Psalm 148:13

Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Excellent.—Rather, exalted. As in Isaiah 12:4. So LXX. and Vulg.

Above the earth and heaven.—There is a fine artistic touch in the order of the words in this. All heaven and earth have been summoned to the chorus of praise, of Him who is now declared to be above earth and heaven.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 148:13-14. Let them praise, &c. — Let them acknowledge and celebrate the wisdom, goodness, and power of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent — For how great soever any other beings may be, there is none equal to him, whose most excellent majesty infinitely surpasses that of all other beings; and whose glory is above the earth and heaven — Above all that the earth or heaven can utter of him. He also exalteth the horn of his people — And so great is God’s condescension unto us, the children of Israel, that he takes a peculiar care of us, hath bestowed upon us many peculiar benefits, and raised us to the highest pitch of honour, especially to this, that he hath brought us more near to himself than any other people upon the earth, and hath placed among us a visible token of his presence: we therefore are under peculiar obligations to praise him for his singular kindness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

148:7-14 Even in this world, dark and bad as it is, God is praised. The powers of nature, be they ever so strong, so stormy, do what God appoints them, and no more. Those that rebel against God's word, show themselves to be more violent than even the stormy winds, yet they fulfil it. View the surface of the earth, mountains and all hills; from the barren tops of some, and the fruitful tops of others, we may fetch matter for praise. And assuredly creatures which have the powers of reason, ought to employ themselves in praising God. Let all manner of persons praise God. Those of every rank, high and low. Let us show that we are his saints by praising his name continually. He is not only our Creator, but our Redeemer; who made us a people near unto him. We may by the Horn of his people understand Christ, whom God has exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, who is indeed the defence and the praise of all his saints, and will be so for ever. In redemption, that unspeakable glory is displayed, which forms the source of all our hopes and joys. May the Lord pardon us, and teach our hearts to love him more and praise him better.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let them praise the name of the Lord - Let them praise Yahweh - the name being often put for the person.

For his name alone is excellent - Margin, as in Hebrew, exalted. He only is exalted as God. See the notes at Psalm 8:1 : "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

His glory is above the earth and heaven - Compare the notes at Psalm 113:4 : "The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens." See also the notes at Psalm 8:1 : "Who hast set thy glory above the heavens."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. Let them—all mentioned.

excellent—or, exalted (Isa 12:4).

his glory—majesty (Ps 45:3).

above the earth and heaven—Their united splendors fail to match His.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Not so much in place as in excellency, above all the glories which are in earth and in heaven.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let them praise the name of the Lord, His nature and perfections, and celebrate the glory of them; and his wonderful works, and the blessings of his goodness, both of providence and grace; even all the above creatures and things, celestial and terrestrial, for the following reasons;

for his name alone is excellent; the name of the Lord is himself, who is excellent in power, wisdom, goodness, truth, and faithfulness, and in all other perfections of his nature; his works, by which he is known, are excellent, both of nature and of grace, and proclaim his glory; his Son, in whom his name is, and by whom he has manifested himself, is excellent as the cedars; and so are all his precious names by which he is called; and such is the Gospel, by which he is notified to the world: nay, the Lord's name is alone excellent; all creature excellencies are nothing in comparison of him, in heaven or in earth, those of angels and men; and therefore should be praised by all, and above all;

his glory is above the earth and heaven; there is the glory of celestial and terrestrial bodies, which differ; the glory of the sun, moon, and stars, and of one star from another; but the glory of the divine Being, the Creator of them, infinitely exceeds the glory of them all: his glorious Majesty resides above heaven and earth; the heaven is the throne be sits upon, and the earth the footstool he stands on; and Christ, who is sometimes called his glory, and is the brightness of it, Psalm 63:2; is exalted above every name on earth, and is made higher than the heavens, and so is exalted above all blessing and praise; see Psalm 8:1.

Geneva Study Bible

Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. is excellent] Is exalted, as in Isaiah 12:4. On excellent, excellency, in A.V. and P.B.V., see note in Driver’s Daniel, p. 32.

his glory] His majesty. Cp. Psalm 8:1; Psalm 104:1; Psalm 145:5; Habakkuk 3:3.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Let them praise the Name of the Lord. This is the burden of the entire psalm (see especially ver. 5, and comp. vers. 1-4, 7, and 14). For his Name alone is excellent; or, "exalted" (comp. Psalm 8:1; Isaiah 12:4). The exaltation of God's Name is effected mainly by the praises which his rational creatures render to him. His glory is above the earth and heaven. (On God's "glory," see Psalm 8:1; Psalm 19:1; Psalm 57:5, 11; Psalm 63:2; Psalm 89:17, etc.) "Earth and heaven" is an unusual phrase; the terms are commonly inverted. Here, perhaps, the order may be accounted for by the law of climax. "His glory is not only above the earth, but even above the heavens." Psalm 148:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The call to the praise of Jahve is now turned, in the second group of verses, to the earth and everything belonging to it in the widest extent. Here too מן־הארץ, like מן־השּׁמים, Psalm 148:1, is intended of the place whence the praise is to resound, and not according to Psalm 10:18 of earthly beings. The call is addressed in the first instance to the sea-monsters or dragons (Psalm 74:13), i.e., as Pindar (Nem. iii. 23f.) expresses it, θῆρας ἐν πελάγεΐ ὑπερο'χους, and to the surging mass of waters (תּהמות) above and within the earth. Then to four phenomena of nature, coming down from heaven and ascending heavenwards, which are so arranged in Psalm 148:8, after the model of the chiasmus (crosswise position), that fire and smoke (קטור), more especially of the mountains (Exodus 19:18), hail and snow stand in reciprocal relation; and to the storm-wind (רוּח סערה, an appositional construction, as in Psalm 107:25), which, beside a seeming freeness and untractableness, performs God's word. What is said of this last applies also to the fire, etc.; all these phenomena of nature are messengers and servants of God, Psalm 104:4, cf. Psalm 103:20. When the poet wishes that they all may join in concert with the rest of the creatures to the praise of God, he excepts the fact that they frequently become destructive powers executing judicial punishment, and only has before his mind their (more especially to the inhabitant of Palestine, to whom the opportunity of seeing hail, snow, and ice was more rare than with us, imposing) grandeur and their relatedness to the whole of creation, which is destined to glorify God and to be itself glorified. He next passes over to the mountains towering towards the skies and to all the heights of earth; to the fruit-trees, and to the cedars, the kings among the trees of the forest; to the wild beasts, which are called חחיּה because they represent the most active and powerful life in the animal world, and to all quadrupeds, which, more particularly the four-footed domestic animals, are called בּהמה; to the creeping things (רמשׂ) which cleave to the ground as they move along; and to the birds, which are named with the descriptive epithet winged (צפּור כּנף as in Deuteronomy 4:17, cf. Genesis 7:14; Ezekiel 39:17, instead of עוף כּנף, Genesis 1:21). And just as the call in Psalm 103 finds its centre of gravity, so to speak, at last in the soul of man, so here it is addressed finally to humanity, and that, because mankind lives in nations and is comprehended under the law of a state commonwealth, in the first instance to its heads: the kings of the earth, i.e., those who rule over the earth by countries, to the princes and all who have the administration of justice and are possessed of supreme power on the earth, then to men of both sexes and of every age.

All the beings mentioned from Psalm 148:1 onwards are to praise the Name of Jahve; for His Name, He (the God of this Name) alone (Isaiah 2:11; Psalm 72:18) is נשׂגּב, so high that no name reaches up to Him, not even from afar; His glory (His glorious self-attestation) extends over earth and heaven (vid., Psalm 8:2). כּי, without our being able and obliged to decide which, introduces the matter and the ground of the praise; and the fact that the desire of the poet comprehends in יהללוּ all the beings mentioned is seen from his saying "earth and heaven," as he glances back from the nearer things mentioned to those mentioned farther off (cf. Genesis 2:4). In Psalm 148:14 the statement of the object and of the ground of the praise is continued. The motive from which the call to all creatures to Hallelujah proceeds, viz., the new mercy which God has shown towards His people, is also the final ground of the Hallelujah which is to sound forth; for the church of God on earth is the central-point of the universe, the aim of the history of the world, and the glorifying of this church is the turning-point for the transformation of the world. It is not to be rendered: He hath exalted the horn of His people, any more than in Psalm 132:17 : I will make the horn of David to shoot forth. The horn in both instances is one such as the person named does not already possess, but which is given him (different from Psalm 89:18, Psalm 89:25; Psalm 92:11, and frequently). The Israel of the Exile had lost its horn, i.e., its comeliness and its defensive and offensive power. God has now given it a horn again, and that a high one, i.e., has helped Israel to attain again an independence among the nations that commands respect. In Psalm 132, where the horn is an object of the promise, we might directly understand by it the Branch (Zemach). Here, where the poet speaks out of his own present age, this is at least not the meaning which he associates with the words. What now follows is an apposition to ויּרם קרן לעמּו: He has raised up a horn for His people - praise (we say: to the praise of; cf. the New Testament εἰς ἔπαινον) to all His saints, the children of Israel, the people who stand near Him. Others, as Hengstenberg, take תּהלּה as a second object, but we cannot say הרים תּהלּה. Israel is called עם קרבו, the people of His near equals of His nearness or vicinity (Kster), as Jerusalem is called in Ecclesiastes 8:10 מקום קדושׁ instead of קדשׁ מקום (Ew. 287, a, b). It might also be said, according to Leviticus 10:3, עם קרביו, the nation of those who are near to Him (as the Targum renders it). In both instances עם is the governing noun, as, too, surely גּבר is in גּבר עמיתי ni, Zechariah 13:7, which need not signify, by going back to the abstract primary signification of עמית, a man of my near fellowship, but can also signify a man of my neighbour, i.e., my nearest man, according to Ew. loc. cit. (cf. above on Psalm 145:10). As a rule, the principal form of עם is pointed עם; and it is all the more unnecessary, with Olshausen and Hupfeld, to take the construction as adjectival for עם קרוב לו. It might, with Hitzig after Aben-Ezra, be more readily regarded as appositional (to a people, His near, i.e., standing near to Him). We have here an example of the genitival subordination, which is very extensive in Hebrew, instead of an appositional co-ordination: populo propinqui sui, in connection with which propinqui may be referred back to propinquum equals propinquitas, but also to propinquus (literally: a people of the kind of one that is near to Him). Thus is Israel styled in Deuteronomy 4:7. In the consciousness of the dignity which lies in this name, the nation of the God of the history of salvation comes forward in this Psalm as the leader (choragus) of all creatures, and strikes up a Hallelujah that is to be followed by heaven and earth.