Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight

This psalm is an expression of an extraordinary enthusiastic and grateful surge of feeling of the Hebrew people, calling upon both bodiless Angels (verses 1–2) and all heavenly luminaries (verses 3–6), and all that is on earth – the forces and phenomena of nature, the plant and animal world (verses 7–10), all people and all nations (verses 11–12) – to praise the Lord for the exaltation of His chosen one, His people (verses 13–14).

Psalm 148:1. Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights. Psalm 148:2. Praise Him, all His Angels, praise Him, all His hosts. “To praise... from the heavens,” “to praise... in the heights” – the Angels are called to praise the Lord as His nearest servants, dwelling primarily in heaven. – “Hosts” – the various ranks of Angels, constituting as it were the army of the King of heaven.

Psalm 148:5. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He spoke, and they came into being, He commanded, and they were created, Psalm 148:6. He established them forever and ever; He gave a decree that will not pass away. All the luminaries in the heaven fulfill the deeds appointed to them by the Lord. The law determining the course and movement of the luminaries “will not pass away” – it is immutable, as given by the Being Who is all-knowing and all-powerful, in Whose deeds and commandments there cannot be anything erroneous, imperfect, and therefore needing correction or annulment.

Psalm 148:8. Fire and hail, snow and fog, a stormy wind that fulfills His word, The movement of wind, so incomprehensible to a person as to the laws of its origin and action, and apparently completely free, fulfills “His word,” i.e., is subject to the will of the Lord just as all other forces and phenomena of nature.

Psalm 148:13. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and the heavens. All the earthly and heavenly world is called to praise the Lord, for He is the One True Lord, and everything existing in heaven and on earth owes its origin to Him and its rational arrangement, which thereby testifies to His glory.

Psalm 148:14. He has raised up a horn for His people, praise for all His saints, for the sons of Israel, the people near to Him. Alleluia. “Horn” – a symbol of strength. To raise up the “horn” of the Hebrews – to give them strength and significance which are recognized and valued by other nations. The return of the Hebrews from captivity, the building of Jerusalem, and the new, independent life began for them precisely from the moment of settlement in Palestine. This moment fills them with such joyful feeling and is so significant in their eyes that together with the Hebrews, the entire world is called to thanksgiving to the Lord.