Psalm 148-150; Genesis 1-2, Isaiah 6, Revelation 4-5.
We come to the end of the Psalter, to the last three psalms called the “Praises” that are sung during Sunday’s morning prayer, and to the end of this series on “Light from the Psalter.” Of course, there are more psalms to be prayed, and there is always more light to be had in the praying of every psalm, but the psalms used for Vespers and Orthros take us deeply into the mind and heart of the Psalmists. As we might expect, we end on a high note of praise, just as the Psalter began with a description of the true man—for the very purpose of humanity is to praise and worship the LORD. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann remarks in For the Life of the World, humanity is not first and foremost homo sapiens (man who exhibits wisdom) nor even homo faber (man who makes) but homo adorans (man who worships). Though we are not given this vignette in Genesis, we can assume that the very first act of Adam and Eve, before the fall, was to worship that LORD who invited them to walk with them in the Garden. And here, at the end of the Psalter, we see the primary calling of humanity to worship God, leading the whole creation with our praises (Psalm 148), praising Him both in the sacred assembly and out in a hostile world (Psalm 149), and praising Him with everything that we have made and everything that we are (Psalm 150).
Here are the three Psalms:
Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD!
For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying fowl!
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and maidens together, old men and children!
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the LORD! (Psalm 148)Praise the LORD!
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints!
Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
For the LORD takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds;
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth
and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples,
to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron,
to execute on them the judgment written!
This is honor for all his saints.
Praise the LORD! (Psalm 149)Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD! (Psalm 150)
The three psalms unfold naturally, speaking first of the praise of all creation, then of the praise of God’s people in particular, then of the means by which humanity praises God. Psalm 148 provides us with a retrospective view of creation, following Genesis 1 rather closely, but prefacing it with an acknowledgement of the angels, whose origin was before the creation of our own world. Heaven, the hosts, and the angels take first place in the praises, as we know from our glimpses into the celestial world, from Isaiah 6, and Revelation 4-5. In Isaiah 6 it is the angels who sing continually “Holy, holy, holy!” while also acknowledging that “the whole world is full of God’s glory!” In Revelation 4-5, it is the four-winged “creatures” who sing “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God Almighty who was and is and is to come!” In Isaiah, it is the song of the seraphim that preludes God’s commissioning of the prophet to speak to God’s people; in Revelation, it is the song of the winged creatures that prefaces the song of the 24 elders and the worship of the entire cosmos. In one way, they take priority: but it another we see that they are “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1:14) who pave the way or catalyze humanity to engage in its own particular calling of worship. In terms of origin and “present” proximity to God, they are first: but we see that the deep intimacy with God is a gift given to humanity, made in God’s very image.
And so Genesis has not really mixed up the order, but begun with the created inanimate objects—sky, heavenly bodies and stars, wind, snow, rain, plants—then moving to the animate objects—animals of various kinds including the mysterious sea creatures—and finally ending with the crown of the creation, humanity. The Psalter, after nodding to the angelic hosts, follows this same sequence, suggesting that praise comes naturally or instinctively from the creation as each element does what God has created it to do: shine, make cold, give refreshment, and so on. Finally, though, we hear of kings and their subjects, of other rulers, of men and women, of old and young: all are men called not simply to exist, but to reasonably praise. And they are given a reason to praise, as is the habit of the Psalmist. They praise because they know that God has raised up for them “the horn”—the Messiah, the leader—who will rejoin them to the God who created them. This “horn” is the representative of every human, of high and low degree, male or female, young or old. It is by Christ alone, our horn, that every member of the creation can fully give praise to God by doing what it was made to do, and we humans are called to a more informed praise. St. John Chrysostom reminds us of this wonder, that we join with the angels in knowing why we praise the LORD, though He remains mysterious to us:
[W]hat God actually is, not only have the prophets not seen, but not even angels or archangels. If you ask them, you will not hear them reply anything about his substance, but only singing, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth among people of good will.”5 If you desire to learn something even from the cherubim or seraphim, you will hear the mystical melody of his holiness and that “heaven and earth are full of his glory.” If you inquire of the higher powers, you will discover nothing else than that their one work is to praise God, for, “Praise him, all his powers,” the psalmist said.
(Homilies on the Gospel of John 15 FC 33:143, alt.)
It is not that God needs our praises, but that we are invited into the wonder of His presence in the world. As St. Ambrose reminds us, “God has no need of human assistance. God commanded the heavens to come into existence, and it was done. He decided to create the earth, and it was created….. Who helped him with the work? These things were done in a moment. Do you want to know how quickly? “He spoke, and they were made.” (On His Brother Satyrus, 2.85 FC 22:234).
Psalm 149 moves on from the old story of creation to a “new” song of victory. St. Augustine reminds us of our privilege of knowing the end of God’s story through Jesus and the resurrection. He admonishes us:
My brothers and sisters, my children, O seedlings of the catholic church, O holy and heavenly seed, O you that have been born again in Christ and been born from above, listen to me—or rather, listen to God through me: “Sing to the Lord a new song.” “Well, I am singing,” you say. Yes, you are singing, of course you are singing, I can hear you. But do not let your life give evidence against your tongue. Sing with your voices, sing also with your hearts; sing with your mouths, sing also with your conduct. “Sing to the Lord a new song.” You ask what you should sing about the one you love? For of course you do want to sing about the one you love. You are asking for praises of his to sing. You have been told, “Sing to the Lord a new song.” You are looking for songs of praise, are you? “His praise is in the church of the saints.” The praise of the one to be sung about is the singer himself. Do you want to sing God his praises? Be yourselves what you sing. You are his praise if you lead good lives.
Sermon 34.6 WSA 3 2:168 (alt)
St. Augustine reminds us that our praises are to be reasonable and whole-hearted—in fact, wholly embodied. So important is this human, embodied element of our praises that the Psalmist even speaks about the call to rejoice in God while we are sleeping: “the saints…will rejoice in their beds.” As St. Gregory the Great remarks, the person who has fled obvious evils that would seek to dominate the body can come to the place where “they can give glory securely within the secret recesses of their minds” (Morals on the Book of Job 8.24.41, CCL143:412).
From our vantage point in Christ, we perhaps cringe a bit at the exultation of this Psalm against those who do not believe, who have plagued the believer: it is, suggests the Psalm, the prerogative of the faithful to take up the two-edged sword and “execute vengeance on the nations.” Justice is certainly important: but we have learned through Christ that true strength is seen in mercy, and have been called to take up the two-edged sword of the Scriptures, which can bring many to repentance and new life. So to the “new song” of victory in Psalm 149 we bring the newest song of Revelation 5, which reminds us that God has and continues to make of all races “a kingdom and priests to our God,” who will reign on earth in the style of the slain Lamb, helping to bring in that life won for all who believe. If the Psalmist of the Old Covenant thought of bringing about justice as the “honor” of the saints, our calling is inestimably greater. We are called to carry our cross, suffer in taking on the mind of Christ, and so witness to the fullness of God’s truth and love.
Then, we finish with the great rejoicing of Psalm 150, where everything that lives is given over to adoration. This is true of those in the “highest heaven” but also of human beings, along with everything that they have made. Our voices sing, and by extension so too do the works of our hands: whether instruments, or icons, or other things that we have made, in echo of the Creator of all. Everything that God has brought to life, that “has breath” is enjoined to enter into this eternal, ongoing chorus of praise. As St. Basil the Great remarks, all creation “harmoniously sings a hymn of praise to the Creator through the language assigned to it” (Homilies on the Hexaemeron 3.9. FC 46: 52-53.) It is in the final psalm that homo adorans, homo sapiens, and homo faber comes together—our adoration is not simply in our mouths, but is seen in the God-given tools of our reasoning, and also in our sub-creative power, all laid at the feet of the Creator and Redeemer of all.
One of the ways in which God’s praise is sounded is through the Psalms themselves, which God inspired in the hearts and minds of human beings who were close to Him. This is true of the Bible in general, which mirrors our Lord Jesus, the God-Man, in being both a divine and human book. In the next session, we will turn to those books of the Old Testament that are not known so well among the faithful community: those works that are called Apocrypha by Protestants, Deuterocanonical by Catholics, and “the Readable Books” by the Orthodox. Many of the themes and stories in these books concern ordinary human life and families, though they occasionally rise to the transcendent realm. In these, whether they highlight the ordinary or extraordinary, we see our God at work. Since the Church fathers deemed them “readable,” we will read them and see what light they shed on our understanding of God’s work among us.
Edith M. Humphrey 