성경 주석서

. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens. By these are meant those regions which are heavens to those who dwell in our heavens; or those most heavenly of abodes where the most choice of spirits dwell. As the highest of the highest, so the best of the best are to praise the Lord. If we could climb as much above the heavens as the heavens are above the earth, we could still cry out to all around us, "Praise ye the Lord." There can be none so great and high as to be above praising Jehovah.

And ye waters that be above the heavens. Let the clouds roll up volumes of adoration. Let the sea above roar, and the fulness thereof, at the presence of Jehovah, the God of Israel. There is something of mystery about these supposed reservoirs of water; but let them be what they may, and as they may, they shall give glory to the Lord our God. Let the most unknown and perplexing phenomena take up their parts in the universal praise.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. Paise him, ye heavens of heavens, etc. From the heavenly inhabitants the poetic strain passes in transition to the heavens themselves. There are orders of heavens, ranks and heights supreme, and stages and degrees of lower altitude. This verse sublimely traverses the immensities which are the home of the most exalted dignities who wait on Deity, and then it descends to the firmament where the meteors flash forth, and where the heavens stoop to lift the clouds that aspire from earth. And the idea sustained is that all these vast realms, higher and lower, are one temple of unceasing praise. Herman Venema.

. The ancients thought there was an ethereal and lofty ocean in which the worlds floated like ships in a sea. Thomas Le Blanc.

Psalms 148:5*

EXPOSITION.

. Let them praise the name of the LORD; for he commanded, and they were created. Here is good argument: The Maker should have honour from his works, they should tell forth his praise: and thus they should praise his name by which his character is intended. The name of JEHOVAH is written legibly upon his works, so that his power, wisdom, goodness, and other attributes are therein made manifest to thoughtful men, and thus his name is praised. The highest praise of God is to declare what he is. We can invent nothing which would magnify the Lord: we can never extol him better than by repeating his name, or describing his character. The Lord is to be extolled as creating all things that exist, and as doing so by the simple agency of his word. He created by a command; what a power is this! Well may he expect those to praise him who owe their being to him. Evolution may be atheistic; but the doctrine of creation logically demands worship; and hence, as the tree is known by its fruit, it proves itself to be true. Those who were created by command are under command to adore their Creator. The voice which said "Let them be", now saith "Let them praise."

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

-6. This is the account of creation in a wordHe spake; it was done. When Jesus came, he went everywhere showing his Divinity by this evidence, that his word was omnipotent. These verses declare two miracles of God's Will and Word, viz., the creation and consolidation of the earth. Jehovah first produced matter, then he ordered and established it. John Lorinus.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

-6. Creation and conservation, two chief reasons for praise.

Psalms 148:6*

EXPOSITION.

. He hath also stablished them for ever and ever. The continued existence of celestial beings is due to the supporting might of Jehovah, and to that alone. They do not fail because the Lord does not fail them. Without his will these things cannot alter; he has impressed upon them laws which only he himself can change. Eternally his ordinances are binding upon them. Therefore ought the Lord to be praised because he is Preserver as well as Creator, Ruler as well as Maker.

He hath made a decree which shall not pass. The heavenly bodies are ruled by Jehovah's decree: they cannot pass his limit, or trespass against his law. His rule and ordination can never be changed except by himself, and in this sense his decree "shall not pass": moreover, the highest and most wonderful of creatures are perfectly obedient to the statutes of the Great King, and thus his decree is not passed over. This submission to law is praise. Obedience is homage; order is harmony. In this respect the praise rendered to Jehovah from the "bodies celestial" is absolutely perfect. His almighty power upholds all things in their spheres, securing the march of stars and the flight of seraphs; and thus the music of the upper regions is never marred by discord, nor interrupted by destruction. The eternal hymn is for ever chanted; even the solemn silence of the spheres is a perpetual Psalm.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. He hath also stablished there for ever and ever, etc. Here two things are set before us, the permanence and the cosmic order of creation. Each created thing is not only formed to endure, in the type or the development, if not in the individual, but has its place in the universe fixed by God's decree, that it may fulfil its appointed share of working out his will. They raise a question as to the words "for ever and ever", how they can be reconciled with the prophecy, Isaiah 65:17: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind"; a prophecy confirmed by the Lord himself, saying, "Heaven and earth shall pass away", and seen fulfilled in vision by the beloved disciple.

Matthew 5:18 Revelation 21:1. And they answer that just as man dies and rises again to incorruption, having the same personality in a glorified body, so will it be with heaven and earth. Their qualities will be changed, not their identity, in that new birth of all things. Neale and Littledale.

. For ever and ever.

My heart is awed within me, when I think

Of the great miracle which still goes on,

In silence, round methe perpetual work

Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed,

For ever. William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878.

. He hath made a decree, etc. Rather, He hath made an ordinance, and will not transgress it. This is more obvious and natural than to supply a new subject to the second verb, "and none of them transgress it." This anticipates, but only in form, the modern scientific doctrine of the inviolability of natural order. It is the imperishable faithfulness of God that renders the law invariable. A.S. Aglen.

Psalms 148:7*

EXPOSITION.

. Praise the LORD from the earth. The song descends to our abode, and so comes nearer home to us. We who are "bodies terrestrial", are to pour out our portion of praise from the golden globe of this favoured planet. Jehovah is to be praised not only in the earth but from the earth, as if the adoration ran over from this planet into the general accumulation of worship. In Psalms 148:1 the song was "from the heavens"; here it is "from the earth": songs coming down from heaven are to blend with those going up from earth. The "earth" here meant is our entire globe of land and water: it is to be made vocal everywhere with praise.

Ye dragons, and all deeps. It would be idle to inquire what special sea monsters are here meant; but we believe all of them are intended, and the places where they abide are indicated by "all deeps." Terrible beasts or fishes, whether they roam the earth or swim the seas, are bidden to the feast of praise. Whether they float amid the teeming waves of the tropics, or wend their way among the floes and bergs of polar waters, they are commanded by our sacred poet to yield their tribute to the creating Jehovah. They pay no service to man; let them the more heartily confess their allegiance to the Lord. About "dragons" and "deeps" there is somewhat of dread, but this may the more fitly become the bass of the music of the Psalm. If there be aught grim in mythology, or fantastic in heraldry, let it praise the incomprehensible Lord.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. Dragons. The word tanninim, rendered "dragons", is a word which may denote whales, sharks, serpents, or sea monsters of any kind (Job 7:1 Ezekiel 29:3). John Morison.

. Sea monsters, in Revised Version. Fishes constrain our admiration, as a created wonder, by the perfection of their form, their magnitude, their adaptation to the element they inhabit, and their multitude. Thus their very nature praises the Creator. Thomas Le Blanc.

-8. He calls to the deeps, dire, hail, snow, mountains, and hills, to bear a part in this work of praise. Not that they are able to do it actively, but to show that man is to call in the whole creation to assist him passively, and should have so much charity to all creatures as to receive what they offer, and so much affection to God as to present to him what he receives from him. Snow and hail cannot bless and praise God, but man ought to bless God for those things, wherein there is a mixture of trouble and inconvenience, something to molest our sense, as well as something that improves the earth for fruit. Stephen Charnock.

-10. Here be many things easy to be understood, they are clear to every eye; as when David doth exhort "kings" and "princes", "old men" and "babes" to praise God; that is easy to be done, and we know the meaning as soon as we look on it; but here are some things again that are hard to be understood, dark and obscure, and they are two:

First, in that David doth exhort dumb, unreasonable, and senseless creatures to praise God, such as cannot hear, at least cannot understand. Doth the Holy Ghost in the gospel bid us avoid impertinent speeches, and vain repetitions, and shall we think he will use them himself? No, no. But,

Secondly, not only doth he call upon these creatures, but also he calls upon the deeps and the seas to praise God; these two things are hard to be conceived. But to give you some reasons.

The first reason may be this, why David calls upon the unreasonable creatures to perform this duty, He doth his duty like a faithful preacher, whether they will hear or no that he preaches to, yet he will discharge his soul: a true preacher, he speaks forth the truth, and calls upon them to hear, though his auditors sleep, are careless, and regard it not. So likewise doth David, in this sense, with these creatures; he doth his duty, and calls upon them to do it, though they understand not, though they comprehend it not. And likewise he doth it to show his vehement desire for all creatures to praise God.

The second reason may be this: he doth it craftily, by way of policy, to incite others to perform this duty, that if such creatures as they ought to do this, then those that are above them in degree have more cause, and may be ashamed to neglect it; as an ill governed master, though he stay himself at home, yet he will send his servants to church: so David, being conscious of his own neglect, yet he calls upon others not to be slack and negligent: though he came infinitely short of that he should do, yet he shows his own desire for all creatures to perform this duty.

But if these reasons will not satisfy you, though they have done many others, a third reason may be this: to set forth the sweet harmony that is among all God's creatures; to show how that all the creatures being God's family, do with one consent speak and preach aloud God's praise; and therefore he calls upon some above him, some below him, on both sides, everywhere, to speak God's praise; for every one in their place, degree, and calling, show forth, though it be in a dumb sense and way, their Creator's praise.

Or, fourthly and lastly, which I think to be a good reason: zeal makes men speak and utter things impossible; the fire of zeal will so transport him that it will make him speak things unreasonable, impossible, as Moses in his zeal desired God, for the safety of Israel, "to blot his name out of his book"; and Paul wished himself "anathema", accursed or separate from Christ, for his brethren's salvation, which was a thing impossible, it could not be. John Everard, in "Some Gospel Treasures", 1653.

-10. The ox and the ass acknowledge their master. The winds and the sea obey him. It should seem that as there is a religion above man, the religion of angels, so there may be a religion beneath man, the religion of dumb creatures. For wheresoever there is a service of God, in effect it is a religion. Thus according to the several degrees and difference of statesthe state of nature, grace, and gloryreligion may likewise admit of degrees. G.G., in a sermon entitled "The Creatures Praysing God", 1662.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

. God's praise from dark, deep, and mysterious things.

Psalms 148:8*

EXPOSITION.

. Fire and hail. Lightning and hailstones go together. In the plagues of Egypt they cooperated in making Jehovah known in all the terrors of his power. Fire and ice morsels are a contrast in nature, but they are combined in magnifying the Lord.

Snow and vapours. Offsprings of cold, or creations of heat, be ye equally consecrated to his praise. Congealed or expanded vapours, falling flakes or rising clouds, should, rising or falling, still reveal the praises of the Lord.

Stormy winds fulfilling his word. Though rushing with incalculable fury, the storm wind is still under law, and moves in order due, to carry out the designs of God. It is a grand orchestra which contains such wind instruments as these! He is a great leader who can keep all these musicians in concert, and direct both time and tune.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. This verse arrays in striking order three elements that are ever full of movement and powerignea, aquea, aërea; fire (or caloric), water (or vapour), and air (or wind). The first includes meteors, lightnings and thunders; the second, snow, hoar frost, dew, mist and rain; the third, breezes, tempests and hurricanes. Hermann Venema.

. Fire and hail. These are contrasted with one another. Snow and mist. The mist is the vapour raised by the heat of the sun, and therefore suitably contrasted with the snow, which is the effect of cold. "Stormy wind" (Psalms 107:25), which accompanies the changes of temperature in the air. James G. Murphy.

. Snow. As sure as every falling flake of winter's snow has a part in the great economy of nature, so surely has every Word of God which falls within the sanctuary its end to accomplish in the moral sphere. I have stood on a winter day and seen the tiny flakes in little clouds lose themselves one by one in the rushing river. They seemed to die to no purposeto be swallowed up by an enemy which ignored both their power and their existence. And so have I seen the Word of God fall upon human hearts. Sent of God, from day to day and from year to year, I have seen it dropping apparently all lack of results into the fierce current of unbeliefinto the fiercer gulf stream of worldliness which was sweeping through the minds and the lives of the hearers. But as I stood upon the river's bank and looked upon what seemed to be the death of the little fluttering crystal, a second thought assured me that it was but death into life, and that every tiny flake which wept its live away in the rushing waters, became incorporate with the river's being. So when I have seen the Word of God fall apparently fruitless upon the restless, seething, rushing current of human life, a recovered faith in the immutable declaration of God has assured me that what I looked upon was not a chance or idle death, but rather the falling of the soldier, after that he had wrought his life force into the destiny of a nation and into the history of a world. And so it must ever be. The Word of God ever reaches unto its end. S.S. Mitchell, in a Sermon entitled "The Coming of the Snow and the Coming of the Word." 1884.

. The stormy wind is the swift messenger of God, Psalms 147:15. The hurricane fulfils the divine command. See Matthew 8:27. "Even the winds and the sea obey him." The "wind" is the minister of judgment. See Ezekiel 13:13. The words of this verse have special use; for men are exceedingly apt to ascribe the violence of tempests to blind chance. Martin Geier.

. The half learned man is apt to laugh at the simple faith of the clown or savage, who tells us that rain comes from God. The former, it seems, has discovered that it is the product of certain laws of air, water, and electricity. But truly the peasant is the more enlightened of the two, for he has discovered the main cause, and the real Actor, while the other has found only the second cause, and the mere instrument. It is as if a friend were to send us a gift of ingenious and beautiful workmanship, and just as our gratitude was beginning to rise to the donor, some bystanders were to endeavour to damp it all, by telling us that the gift is the product of certain machinery he had seen. James MacCosh, 1811.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

. Canon Liddon preached in St. Paul's on Sunday afternoon, December 23, 1883, and took for his text Psalms 148:8, Wind and storm fulfilling his word. He spoke of the divine use of destructive forces.

1. In the physical world we see wind and storm fulfilling God's word.

a) The Bible occasionally lifts the veil, and shows us how destructive forces of Nature have been the servants of God.

b) Modern history illustrates this vividly.

2. In the human, spiritual, and moral world, we find new and rich application of the words of the text.

a) In the State we see the storm of invasion and the storm of revolution fulfilling God's word.

b) In the Church we see the storm of persecution and the storm of controversy fulfilling God's word.

c) In the experience of individual life we see outward troubles, and inward storms of religious doubts fulfilling God's word. The Contemporary Pulpit, 1884.

Psalms 148:9*

EXPOSITION.

. Mountains, and all hills. Towering steeps and swelling knolls alike declare their Creator. "All hills" are to be consecrated; we have no longer Ebal and Gerizim, the hill of the curse and the hill of the blessing, but all our Ebals are turned to Gerizims. Tabor and Hermon, Lebanon and Carmel, rejoice in the name of the Lord. The greater and the lesser mounts are one in their adoration. Not only the Alps and the mountains of the Jura thunder out his praise; but our own Cotswolds and Grampians are vocal with songs in his honour.

Fruitful trees, and all cedars. Fruit trees and forest trees, trees deciduous or evergreen, are equally full of benevolent design, and alike subserve some purpose of love; therefore for all and by all let the great Designer be praised. There are many species of cedar, but they all reveal the wisdom of their Maker. When kings fell them, that they may make beams for their palaces, they do but confess their obligation to the King of trees, and to the King of kings, whose trees they are. Varieties in the landscape are produced by the rising and falling of the soil, and by the many kinds of trees which adorn the land: let all, and all alike, glorify their one Lord. When the trees clap their hands in the wind, or their leaves rustle in the gentle breath of Zephyr, they do to their best ability sing out unto the Lord.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. Mountains and all hills, etc. The diversifying of the face of the earth with higher and lower parts, with mountains, hills, and valleys, and the adorning of the face thereof with trees of varied sorts, contributes much to the praise of God. David Dickson.

. Mountains and all hills. What voices have the hills! How solemn the sounds of the mountains from their sublime solitudes! The mountains thunder, and the hills reecho; but they speak peace and send down plenty to the vales in running rivulets. Thomas Le Blanc.

. Fruitful trees and all cedars. The praise of God is in the rustling voices of the trees. They fulfil his purpose in giving fruit to refresh, and shelter and shadow for a covert, and their murmur is the soft cadence that chants mercy and grace. In India, the ancients reported that the trees were worshipped as divine, and death was a penalty awarded to those who cut them down. In classic mythology the groves were the homes of gods. Jehovah decreed that an ark of safety for man, and also a temple for himself, should be constructed of wood. Thus more than any other created things, the trees of the wood have redounded to his glory. Le Blanc.

. Fruitful trees. Rather fruit trees; the fruit bearing tree being representative of one division of the vegetable world, planted and reared by man; the "cedars" of the other, which are (Psalms 104:16) of God's own plantation. So in Psalms 148:10 we have wild animals and domesticated animals. A.S. Aglen.

. Trees.

All creatures of the eternal God but man,

In several sorts do glorify his name;

Each tree doth seem ten thousand tongues to have,

With them to laud the Lord omnipotent;

Each leaf that with wind's gentle breath doth wave,

Seems as a tongue to speak to that intent,

In language admirably excellent.

The sundry sorts of fragrant flowers do seem

Sundry discourses God to glorify,

And sweetest volumes may we them esteem;

For all these creatures in their several sort

Praise God, and man unto the same exhort. Peter Pett, 1599.

. All cedars. Beautiful indeed is the pine forest in all seasons: in the freshness of spring, when the gnarled boughs are penetrated and mollified by the soft wind and the warm sun, and, thrilled with new life, burst out into fringes and tassels of the richest green, and cones of the most tender purple; beautiful in the sultry summer, when among its cool, dim shadows the heated hours all day sing vespers, while the open landscape is palpitating in the scorching heat; beautiful in the sadness of autumn, when its unfading verdure stands out in striking relief amid changing scenes, that have no sympathy with anything earthly save sorrow and decay, and directs the thoughts to the imperishableness of the heavenly Paradise; beautiful exceedingly in the depth of winter, when the tiers of branches are covered with pure, unsullied wreaths of snow, sculptured by the wind into curves of exquisite grace. It is beautiful in calm, when the tree tops scarce whisper to each other, and the twitter of the golden wren sounds loud in the expectant hush; it is more than beautiful in storm, when the wild fingers of the wind play the most mournful music on its great harp strings, and its full diapason is sublime as the roar of the ocean on a rock bound shore. I do not wonder that the northern imagination in heathen times should have invested it with awe and fear as the favourite haunt of Odin and Thor; or that, in after times, its long rows of trunks, vanishing in the dim perspective, should have furnished designs for the aisles of Christian temples, and the sunset, burning among its fretted branches, should have suggested the gorgeous painted window of the cathedral. It looks like a place made for worship, all its sentiments and associations seem of a sacred and solemn character. Nature, with folded hands, as Longfellow says, seems kneeling there in prayer. It certainly reminds us in various ways of the power, wisdom, and goodness of him who thus spake by the mouth of his prophet: "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it." Hugh Macmillan, in "Bible Teachings in Nature", 1867.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

. Trees. The glory of God as seen in trees.

Psalms 148:10*

EXPOSITION.

. Beasts, and all cattle. Animals fierce or tame; wild beasts and domestic cattle; let all these show forth the praises of Jehovah. Those are worse than beasts who do not praise our God. More than brutish are those who are wilfully dumb concerning their Maker.

Creeping things, and flying fowl. The multitudes that throng the earth and the air; insects of every form and birds of every wing are called upon to join the universal worship. No one can become familiar with insect and bird life without feeling that they constitute a wonderful chapter in the history of divine wisdom. The minute insect marvellously proclaims the Lord's handiwork: when placed under the microscope it tells a wondrous tale. So, too, the bird which soars aloft displays in its adaptation for an aerial life an amount of skill which our balloonists have in vain attempted to emulate. True devotion not only hears the praises of God in the sweet song of feathered minstrels, but even discovers it in the croaking from the marsh, or in the buzz of "the blue fly which singeth in the window pane." More base than reptiles, more insignificant than insects, are songless men.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. Creeping things. In public worship all should join. The little strings go to make up a concert, as well as the great. Thomas Goodwin.

. Flying fowl. Thus the air is vocal. It has a hallelujah of its own. The "flying fowl" praise him; whether it be "the stork that knoweth her appointed time" (Jeremiah 8:7), or "the sparrow alone upon the housetop" (Psalms 102:7), or "the raven of the valley" (Proverbs 30:17), or the eagle "stirring up her nest, and fluttering over her young" (Deuteronomy 32:11), or the turtle making its voice to be heard in the land (So 2:12), or the dove winging its way to the wilderness (Psalms 105:6). This is creation's harp (truer and sweeter than Memnon's) which each sunrise awakens, "turning all the air to music." Horatius Bonar, in "Earth's Morning; or, Thoughts on Genesis", 1875.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

. The wildest, the quietest, the most depressed, and the most aspiring should each have its song.

Psalms 148:11*

EXPOSITION.

. Kings of the earth, and all people: princes, and all judges of the earth. Now the poet has reached our own race, and very justly he would have rulers and subjects, chieftains and magistrates, unite in worshipping the sovereign Lord of all. Monarchs must not disdain to sing, nor must their people refrain from uniting with them. Those who lead in battle and those who decide in courts must neither of them allow their vocations to keep them from reverently adoring the Chief and Judge of all. All people, and all judges, must praise the Lord of all. What a happy day it will be when it is universally acknowledged that through our Lord Jesus, the incarnate Wisdom, "kings reign and princes decree justice"! Alas, it is not so as yet! kings have been patrons of vice, and princes ringleaders in folly. Let us pray that the song of the Psalmist may be realized in fact.

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

. Kings of the earth, and all people; princes. As kings and princes are blinded by the dazzling influence of their station, so as to think the world was made for them, and to despise God in the pride of their hearts, he particularly calls them to this duty; and, by mentioning them first, he reproves their ingratitude in withholding their tribute of praise when they are under greater obligations than others. As all men originally stand upon a level as to condition, the higher persons have risen, and the nearer they have been brought to God, the more sacredly are they bound to proclaim his goodness. The more intolerable is the wickedness of kings and princes who claim exemption from the common rule, when they ought rather to inculcate it upon others, and lead the way. He could have addressed his exhortation at once summarily to all men, as indeed he mentions people in general terms; but by thrice specifying princes he suggests that they are slow to discharge the duty, and need to be urged to it. John Calvin.

. "Kings of the earth"; "judges of the earth"; these are not proud but humiliating titles; for earthly kings and earthly judges will not be kings and judges long.

HINTS TO PREACHERS.

-18.

1. The universal King. Alone in excelling. Supreme in glory.

2. The universal summons. Of all nations, ranks, classes and ages. Foreshadowing the Judgment.

3. The universal duty: praise, constant, emphatic, growing. W.B.H.

Psalms 148:12*

EXPOSITION.