Tag: Psalm 148

Commonplace –

“Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven” (Psalm 148:13).

With this psalm, David provides us with a beautiful example of a call to praise. Matthew Henry notes the following:

“This psalm is a most solemn and earnest call to all the creatures, according to their capacity, to praise their Creator, and to show forth his eternal power and Godhead, the invisible things of which are manifested in the things that are seen. Thereby the psalmist designs to express his great affection to the duty of praise; he is highly satisfied that God is praised, is very desirous that he may be more praised, and therefore does all he can to engage all about him in this pleasant work, yea, and all who shall come after him, whose hearts must be very dead and cold if they be not raised and enlarged, in praising God, by the lofty flights of divine poetry which we find in this psalm.” (641).

It is a call to all creation everywhere: material, living, sentient, rational creation, along with nonmaterial, nonliving, nonsentient, nonrational creation. His praise, even greater than a flood, engulfs all creation to its fullest extent.

Works Cited

Henry, Matthew. “Psalm 148.” Matthew Henry’s Commentary On the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition. Volume 3 and Volume 6, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., March 1996.

Holy Bible: Giant Print with Study Aids. Dugan Publishers, Inc., 1984.

© 2025 Angela Hormberg