Psalm 150
6 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 149×3Psalms 145×21 Chronicles 15×2Psalms 134×1Psalms 116×1Deuteronomy 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The Psalter's final doxology, every line a summons. Where: 'Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.' Why: 'for his mighty acts… according to his excellent greatness.' How: with trumpet, psaltery and harp, timbrel and dance, stringed instruments and pipe, loud cymbals and high sounding cymbals, the whole orchestra of Israel. Who: 'Let every thing that hath breath praise Jehovah.' Five books of tears, history, and hope end on one word: 'Praise ye Jehovah.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 150The history
The last psalm is a list of instruments, and it is the temple orchestra. Chronicles records David organizing the Levites into companies of singers and players, and the same families are still named centuries later.
The horn is the ram's horn, a signal instrument that announced the new moon, the year of release, and the alarm — not a melody instrument at all. The harp and lyre are the wooden framed string instruments the Levites played. The hand drum is a small frame drum held and struck with the fingers, the one carried by dancing women. Pipes were reed instruments, and there were two kinds of cymbals: bronze plates that clashed and larger, louder ones that rang.
Where and why come first. Praise him in his sanctuary and in his mighty expanse — the temple below and the sky above — and praise him for his mighty deeds and according to his surpassing greatness. Only then does the equipment list start.
The final line drops the instruments entirely: let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Breath is the one thing every living creature has, and it is the last requirement the book asks for.
What it meant to them
The Psalter opened with one man meditating quietly on God's law day and night. It ends with the entire temple orchestra going at once and every breathing thing on earth joining in.
For the first hearers that arc was the promise: the private, difficult, often tearful road of the earlier psalms was always headed somewhere loud.
Sources cited
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 150. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 6 · Bookends: the same words open and close
The Psalter is framed on purpose. It opens with the wisdom portal of Psalms 1–2 (the two ways, and the enthroned Son) and closes with five straight hallelujah psalms (146–150) ending “let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.” Torah at the door, praise at the end.
Psalms 1:1→Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (1985) / 'Shape of the Book of Psalms' (1992); critique: Whybray, Reading the Psalms as a Book (1996)
Where scholars push back(1)
Psalms 1:1. Whybray (Reading the Psalms as a Book, 1996) argues the editorial shaping Wilson proposed is lighter than claimed and that the collection grew more loosely than a single designed frame.
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.