Psalms

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Psalm 150 & Epilogue

Alleluia!

Praise God in his holy place,
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his powerful deeds,
praise his surpassing greatness.

O praise him with sound of trumpet,
praise him with lute and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance,
praise him with strings and pipes.

O praise him with resounding cymbals,
praise him with clashing of cymbals.
Let everything that lives and breathes
give praise to the Lord. Alleluia!

Commentary


At last we reach the final crashing crescendo of the Psalter, and it is all praise. The Psalter began with “Happy is the man”, but ends with Give praise to the Lord!” It began with the two ways open to everyone, and demonstrated that people take different paths, some good, some evil. It ends with all evil eliminated – the chaff is gone: we are left with the true People of God expressing the highest sentiments of religion, for praise is the consummation of all religion. No division exists between earth and heaven, or within the community of God’s people; none exists within any part of creation, for “all that breathes” joins in the praise of God with one mind and heart. This psalm, therefore, illustrates the final state of the Church, after everything has been renewed in Christ, when we stand together to celebrate for ever the praise of the Triune God for the marvel that He is and the wonders that He has done.

Between these two poles we have experienced with the psalm writers the normal ups and downs of the spiritual life. We went from the unbelief and rebellion of the nations in Psalm 2 to the consequences of the two ways in Psalm 3, where the good suffer at the hands of the wicked. We searched for peace of mind in Psalm 4, while contemplating the marvel of our election by God in Psalm 8, notwithstanding our nothingness. Psalm 19 showed us how to find God, either through nature or the Scriptures. Psalms 20 and 21 made us look for deeper depths than we might first suspect, for the psalms have a prophetic role in preparing us for the revelation of Messiah. Psalm 22 depicted the Messiah for us as the servant of God who would redeem us by incredible suffering, yet He would be the gentle loving shepherd as described in Psalm 23.

Our search for Him leads us into a spiritual journey that entails the conquest of fear, anxiety and all sinfulness in ourselves as we saw in Psalms 27 and 30. We also learn the joy of repentance and forgiveness in Psalms 32 and 51, as we struggle to pray and know Him better in Psalms 42 and 43, while learning how to offer to God true worship in Psalm 50. We discover that trust in God is the eye of the storm in Psalm 62, while our longing for deeper intimacy grew in Psalm 63. Desolation is part of our experience of God, as we saw in Psalm 88, and we discovered our need for protection on the journey in Psalm 91. Consolation follows on desolation in a new encounter with God in Psalm 95, and it leads us to one of our peak moments in Psalm 96. The whole experience revealed God’s incredible love to us in Psalm 103, and to a deeper sense of His greatness when we discover a new depth of our own nothingness in Psalm 113. This sends us on our way singing a new pilgrim song in Psalm 121, and we learn the wisdom of
keeping our eyes on the Lord in Psalm 123. The great liberation from the domination of the self is celebrated in Psalm 126, while we surrender to the Lord as the master builder of Church and state in Psalm 127. Now serene joy is ours as we let God be God for us and for everyone else in Psalm 131, and celebrate the wonder of our own creation in Psalm 139. Then at last we can join the universal grand finale of earth and heaven in the last choruses of the Psalter as the redeemed and joy-filled children of God.

Alleluia!

Praise God in his holy place,
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his powerful deeds,
praise his surpassing greatness.

O praise him with sound of trumpet,
praise him with lute and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance,
praise him with strings and pipes.

O praise him with resounding cymbals,
praise him with clashing of cymbals.
Let everything that lives and breathes
give praise to the Lord. Alleluia!
                                         (vv. 1-6).

Present in the sanctuary or the house of God, the redeemed community, united with all creation and with the heavenly hosts, stand to sing the last solemn Halleluia Chorus that is the final response from man to God, a song as everlasting as the goodness and mercy of God that caused  it. It is as if God had said to the covenant community that was ready now for the revelation of Messiah in the Old Testament, and to the Church, ready now for the second coming of Jesus: “Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth . . . the song of the dove is heard in our land . . . Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!”

The response is that community and creation arise as one, harnessing all the instruments of music in order to express its exultation in being created, sustained, called, chosen and redeemed, by so great a God as the father of Israel. Since all has been said, it remains only to give the standing ovation in a sustained fortissimo of praise. The inanimate musical instruments lend power, volume and drama to the swelling hearts of men and women who are lost in praise and wonder, thanksgiving and joy.

The Book of Revelation gives us a glimpse into Heaven in chapter 5, where the scene is very similar to this. All Heaven had its eyes trained on Him who sits upon the throne, and on the Lamb. The chorus of praise began with four animals who prostrated themselves before the throne and the twenty-four elders who sang a new hymn to the Lamb: “You are worthy to take the scroll and break the seals of it, because you were sacrificed, and with your blood you bought men for God of every race, language, people and nation and made them a line of kings and priests to serve our God and to rule the world.” This was the proclamation of praise that won an ecstatic response from all the dwellers of heaven. An immense number of angels responded first with shouts of praise: “The Lamb that was sacrificed is worthy to be given power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing.” This response of the angels was taken up by all living things including animals and humans who declared: “To the One sitting upon the throne
and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever and ever” (J.B.).

 

Epilogue


In this short book I have shared with you less than one third of the psalms, and I have not tried to cover all the themes to be found in the Psalter. To do so would require a much bigger work than the present one. I have limited myself to following some of the psalms which throw light on the various stages of the spiritual life, psalms which deal with the most common difficulties to be found along the way. It is wonderful to realize that men who lived two thousand five hundred years ago can still share the riches of their lives with us. This is because the psalms have divine inspiration, because their message is universal in its scope and so true to authentic human experience.

Perhaps you will be able to extract the messages from the rest of the psalms when you see the different ways in which I have approached them. There are many ways to deal with the psalms. One of the most popular is to take a theme and go through the whole Psalter finding out what it teaches on this subject. We can also look for the prophetic verses which are scattered through the whole Psalter. This leads us to research the New Testament in order to find the fulfilment of the prophecies, which can be exciting. And there are other ways too.

Nevertheless there is no substitute for quiet, deep, meditative reading of the psalms, especially in the presence of God, where we allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten us to the fuller meaning of the verses before us. As we learn to apply the lessons of the psalms to our lives we will experience their life-giving quality, for we will grow in wisdom and understanding as we allow God’s Word to guide our lives into all truth.

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