Psalm 150
Introduction
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Explanatory Notes & Quaint Sayings
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…
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.
Verse 3
Trumpets and horns are the only instruments concerning which any directions are given in the law.—James Anderson. 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,…
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.
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…
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. Praise ye the LORD.
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? . Wherefore? . Wherewith? . By whom? .—C.A.D. Verse 2. His excellent greatness.
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.