[PSALM CXLVIII.]
1 Hallelujah!
Praise Jehovah from the heavens,
Praise Him in the heights.
2 Praise Him, all His angels,
Praise Him, all His host.
3 Praise Him, sun and moon,
Praise Him, all stars of light.
4 Praise Him, heavens of heavens,
And waters that are above the heavens—
5 Let them praise the name of Jehovah,
For He, He commanded and they were created.
6 And He established them for ever and aye,
A law gave He [them] and none transgresses.
7 Praise Jehovah from the earth,
Sea-monsters, and all ocean-depths;
8 Fire and hail, snow and smoke,
Storm-wind doing His behest;
9 Mountains and all hills,
Fruit trees and all cedars;
10 Wild beast and all cattle,
Creeping thing and winged fowl;
11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
Princes and all judges of the earth;
12 Young men and also maidens,
Old men with children—
13 Let them praise the name of Jehovah,
For His name alone is exalted,
His majesty above earth and heaven.
14 And He has lifted up a horn for His people,
A praise for all His beloved,
[Even] for the children of Israel, the people near to Him.
Hallelujah!
The mercy granted to Israel (ver. 14) is, in the psalmist's estimation, worthy to call forth strains of praise from all creatures. It is the same conception as is found in several of the psalms of the King (xciii.-c.), but is here expressed with unparalleled magnificence and fervour. The same idea attains the climax of its representation in the mighty anthem from "every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them," whom John heard saying, "Blessing and honour and glory and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." It may be maintained that this psalm is only a highly emotional and imaginative rendering of the truth that all God's works praise Him, whether consciously or not, but its correspondence with a line of thought which runs through Scripture from its first page to its last—namely, that, as man's sin subjected the creatures to "vanity," so his redemption shall be their glorifying—leads us to see prophetic anticipation, and not mere poetic rapture, in this summons pealed out to heights and depths, and all that lies between, to rejoice in what Jehovah has done for Israel.
The psalm falls into two broad divisions, in the former of which heaven, and in the latter earth, are invoked to praise Jehovah. Ver. 1 addresses generally the subsequently particularised heavenly beings. "From the heavens" and "in the heights" praise is to sound: the former phrase marks the place of origin, and may imply the floating down to a listening earth of that ethereal music; the latter thinks of all the dim distances as filled with it. The angels, as conscious beings, are the chorus-leaders, and even to "principalities and powers in heavenly places" Israel's restoration reveals new phases of the "manifold wisdom of God." The "host" (or hosts, according to the amended reading of the Hebrew margin) are here obviously angels, as required by the parallelism with a. The sun, moon, and stars, of which the psalmist knows nothing but that they burn with light and roll in silence through the dark expanse, are bid to break the solemn stillness that fills the daily and nightly sky. Finally, the singer passes in thought through the lower heavens, and would fain send his voice whither his eye cannot pierce, up into that mysterious watery abyss, which, according to ancient cosmographry, had the firmament for its floor. It is absurd to look for astronomical accuracy in such poetry as this; but a singer who knew no more about sun, moon, and stars, and depths of space, than that they were all God's creatures and in their silence praised Him, knew and felt more of their true nature and charm than does he who knows everything about them except these facts.
Vv. 5, 6, assign the reason for the praise of the heavens—Jehovah's creative act, His sustaining power and His "law," the utterance of His will to which they conform. Ver. 6a emphatically asserts, by expressing the "He," which is in Hebrew usually included in the verb, that it is Jehovah and none other who "preserves the stars from wrong." "Preservation is continuous creation." The meaning of the close of ver. 6b is doubtful, if the existing text is adhered to. It reads literally "and [it?] shall not pass." The unexpressed nominative is by some taken to be the before-mentioned "law," and "pass" to mean cease to be in force or be transgressed. Others take the singular verb as being used distributively, and so render "None of them transgresses." But a very slight alteration gives the plural verb, which makes all plain.
In these starry depths obedience reigns; it is only on earth that a being lives who can and will break the merciful barriers of Jehovah's law. Therefore, from that untroubled region of perfect service comes a purer song of praise, though it can never have the pathetic harmonies of that which issues from rebels brought back to allegiance.