After the eight psalms of David, we close out the psalter with five hymns of praise. Each begins and ends with hal·lū-YAH ("Hallelujah!", that is, "Praise YHWH!") Kidner sees the apocryphal Song of the Three Servants as an expansion of this psalm.
Psalm 148:1-2, Heavens and waters above the heaven
Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD from the heavens,
praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels,
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
YHWH is to be praised in the high heavens above, by all His courtly staff and messengers. The Hebrew word malak (מֲלְאָךְ), made plural in verse 2, can simply mean "messenger" but in context, in the synthetic parallelism of that verse, surely these messengers are spiritual beings, part of the heavenly hosts and so the NIV translates the word as "angels."
Psalm 148:3-6, Sun, moon and stars
Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for he commanded and they were created.
He set them in place for ever and ever;
he gave a decree that will never pass away.
Looking back to Day 4 of Genesis, the psalmist praises God for creating the sun, moon and stars and urges those objects to praise their creator.
We note that, with the ANE view of cosmology, the psalmist praises God for making "waters above the skies," that is, waters above the firmanent. The Hebrew word for "heavens" is shamayim (שָׁמַיִם) which has, embedded in it, the word mayim (מַיִם) meaning "water."
Psalm 148:7-12, From sea creatures to young men and maidens
Praise the LORD from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
lightning and hail,
snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,1:
you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
young men and maidens,
old men and children.
Stimulated by the creation of the heavens, the psalmist, as in the previous psalm, runs through a list of majestic natural objects (below the heavens) that the Creator has made. (See also Job 38, Psalm 104. and Psalm 147.)
The "great sea creatures" are the tannin (תַּנִּין); see Genesis 1:21, where they were formed on the fifth Day of Creation.
Psalm 148:13, Above all earth and heaven
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
In this verse the created subjects, such as men and women of verse 12, are instructed to turn and praise YHWH for the other parts of His creation. As Alter points out, this verse nicely summarizes the entire song.
Psalm 148:14, Even Israel
He has raised up for his people a horn,
the praise of all his saints, of Israel,
the people close to his heart.
Praise the LORD.
The song ends by turning its focus to the local people, the people of Israel, who, like all creation, are close to the heart of God.
This last verse has a sharp change in focus from the rest of the psalm. Some view this change as a natural conclusion, where the psalmist bring his thoughts back home to those around him. Others see this change as evidence that this verse really fits much better in the next psalm and so the text of the psalter should be broken at the end of verse 13, not verse 14. A more interesting suggestion (Kidner) is that the psalmist, stirred by the sudden focus on his own people, is stimulated to write a separate psalm, Psalm 149, on that theme. We will look more closely at that psalm tomorrow.
First published December 4, 2025; updated December 4, 2025
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