PSALM 150

Finished!

1 Hallelujah! (Praise Yah!) [1]

Praise God in His sanctuary;	Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
2 Praise Him for His mighty deeds;	Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
3 Praise Him with trumpet sound;	Praise Him with harp [2] and lyre.
4 Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;	Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;	Praise Him with resounding cymbals.[3]
6 Let everything that has breath Praise Yahweh.
Hallelujah! (Praise Yah!) [4]

[1] “No other use of breath could be more right and true to life than praise of the LORD. No other sound could better speak the gratitude of life than praise of the LORD” (Mays, Psalms, 451).

“To praise God is to live, and to live is to praise God” (McCann, 1279).

[2]

Musicians at a banquet. From left to right: harp player (singing), lute player (singing) with plectrum, double-pipe player. From the tomb of Amenemhet, 15^th cent. b.c. (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised, 3:441)

[3] “We should not look at these instruments as abstractions, as instruments without any background, history, or character to them. Nor should we read this psalm as saying, “If we really want to worship God, we must have a trumpet, a tambourine, and cymbals.” No, I suspect that as the pious Israelite heard this psalm read he would have thought very much of the occasions on which these instruments were used in the history of God's people. These instruments are so richly attached to crucial experiences in Israel's worship and national life that as the people of God read or sang this psalm, their minds would have gone back to those events” (Robert Godfrey, “What does it mean to Praise? A Look at Psalm 150” Modern Reformation, Jan./Feb. Vol. 5 No. 1 1996).

[4] The book of Psalms ends with all creation and everything that has breath praising Yahweh, Hallelu-yah. The book of Proverbs ends with the godly household praising the excellent wife, Hallelu-hah.

Duke Ellington did a rendition of Psalm 150 called “Praise God and Dance.”