angelic beings to praise. Then, coming down to creation, the sun, moon, and stars of light add their share of praise. It calls the highest heavens, with the clouds above the lower heavens, to praise. Let the heavens praise the Lord, for He commanded and they were created, "He spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9). He established the spheres for ever, and decreed their movements from which they will not swerve.
Among these, the angels obey commands with understanding. That fits a verse which rests everything on a command.
Then come the glorious ranks of angels, the constant ministers of God's blessed will. They are the "hosts" that take their appointed places, in intelligent sympathy with the commands they carry out.
The call is to praise His name. A name here is more than a label. It stands for what His works show about His nature — which is why an act of creation gives reason to praise it:
It is God Himself in whom he rejoices, and whom His works make known; it is His name which he celebrates in psalms. This is indeed the joy of joys. Unlike changeable man, what He has done is the real showing of Himself, His nature — and that is what His "Name" implies. So we can know Him better than we can know ourselves: for the heart of man, "who can know it?"
If a command brought them into being, they belong to the One who spoke. One writer presses this further, and marks who can enter into what they praise:
All God's works will praise Him. But only the redeemed have the mind of Christ. Only they can, through the Holy Spirit, enter into the things of God and share in them, whether in grace or in judgment... They praise Him as the Creator, and express their sense of His consequent sovereign claims over all His creatures. It was His will alone that called them into being, and it was by reason of His will alone they continued to exist.
Commentators read this psalm as looking ahead to a coming day. The problem lies not with the snow or the wind, but with man.
The saints are not yet planted in the heavens, glorified in the likeness of Christ, as they will be. They are on earth among the kings and people and princes and judges that verse 11 speaks of. Their Hallelujahs are faint and feeble as yet... we have to admit that there is nothing much wrong with the snow and wind, or with the mountains, trees, beasts and birds. The only trouble is the blight that the fall of man has placed on them... when man is set right on earth the curse will be lifted off the face of creation.
- Command. A single word from God is the whole account of how the heavens came to be — no process, only His will speaking.
- Creation. They exist because He spoke. That alone is reason to praise Him.
- Continuance. The same power that made them keeps them: a decree that cannot fail holds their courses.
- Name. What He has made shows what He is. That is what His "name" means: to praise His name is to praise Him as He has shown Himself.
- Chorus. Things without a voice still praise Him. Only the redeemed share God's mind — and the full chorus waits for the day man is set right and the curse leaves creation.
And he established them for ever and ever; he made [for them] a statute which shall not pass.
Psalm 148 calls every level of creation to praise, and verse 6 gives the reason for the heavens' part in it. God made these things, and He also fixed their place by a decree that never lapses — so why should stars and seas, which cannot think, join in that praise at all?
The verse names two acts, not one: God established, and God decreed. One writer ties the decree to the paths the heavenly bodies keep.
Let the heavens praise the Lord, for He commanded and they were created, "He spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9). He established the spheres forever, and decreed the movements they will never stray from.
The decree is not a general intention. It settles the actual course each thing runs.
Praise could stop at God as the One who started things off. Verse 6 does not stop there.
These things cannot think, yet they are His creation, and the very fact that He created them is reason to praise God. "He commanded, and they were created." His power as Creator is not the only thing praised here. There is also His power to establish and sustain, which keeps them "forever and ever" (v. 6). His decree can never fail.
The psalm praises two powers at once: the power that made, and the power that holds.
"He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away." That can mean two things: the decree itself never lapses, and nothing under it may step outside its bounds. One commentator finds both meanings here, reading the decree as a place God assigns.
The next verses give the reason for praise. By Jehovah's word they were created, and they remain before Him in the place His decree has assigned them — impossible to cross, impossible to fail.
The same writer sees this ordering repeated when the psalm turns to earth, where even the stormy wind, which "may seem in revolt from established order, none the less does perfectly the will of God," and where created things are given "defined places in which they are set in relation to one another."
A law of nature can look like something that runs by itself. One commentator asks why creation keeps its laws at all, and links the answer to the word of God, which holds on earth as surely as it does in heaven.
His faithfulness — His holding to what He is and what He has said — continues through the changing generations of men. So when we have His word, we can count on it as surely as on what is in heaven; it does not change, and neither does God. He established the earth, and it stands. All continues as God orders it; for — and it is another important truth — all that does exist is the servant of God. Even if He has given them fixed laws, why do they keep them? Because they depend on Him. They are His servants.
So the universe's stability is not something it owns. It is service, offered by things that depend on Him. And the word that holds them is the word we can count on.
Verse 6 sits inside a call to praise. One writer shows how the psalm splits that call between heaven and earth.
Psalm 148 calls first on heaven, and all in it, to take their part in the great Hallelujah, and to praise Jehovah, who created them and sustains them in their place. Then it calls on the earth, with all in it, to join in praising Him whose name alone is excellent.
Created, sustained, kept in place: verse 6 hands the heavens their song.
- Word. God spoke, and things existed. The same word that made the heavens gives them their reason to praise Him.
- Decree. He did more than make them. He fixed the movements they will never stray from.
- Dependence. Creation keeps its laws because it depends on Him. Everything that exists is His servant, holding the place He assigned.
- Endurance. His power to establish and sustain keeps them forever and ever. His decree cannot be crossed and cannot fail.
- Praise. Made, held, and kept in place. On these grounds heaven and earth together praise the One whose name alone is excellent.