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Psalm One
Hundred Fifty
Psalm 150
Chapter Contents
A psalm of praise.
We are here stirred up to praise God. Praise God for his
sanctuary, and the privileges we enjoy by having it among us; praise him
because of his power and glory in the firmament. Those who praise the Lord in
heaven, behold displays of his power and glory which we cannot now conceive.
But the greatest of all his mighty acts is known in his earthly sanctuary. The
holiness and the love of our God are more displayed in man's redemption, than
in all his other works. Let us praise our God and Saviour for it. We need not
care to know what instruments of music are mentioned. Hereby is meant that in
serving God we should spare no cost or pains. Praise God with strong faith;
praise him with holy love and delight; praise him with entire confidence in
Christ; praise him with believing triumph over the powers of darkness; praise
him by universal respect to all his commands; praise him by cheerful submission
to all his disposals; praise him by rejoicing in his love, and comforting
ourselves in his goodness; praise him by promoting the interests of the kingdom
of his grace; praise him by lively hope and expectation of the kingdom of his
glory. Since we must shortly breathe our last, while we have breath let us
praise the Lord; then we shall breathe our last with comfort. Let every thing
that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Such is the very suitable
end of a book inspired by the Spirit of God, written for the work of praise; a
book which has supplied the songs of the church for more than three thousand
years; a book which is quoted more frequently than any other by Christ and his
apostles; a book which presents the loftiest ideas of God and his government,
which is fitted to every state of human life, which sets forth every state of
religious experience, and which bears simple and clear marks of its Divine origin.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 150
Verse 1
[1] Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise
him in the firmament of his power.
Sanctuary — In his temple.
The firmament — In heaven: there let the blessed
angels praise him.
Verse 6
[6] Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise
ye the LORD.
Also — Every living creature in heaven and in earth.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and
Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village
Preacher
We have now
reached the last summit of the mountain chain of Psalms. It rises high into the
clear azure, and its brow is bathed in the sunlight of the eternal world of
worship, it is a rapture. The poet prophet is full of inspiration and
enthusiasm. He slays not to argue, to teach, to explain; but cries with burning
words, "Praise him, Praise him, Praise ye the LORD."
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. Praise ye the LORD. Hallelujah! The exhortation is to all
things in earth or in heaven. Should they not all declare the glory of him for
whose glory they are, and were created? Jehovah, the one God, should be the one
object of adoration. To give the least particle of his honour to another is
shameful treason; to refuse to render it to him is heartless robbery. Praise
God in his sanctuary. Praise El, or the strong one, in his holy place. See how
power is mentioned with holiness in this change of names. Praise begins at
home. "In God's own house pronounce his praise." The holy place
should be filled with praise, even as of old the high priest filled the sanctum
sanctorum with the smoke of sweet smelling incense. In his church below and
in his courts above hallelujahs should be continually presented. In the person
of Jesus God finds a holy dwelling or sanctuary, and there he is greatly to be
praised. He may also be said to dwell in holiness, for all his ways are right
and good; for this we ought to extol him with heart and with voice. Whenever we
assemble for holy purposes our main work should be to present praises unto the
Lord our God. Praise him in the firmament of his power. It is a blessed thing
that in our God holiness and power are united. Power without righteousness
would be oppression, and righteousness without power would be too weak for
usefulness; but put the two together in an infinite degree and we have God.
What an expanse we have in the boundless firmament of divine power! Let it all
be filled with praise. Let the heavens, so great and strong, echo with the
praise of the thrice holy Jehovah, while the sanctuaries of earth magnify the
Almighty One.
Verse
2. Praise him for his mighty acts. Here is a reason for
praise. In these deeds of power we see himself. These doings of his omnipotence
are always on behalf of truth and righteousness. His works of creation,
providence, and redemption, all call for praise; they are his acts, and his
acts of might, therefore let him be praised for them. Praise him according to
his excellent greatness. His being is unlimited, and his praise should
correspond therewith. He possesses a multitude or a plenitude of greatness, and
therefore he should be greatly praised. There is nothing little about God, and
there is nothing great apart from him. If we were always careful to make our
worship fit and appropriate for our great Lord how much better should we sing!
How much more reverently should we adore! Such excellent deeds should have
excellent praise.
Verse
3. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. With the
loudest, clearest note call the people together. Make all men to know that we
are not ashamed to worship. Summon them with unmistakable sound to bow before
their God. The sound of trumpet is associated with the grandest and most solemn
events, such as the giving of the law, the proclamation of jubilee, the
coronation of Jewish kings, and the raging of war. It is to be thought of in
reference to the coming of our Lord in his second advent and the raising of the
dead. If we cannot give voice to this martial instrument, at least let our
praise be as decided and bold as if we could give a blast upon the horn. Let us
never sound a trumpet before us to our own honour, but reserve all our
trumpeting for God's glory. When the people have been gathered by blast of
trumpet, then proceed to praise him with the psaltery and harp. Stringed
instruments are to be used as well as those which are rendered vocal by wind.
Dulcet notes are to be consecrated as well as more startling sounds. The gospel
meaning is that all powers and faculties should praise the Lord—all sorts of
persons, under all circumstances, and with differing constitutions, should do
honour unto the Lord of all. If there be any virtue, if there be any talent, if
there be any influence, let all be consecrated to the service of the universal
Benefactor. Harp and lyre—the choicest, the sweetest, must be all our Lord's.
Verse
4. Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Associated with the
deliverance at the Red Sea, this form of worship set forth the most jubilant
and exultant of worship. The hands and the feet were both employed, and the
entire body moved in sympathy with the members. Are there not periods of life
when we feel so glad that we would fain dance for joy? Let not such
exhilaration be spent upon common themes, but let the name of God stir us to
ecstasy. Let us exult as we cry,
"In
the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,
And my heart it doth dance at the sound of his name."
There
is enough in our holy faith to create and to justify the utmost degree of
rapturous delight. If men are dull in the worship of the Lord our God they are
not acting consistently with the character of their religion. Praise him with
stringed instruments and organs. We have here the three kinds of musical
instruments: timbrels, which are struck, and strings, and pipes; let all be
educated to praise the Lord. Nothing is common and unclean: all may be
sanctified to highest uses. Many men, many minds, and these as different as
strings and pipes; but there is only one God, and that one God all should
worship. The word translated "organs" signifies pipe—a simpler form
of wind instrument than the more modern and more elaborate organ. Doubtless
many a pious shepherd has poured out gracious pastorals from a reed or oaten
pipe, and so has magnified his God.
Verse
5. Praise high upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high
sounding cymbals. Let the clash of the loudest music be the Lord's: let the
joyful clang of the loftiest notes be all for him. Praise has beaten the
timbrel, swept the harp, and sounded the trumpet, and now for a last effort,
awakening the most heavy of slumberers, and startling the most indifferent of
onlookers, she dashes together the disks of brass, and with sounds both loud
and high proclaims the glories of the Lord.
Verse
6. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. "Let
all breath praise him": that is to say, all living beings. He gave them
breath, let them breathe his praise. His name is in the Hebrew composed rather
of breathings than of letters, to show that all breath comes from him:
therefore let it be used for him. Join all ye living things in the eternal song.
Be ye least or greatest, withhold not your praises. What a day will it be when
all things in all places unite to glorify the one only living and true God!
This will be the final triumph of the church of God. Praise ye the LORD. Once
more, Hallelujah! Thus is the Psalm rounded with the note of praise; and thus
is the Book of Psalms ended by a glowing word of adoration. Reader, wilt not
thou at this moment pause a while, and worship the Lord thy God? Hallelujah!
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole
Psalm. Each of the last five Psalms begins and ends with Hallelujah!
Praise ye the Lord. And each Psalm increases in praise, love, and joy, unto
the last, which is praise celebrating its ecstasy. The elect soul, the heir of
God, becomes "eaten up" with the love of God. He begins every
sentence with Hallelujah; and his sentences are very short, for he is in
haste to utter his next Hallelujah, and his next, and his next. He is as one
out of breath with enthusiasm, or as one on tiptoe, in the act of rising from
earth to heaven. The greatest number of words between any two Hallelujahs is
four, and that only once: in every other instance, between one Hallelujah and
another there are but two words. It is as though the soul gave utterance to its
whole life and feeling in the one word, Hallelujah! The words,
"Praise ye the Lord!" or "Praise him!" "Praise
him!" "Praise him!" are reiterated no fewer than twelve times in
a short Psalm of six short verses.—John Pulsford, in "Quiet
Hours," 1857.
Whole
Psalm. And now, in the last Psalm of all, we see an echo to the first
Psalm. The first Psalm began with "Blessed", and it ended with
"Blessed",—"Blessed are all they that meditate on God's law and
do it." Such was the theme of the first Psalm; and now the fruit of that
blessedness is shown in this Psalm, which begins and ends with Hallelujah.—Christopher
Wordsworth.
Whole
Psalm. In his Cours de Littérature, the celebrated Lamartine,
probably regarding the last four Psalms (the Hallelujah Psalms) as one whole
(as Hengstenberg also does) thus speaks:—"The last Psalm ends with a
chorus to the praise of God, in which the poet calls on all people, all
instruments of sacred music, all the elements, and all the stars to join.
Sublime finale of that opera of sixty years sung by the shepherd, the hero, the
king, and the old man! In this closing Psalm we see the almost inarticulate
enthusiasm of the lyric poet; so rapidly do the words press to his lips,
floating upwards towards God, their source, like the smoke of a great fire of
the soul waited by the tempest! Here we see David, or rather the human heart
itself with all its God given notes of grief, joy, tears, and adoration—poetry
sanctified to its highest expression; a vase of perfume broken on the step of
the temple, and shedding abroad its odours from the heart of David to the heart
of all humanity! Hebrew, Christian, or even Mohammedan, every religion, every
complaint, every prayer has taken from this vase, shed on the heights of
Jerusalem, wherewith to give forth their accents. The little shepherd has
become the master of the sacred choir of the Universe. There is not a worship
on earth which prays not with his words, or sings not with his voice. A chord
of his harp is to be found in all choirs, resounding everywhere and for ever in
unison with the echoes of Horeb and Engedi! David is the Psalmist of eternity;
what a destiny—what a power hath poetry when inspired by God! As for myself,
when my spirit is excited, or devotional, or sad, and seeks for an echo to its
enthusiasm, its devotion or its melancholy, I do not open Pindar or Horace, or
Hafiz, those purely Academic poets: neither do I find within myself murmurings
to express my emotion. I open the Book of Psalms, and there I find words which
seem to issue from the soul of the ages, and which penetrate even to the heart
of all generations. Happy the bard who has thus become the eternal hymn, the
personified prayer and complaint of all humanity! If we look back to that
remote age when such songs resounded over the world; if we consider that while
the lyric poetry of all the most cultivated nations only sang of wine, love,
blood, and the victories of coursers at the games of Elidus, we are seized with
profound astonishment at the mystic accents of the shepherd prophet, who speaks
to God the Creator as one friend to another, who understands and praises his
great works, admires his justice, implores his mercy, and becomes, as it were,
an anticipative echo of the evangelic poetry, speaking the soft words of Christ
before his coming. Prophet or not, as he may be considered by Christian or
sceptic, none can deny in the poet kin an inspiration granted to no other man.
Read Greek or Latin poetry after a Psalm, and see how pale it looks."—William
Swan Plumer.
Whole
Psalm. The first and last of the Psalms have both the same number of
verses, are both short and very memorable; but the scope of them is very
different; the first Psalm is an elaborate instruction in our duty, to prepare
us for the comforts of our devotion; this is all rapture and transport, and
perhaps was penned on purpose to be the conclusion of those sacred songs, to
show what is the design of them all, and that is, to assist us in praising
God.—Matthew Henry.
Whole
Psalm. Thirteen hallelujahs, according to the number of the tribes
(Levi, Ephraim and Manasseh making three), one for each.—John Henry
Michaelis, 1668-1738.
Whole
Psalm. Some say this Psalm was sung by the Israelites, when they came
with the first fruits into the sanctuary with the baskets on their shoulders. Thirteen
times in this short Psalm is the word praise used; not on account of
thirteen perfections or properties in God, as Kimchi thinks; but it is so
frequently, and in every clause used, to show the vehement desire of the
Psalmist that the Lord might be praised; and to express his sense of things,
how worthy he is of praise; and that all ways and means to praise him should be
made use of, all being little enough to set forth his honour and glory.—John
Gill.
Whole
Psalm. There is an interesting association connected with this Psalm
which deserves to be recorded: that in former times, when the casting of church
bells was more of a religious ceremony, this Psalm was chanted by the brethren
of the guild as they stood ranged around the furnace, and while the molten metal
was prepared to be let off into the mould ready to receive it. One may picture
these swarthy sons of the furnace with the ruddy glow of the fire upon their
faces as they stand around, while their deep voices rung forth this Hymn of
Praise.—Barton Bouchier.
Verse
1. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God with a strong faith; praise
him with holy love and delight; praise him with an entire confidence in Christ;
praise him with a believing triumph over the powers of darkness; praise him
with an earnest desire towards him, and a full satisfaction in him; praise him
by a universal respect to all his commands; praise him by a cheerful submission
to all his disposals; praise him by rejoicing in his love, and solacing
yourselves in his great goodness; praise him by promoting the interests of the
kingdom of his grace; praise him by a lively hope and expectation of the
kingdom of his glory.—Matthew Henry.
Verse
1. In his sanctuary. wvdqb. Many have been the notions of the
commentators as to the shade of meaning here; for the word differs from the
form in Ps 20:2 vdwqm (from the sanctuary). The Vulgate adopts the
plural rendering, in sanctis ejus, "in his holy places."
Campensis renders it, ob insignem sanctitatem ipsius, "because of
his excellent holiness." Some see under the word an allusion to the holy
tabernacle of Deity, the flesh of Christ. Luther, in his German version,
translates thus: in seinem Heiligthum, "in his holiness." The
same harmony of comparative thought appears in the two clauses of this verse as
in such passages as 1Ki 8:13,49 Isa 62:15. The place of worship where God
specially hears prayer and accepts praise, and the firmament where angels fly
at his command, and veil their faces in adoration, are each a sanctuary. The
sanctuary is manifestly here looked at as the temple of grace, the firmament as
the temple of power. So the verse proclaims both grace and glory.—Martin
Geier.
Verse
1. Praise God in his sanctuary. The Septuagint, Vulgate
Latin, and the eastern versions, render it, "in his holy ones"; among
his saints, in the assembly of them, where he is to be feared and praised: it
may be translated, "in his Holy One", and be understood of Christ, as
it is by Cocceius...Some render it, "for" or "because
of his holiness." The perfection of holiness in him; in which he is
glorious and fearful in the praises of, and which appears in all his works of
providence and grace.—John Gill.
Verse
1. Praise God. In many places we have the compound word,
xy-wllx, halelujah, praise ye Jehovah; but this is the first place in
which we find la-wllh, halelu-el, praise God, or the strong God. Praise
him who is Jehovah, the infinite and self existent Being; and praise him who is
God, El, or Elohim, the great God in covenant with mankind, to
bless and save them unto eternal life.—Adam Clarke.
Verse
1. Ps 150:1-6 gives the full praise to Jehovah in a double
character, the sanctuary and the firmament of his power, for his ways
which come from the firmament of his power were always according to the
sanctuary in which he governed Israel, and made good the revelation of himself
there.—John Nelson Darby, 1800-1882.
Verse
2. Praise him for his mighty acts, etc. The reasons of that
praise which it becomes all intelligent creatures, and especially redeemed men,
to render to Jehovah, are here assigned. We are to praise Jehovah "in his
sanctuary", in the place where his glory dwells, where his holiness shines
forth with ineffable splendour; we are to praise him in the wide expanse over
which he has spread the tokens of his power, whether in the heaven above, or in
the earth beneath; we are to praise him for those omnipotent acts whereby he
hath shown himself to be above all gods; we are to praise him in a manner
suited to the excellent majesty of a Being whom all the heavens adore, and who is
wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. His holiness, the infinity of
his operations, the miraculous power which he has displayed, the unspotted
excellence of his administration, call for loudest songs of praise from all
whose reason enables them to rise to the contemplation of the great Supreme.—John
Morison.
Verse
2. Praise him acceding to his excellent greatness. There is
required special understanding and knowledge of the nature and worth of the
mercy for which the duty of praise is undertaken; for God will not be praised
confusedly, but distinctly and proportionably to his dispensation: Praise
him according to his wondrous works; which is to be the prime and proper
matter of their high praises, even his more proper and peculiar high acts, then
to be remembered, as is largely expressed in Moses' praise for the particular
mercy of coming safe through the Red Sea (Ex 15:1-27); and Deborah's high
praise for deliverance from the host of Sisera (Jud 5:1-31); where the chiefest
and highest part of the celebration and exaltation of God in his praise
consists in the declaration and commemoration of the particulars of God's
special goodness in their present deliverance. Thus, you see the first thing
that God looks for is proportionable praise, great praise for a great God,
doing great things, and high praises for a high God, doing high things.—Samuel
Fairclough.
Verse
2. Praise him according to his excellent greatness, or, as
the words may bear, "according to his muchness of greatness";
for when the Scripture saith, "God is great", this positive is to be
taken as a superlative. "God is great", that is, he is greatest, he
is greater than all; so great that all persons and all things are little, yea,
nothing before him. Isa 40:15: "Behold, the nations are (to him but) as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he
taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to
burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations
before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and
vanity." How great is God, in comparison of whom the greatest things are
little things, yea, the greatest things are nothing!—Joseph Caryl.
Verse
3. Trumpets and horns are the only instruments
concerning which any directions are given in the law.—James Anderson.
Verse
3. Trumpet. Of natural horns and of instruments in the shape
of horns the antiquity and general use are evinced by every extensive
collection of antiquities...The Hebrew word shophar, rendered
"trumpet", seems, first to denote horns of the straighter kind,
including, probably, those of neat cattle, and all the instruments which were
eventually made in imitation of and in improvement upon such horns. The name shophar
means bright or clear, and the instrument may be conceived to
have been so called from its clear and shrill sound, just as we call an
instrument a "clarion", and speak of a musical tone as
"brilliant" or" clear." In the service of God this shophar,
or trumpet, was only employed in making announcements, and for calling
the people together in the time of the holy solemnities, of war, of rebellion,
or of any other great occasion. The strong sound of the instrument would have
confounded a choir of singers, rather than have elevated their music. (John
Kitto.) The shophar is especially interesting to us as being the
only Hebrew instrument whose use on certain solemn occasions seems to be
retained to this day. Engel, with his usual trustworthy research, has traced
out and examined some of those in modern synagogues. Of those shown in our
engraving, one is from the synagogue of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Bevis
Marks, and is, he says, one foot in length; the other is one used in the Great
Synagogue, St. James's place, Aldgate, twenty-one inches in length. Both are
made of horn.—James Stainer.
Verse
3. The "psaltery" was a ten stringed instrument. It
is constantly mentioned with the "harp." The psaltery
was struck with a plectrum, the harp more gently with the fingers. Psaltery
and harp speak to us in figure of "law and gospel."—Thomas Le
Blanc.
Verse
3. On "psaltery" (nebel) see Note on Ps
144:9, and on "harp" see Note on Ps 149:3.
Verses
3-5. As St. Augustine says here, "No kind of faculty is here
omitted. All are enlisted in praising God." The breath is employed in
blowing the trumpet; the fingers are used in striking the strings of the
psaltery and the harp; the whole hand is exerted in beating the timbrel; the
feet move in the dance; there are stringed instruments (literally strings);
there is the organ (the ugab, syrinx) composed of many pipes, imposing combination,
and the cymbals clang upon one another.—C. Wordsworth.
Verses
3-5. The variety of musical instruments, some of them made use of in
the camp, as trumpets; some of them more suitable to a peaceable condition, as
psalteries and harps; some of them sounding by blowing wind in them; some of
them sounding by lighter touching of them, as stringed instruments; some of
them by beating on them more sharply, as tabrets, drums and cymbals; some of
them sounding by touching and blowing also, as organs: all of them giving some
certain sound, some more quiet, and some making more noise: some of them having
a harmony by themselves; some of them making a concept with other instruments,
or with the motions of the body in dancing, sonic of them serving for one use,
some of them serving for another, and all of them serving to set forth God's
glory, and to shadow forth the duty of worshippers, and the privileges of the
saints. The plurality and variety (I say) of these instruments were fit to
represent divers conditions of the spiritual man, and of the greatness of his
joy to be found in God, and to teach what stirring up should be of the
affections and powers of our soul, and of one another, unto God's worship; what
harmony should be among the worshippers of God, what melody each should make in
himself, singing to God with grace in his heart, and to show the excellency of
God's praise, which no means nor instrument, nor any expression of the body
joined thereunto, could sufficiently set forth in these exhortations to praise
God with trumpet, psaltery, & c.—David Dickson.
Verses
3-5. Patrick has an interesting note on the many instruments of music
in Ps 149:1-9, which we quote here: "The ancient inhabitants of Etruria
used the trumpet; the Arcadians, the whistle; the Sicilians, the pectid; the
Cretians, the harp; the Thracians, the cornet; the Lacedemonians, the pipe; the
Egyptians, the drum; the Arabians, the cymbal". (Clem. Paedag. ii. 4.) May
we not say that in this Psalm's enumeration of musical instruments, there is a
reference to the variety which exists among men in the mode of expressing joy,
and exciting to feeling?—Andrew A. Bonar.
Verse
4. Stringed instruments. Minnim (which is derived from a root
signifying "division", or" distribution", hence strings)
occurs in Ps 45:8, and Ps 150:4, and is supposed by some to denote a stringed
instrument, but it seems merely a poetical allusion to the strings of
any instrument. Thus, in Ps 45:8, we would read, "Out of the ivory palaces
the strings (i.e. concerts of music) have made thee glad"; and so
in Ps 150:4, "Praise him with strings (stringed instruments), and ugabs."—John
Kitto.
Verse
4. Organs. bgwe, 'ugab is the word rendered "organ"
in our version. The Targum renders the word simply by abwba, a pipe; the
Septuagint varies, it has kiyara in Genesis, qalmov in Job, and organon, in the
Psalms. The last is the sense which the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, English, and
most other versions have adopted. The organon simply denotes a double or
manifold pipe; and hence, in particular, the Pandaean or shepherd's pipe, which
is at this day called a "mouth organ", among ourselves. (Kitto.)
A collection of tubes of different sizes, stopped at one end and blown at the
other, forms the musical instrument known as Pan's pipes, in the Greek syrinx,
surunx ...Was the'ugab a syrinx or an organ? As the former seems
to have been the more ancient of the two, and as'ugab is included in the
very first allusion to musical instruments in the Bible, it would seem
reasonable to say at once that it was a syrinx, especially as this
instrument was, and is to this day, commonly met with in various parts of Asia.
Yet it would, indeed, be strange if such an instrument were selected for use in
divine worship; and that the ugab was so used is proved beyond a doubt
by its mention in Ps 150:1-6: "Praise him with the minnim and ugab."
Its mention here in antithesis to a collective name for stringed instruments,
surely points to the fact of its being a more important instrument than a few
river reeds fixed together with wax. Let us not forget that we have but one and
the same name for the single row of about fifty pipes, placed, perhaps, in a
little room, and the mighty instrument of five thousand pipes, occupying as
much space as an ordinary dwelling house. Each is an organ. May it not have
been the case that the'ugab, which in Ge 4:21 is mentioned as the simply
constructed wind instrument, in contrast to the simple stringed
instrument, the kinnor, was a greatly inferior instrument to that which
in Ps 150:1-6 is thought worthy of mention by the side of a term for the whole
string power?—J. Stainer.
Verse
5. Loud cymbals...high sounding cymbals. This important
passage clearly points to two instruments under the same name, and leaves us to
conclude that the Hebrews had both hand cymbals and finger cymbals (or
castanets), although it may not in all cases be easy to say which of the two is
intended in particular texts.—John Kitto.
Verse
5. (Prayer Book Version). Praise him upon the well tuned cymbals:
praise him upon the loud cymbals. As I have heard these words read monthly
in our churches, it has often come into my thoughts that when we intend to
glorify God with our cymbals, it should not be our only care to have them loud
enough, but our first care should be to have them well tuned, else the louder
the worse. Zeal does very well—there is great, yea, necessary use for it in
every part of God's service. The cymbal will be flat, it will have no life or
spirit in it, it will not be loud enough without it. But if meekness,
peaceableness, and moderation do not first put the cymbal into good tune, the
loudness will but make it the more ungrateful in the player, the more
ungrateful to the hearer.—Robert Sanderson, 1587-1662
Verse
6. Praise ye the Lord. As the life of the faithful, and the
history of the church, so also the Psalter, with all its cries from the depths,
runs out into a Hallelujah.—E.W. Hengstenberg.
Verse
6. Praise ye the LORD. When we have said all we are able to
say for God's praise, we are but to begin anew; for this are we taught by the
renewing of the exhortation, in the close of sundry Psalms, and here also at
the end of all the Psalms: "Praise ye the LORD."—David
Dickson.
Verse
6. Let all breath praise Jah! Hallelujah. The very ambiguity
of "all breath" gives extraordinary richness of meaning to
this closing sentence. From the simple idea of wind instruments, mentioned in
the context, it leads us, by a beautiful transition, to that of vocal,
articulate, intelligent praise, uttered by the breath of living men, as
distinguished from mere lifeless instruments. Then, lastly, by a natural
association, we ascend to the idea expressed in the common version, "everything
that hath breath", not merely all that lives, but all that has a voice
to praise God. There is nothing in the Psalter more majestic or more beautiful
than this brief but most significant finale, in which solemnity of tone
predominates, without however in the least disturbing the exhilaration which
the close of the Psalter seems intended to produce; as if in emblematical
allusion to the triumph which awaits the church and all its members, when
through much tribulation they shall enter into rest.—Joseph Addison Alexander.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1. Praise God in his sanctuary.
1.
In his personal holiness.
2. In the person of his Son.
3. In heaven.
4. In the assembly of saints.
5. In the silence of the heart.
Verses
1-6. God should be praised. Where? (Ps 150:1). Wherefore? (Ps 150:2).
Wherewith? (Ps 150:3-5). By whom? (Ps 150:6).—C.A.D.
Verse
2. His excellent greatness. Wherein the greatness of God is
specially excellent, and where it is best seen.
Verse
2. Praise him for his mighty acts.
1.
For us. Election. Redemption. Inspiration.
2.
In us. The work of enlightenment in the understanding; purification in the
heart; quickening in the conscience; subjugation in the will.
3.
By us. Thought through us; felt through us; spoke through us; worked through us.
To him be all the glory!—W.J.
Verse
2. Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
1.
Reverently, according to the greatness of his being.
2. Gratefully, according to the greatness of his love.
3. Retrospectively, according to the greatness of his gifts.
4. Prospectively, according to the greatness of his promises.—W.J.
Verse
2. What the exhortation requires.
1.
That men should study God's works, and observe the glory of God in them.
2. That they should meditate on his greatness till they realize its excellence.
3. That they should openly proclaim the honour due to him.
4. That they should not contradict in their life the praise they speak.—J.F.
Verse
3. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet.
1.
When you fight.
2. When you conquer.
3. When you assemble.
4. When you proclaim his Word.
5. When you welcome Jubilee.
Verses
3-6.
1.
The variety of the ancient service of worship necessitating serious
expenditure; consecration of high talent; hard and constant toil.
2.
The lessons of such service.
a)
God should be worshipped royally.
b) The efforts of the best genius are his rightful tribute.
c) All human ability cannot place a worthy offering at his feet.
3.
The soul and essential of true worship.
4.
God's requirements as to worship in these present times.—W.B.H.
Verse
6.
1.
The august Giver of "life, and breath, and all things."
2.
The due and true use of the gifts of life.
3.
The resultant swathing of earth in consecrated atmosphere, and millennial
hallelujahs.—W.B.H.
Verse
6. A fitting close to the psalter, considered as a desire, a prayer,
or an exhortation.
1.
As a desire, it realizes the glory due to God, the worship ennobling to man,
the disposition of heart which would make all the world into a holy
brotherhood.
2.
As a prayer, it seeks the downfall of every superstition, the universal spread
of the truth, the conversion of every soul.
3.
As an exhortation, it is plain, pertinent, pure in its piety, perfect in its
charity.—J.F.
HALLELUJAH!
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》