Today’s Passage: Psalm 148
This psalm begins in heaven and works its way down to earth, and along the way it summons everything that exists to praise the One who made it. It calls up to the angels and the shining stars, and it calls out to the sea and the wild weather, to the hills and the trees and the beasts, and then to kings and to little children. He made every one of them, and so the call goes out to them all alike: let everything that He made praise Him. The creation is real, and it is His. Do not stop here to define the first word or to argue over how it all began. Simply come and join the song.
As you read, hold this: Let everything that He made praise Him.
Context Heaven, then earth
The psalm names two great rooms and then fills them both. The first six verses call up to the heavens, and the verses that follow call out across the earth, until nothing He ever made is left off the list. What the psalm hands us is the call itself, an invitation to praise, and not a map charting the sequence of how each thing came to be.
Psalm 148:1-6 (BSB)
¹ Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise Him in the highest places. ² Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts. ³ Praise Him, O sun and moon; praise Him, all you shining stars. ⁴ Praise Him, O highest heavens, and you waters above the skies. ⁵ Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He gave the command and they were created. ⁶ He established them forever and ever; He issued a decree that will never pass away.
The angels and the heavenly hosts, the sun and the moon, the shining stars, the highest heavens, and the waters above the skies: He gave the command, and every one of them was created, set now under a choq, pronounced khoke. Strong's H2706, a statute, decree, fixed boundary. He gave the command and they were created, and He set over them a decree that will never pass away. So the heavens praise Him because He made them, and to this day they go on standing under that same unbreakable word. that will never pass away. This is real making, and it is a real sky spread out over our heads. Let everything that He made praise Him.
Psalm 148:7-10 (BSB)
⁷ Praise the LORD from the earth, all great sea creatures and ocean depths, ⁸ lightning and hail, snow and clouds, powerful wind fulfilling His word, ⁹ mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, ¹⁰ wild animals and all cattle, crawling creatures and flying birds,
Now the call turns to the earth, and again it moves down the whole length of creation: the great sea creatures and the ocean depths, the lightning and the hail, the snow and the clouds, the wind that rushes out to do His word, the mountains and the hills, the fruit trees and the towering cedars, the wild animals and the cattle, the creatures that crawl and the birds that fly. He could simply have said “everything,” but instead He names them one by one.
Psalm 148:11-14 (BSB)
¹¹ kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, ¹² young men and maidens, old and young together. ¹³ Let them praise the name of the LORD, for His name alone is exalted; His splendor is above the earth and the heavens. ¹⁴ He has raised up a horn for His people, the praise of all His saints, of Israel, a people near to Him. Hallelujah!
Then the call reaches the people themselves: the kings of the earth and all peoples, the princes and rulers, the young men and the maidens, the old and the young lifting their voices together. His name alone is exalted above them all. And at the very end He raises up a horn for His people, for Israel, a people brought near to Him. They are made by His hand, and they are held close to His heart. Hallelujah.
Study notes Every creature, heard
John lived to hear this very call answered. He heard heaven and earth, and everything under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, lifting their voices toward the throne and toward the Lamb.
"And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!”" Revelation 5:13 (BSB)
What this psalm calls for, John was given to hear. Everything He made, joined together in one song. Let everything that He made praise Him.
Let everything that He made praise Him.