A. The General Hymns

(Pss 67, 68, 75, 103, 113, 115, 117, 134, 146, 147, 149, 150)

1. The language of praise

“Sing [√šr] to God, sing praise [√zmr] to his name,” “extol [√sll] him who rides on the clouds . . . and rejoice [√'lṣ]” (68:4). “Praise [√hll] the Lord” and his name (113:1). “Extol [√šbḥ] him” (117:1); “Bless the Lord” (134:2 [NIV “praise”]). “Sing [√'nh] to the Lord . . .; make music to our God” (147:7). “Sing [√šr] to the Lord a new song” (149:1). “Let Israel rejoice” (√śmḥ), “be glad” (√gl, 149:2). “Let the saints exult” (√'lz) and “sing for joy” (√rnn, 149:5)!

Already in the imperatives of these few general hymns the tone emerges that in the end pervades the Psalter. The other thematically focused hymns in many cases carry this distinctive also, leavening the whole anthology. In the providence of the inspiring Spirit, these invitations that once called the people of God to celebrate in his courts now call the reader/listener to join that praise. The transformation from liturgy to canonical Word has liberated the call from time and place and set it free for myriad uses, calling the reader not only to join the song, but prayerfully and continuously to reflect upon it.

These biblical poets press an extensive vocabulary of joy and exultation into service to draw the worshiper to praise, clumsily noted above by the indications of the Hebrew roots (√) used. Many of the finer distinctions simply escape us and are usually lost in translation (note the repeated “sing” and “praise” for different roots). But we know enough to catch the mood. “Shout for joy” (e.g., 100:1, √r') must have carried intense energy in worship, for it is a word at home as much on the battlefield (e.g., at the wall of Jericho, Jos 6:10) as it is in the house of Yahweh. “Sing” (√rnn) is more akin to a ringing cry than simple “singing.” “Extol” (√sll) seems to command “raising a song.” “Sing” or “make music” (√zmr) calls for instrumental accompaniment. And so on. Charles Wesley echoes the jubilant spirit of these songs when he writes

O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer’s praise,

The glories of my God and King,

The triumphs of his grace!

2. The Worshipers

Whom do these invitations and those in the other hymns address? Who is called to praise? In some few striking cases the invitation nearly stands on its own. Ps 19’s praise reflections on the revelation of God’s glory in the heavens (vv.1-6) and transforming nature of Yahweh’s Law (vv.7-10) proceed without explicit referent until v.11. There the reader discovers the referent all along has been Yahweh. Ps 19 has been, and now explicitly becomes, a prayer: “By them [‘the ordinances of the Lord,’ v.11, and the Law as described before that] is your [Yahweh’s] servant warned.” Ps 93 opens acclaiming the majesty of King Yahweh (v.1), turning to address the Lord directly in v.2, turning away again in v.3, and back to Yahweh for the concluding v.5. Such disjuncture may be due to the liturgical origins of the piece, as we shall see clearly in some other psalms, with various speakers speaking with different referents or different parts of the worshiping congregation in view (cf. Pss 67, 115).

Ps 8 stands alone among the praise songs as addressed entirely directly to Yahweh, a prayer of praise, if you will. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set. . . . You have ordained. . . . You made him. . . . O Lord, our Lord. . . .” From beginning to end the worshiper is faced toward Yahweh with no other person asked to attend and no distracting voice heard.

Some hymns lack specific addressees and are presumably directed to the worshiping congregation, the “assembly of the righteous” of Ps 1: “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord” (95:1); “Give thanks to the Lord” (105:1); “Praise the Lord” (106:1). But this is not typical. Much more often specific parties are called to praise in these hymns, covering the entire spectrum of possible worshipers.

The heavenly court among whom Yahweh sits enthroned (103:19) is summoned en masse (148:1) and by particular name to worship and render praise to Yahweh: the divine council or heavenly court (“sons of God,” 29:1, messengers, i.e., angels, heavenly hosts—the army of God and Yahweh’s servants (103:20; 148:2), along with the heavenly bodies—sun, moon, stars, heavens (96:11; 148:3-4).

The cosmic reach of Yahweh’s praise finds expression in the common call to all creation to praise the Lord. Parallel to the address to the heavenly creation (i.e., “from the heavens”), praise is evoked in general “from the earth” (148:1, 7) and specifically from all sectors of created earth (148:7-10)—earth (as over against the sea) and the sea (96:11; 98:7), distant shores (97:1), fields (96:12), rivers and mountains (98:8). More than idyllic metaphor is at work here. There is apologetic as well. Faith options in Israel’s day judged most of these creatures of Yahweh worthy of divine worship or fear themselves. The Mediterranean was not just “sea” but “Lord Sea.” The river was “Judge River.” “Lady or Lord Sun” shone by day, and the Divine Moon by night. In the Psalter these “gods of the nations” are themselves the creatures of Yahweh, called to bow in praise to him.

This assumed apologetic implies the warning directly issued elsewhere not to trust (or praise) rivals to Yahweh’s undivided claim to worship. “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save,” warns 146:3. Similarly Ps 135:15-18 mocks the gods of the nations, warning of the foolishness of trusting them and exposing the end of those who do. One cannot serve two masters.

The “servants of the Lord” on earth, temple personnel who serve Yahweh night and day there, receive summons as well (113:1; 134:1; 135:1-2). Ps 134 is totally devoted to such a “call to worship,” ending in a blessing upon these ministers of the Lord. Ps 135 concludes by embracing the entire worshiping community in its call—lay worshipers (“house of Israel”), Aaronite priests and their assistants, the Levitical priests, i.e., all who “fear” Yahweh (135:19-20). These songs call those known by their character to praise: all the devout, “the saints” (149:1-2), and the righteous (33:1; 97:12). Zion, Yahweh’s city, and her people (117:1; 146:10; 147:12; 149:2), even her city gates and temple doors (24:7) hear the call to rejoice in their King.

But the horizon of the call to praise does not stop at the people of God. In a movement stamped on the Psalter as it now stands, the collection proclaims the possibility, indeed the necessity of the universal praise of Yahweh. All the earth (96:1; 97:1; 98:4; 100:1); all peoples (117:1) great and small, young and old, male and female (148:11-12); all nations (47:1; 117:1) and people (96:7) receive the invitation to full participation in the worship of Yahweh. God’s judgment of the nations here and now (68:23-30) and the participation of his saints in that warfare (149:6-9) are not abandoned. But the vision here transcends the vision of nations beaten into submission. Joyful, glad service of Yahweh by all the earth, knowledge of his works and character, identification with his people, and appreciation for (and apparent acceptance of) his covenant faithfulness appear in Ps 100!

Twice the direction of address is interior, a self-reflective call to praise.

“Praise the Lord, O my soul;

all my inmost being, praise his holy name.”

103:1; cf. 103:22; 104:1, 35

The worshiper and now the one meditating on Yahweh’s Torah are led to lift praise to Yahweh, who is active in their lives (103:1-4). But even though the call here is interior, self-referential, the hymns themselves focus on Yahweh and his works, not on the worshiper. In fact, couched within the inclusio of Ps 103’s “Praise the Lord, O my soul” is perhaps the most expansive invitation in the entire Psalter:

Praise the Lord, all his works

everywhere in his dominion.

103:22

This anticipates the climactic note with which the entire collection ends—“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (150:6)! Out of such a stance the promise to Abraham has chance of fulfillment, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Ge 12:3). In the framework of this invitation, the command of our Lord to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19) and John Wesley’s “world-parish” spirit are certainly at home.

3. Reasons for praise

Why praise the Lord? A distinctive feature of many of the hymns of praise is the implicit and explicit substantiation of the call to praise by specific reason(s) that prompt the praise. At this point one can often distinguish the various hymn types, because the bases for the praise provide the more specific themes of the various types—Yahweh as Creator and Deliverer, Yahweh as King, harvest and Yahweh’s sovereign activity in history. Nor are these reasons incidental to old covenant faith. They account for the vitality of praise generated in the psalms. Amorphous awareness of some vague transcendental force or mysterious being could never produce the resounding songs found here. The psalmists' faith in the living God of Abraham and Jacob, Creator, Redeemer, Covenant Maker, and much more, and their encounter with the God of the Exodus, Conquest, Davidic dynasty, Exile and Restoration, and the present generate dynamic, focused praise grounded in life.

4. Themes of praise

The general hymns of praise extol less specifically the exalted, incomparable greatness of the Lord (113:2-6; 150:2), his mighty deeds (150:2), and his marvelous rescue for the needy (113:7-9). Or Yahweh’s covenant love and faithfulness (117:2) find praise without elaboration. In Ps 134 the call to praise stands entirely on its own—with no justification, for the praise of God is its own justification and needs no stated reason in the hearts of the saints. Beside Yahweh, the blind, mute, impotent idols are disdained, as those who trust in them are to be pitied (115:3-8).

In several general hymns the themes particularly emphasized elsewhere are intertwined. Ps 103 extols Yahweh for the psalmist’s own rescue from ravages of sin and disease (perhaps linked) to satisfying vigor (103:1-5). But the psalmist’s experience is simply a particular example of Yahweh’s compassionate and forgiving deliverance known in the community’s entire history, the second topic of praise (103:6-18). Historic covenant grace to frail human beings extends still to all who keep Yahweh’s commandments (103:15-18). The song climaxes in praise of King Yahweh, urging praise from all his realm (103:19-22). Ps 146 follows its warning against trusting mortal humans who cannot save (vv.3-4) with blessing upon the one “whose help is the God of Jacob” (v.5). The following description of this “God of Jacob” then is the implied basis for his praise, setting him forth as “Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them”; as faithful upholder of the oppressed, and as King forever—“Praise the Lord” (146:6-10). In Ps 147 the Lord’s building, gathering, healing work in the restoration community (vv.2-3); his amazing wisdom and sustenance of the lowly (vv.4-5); his provision of food through the creation (vv.7-9); his protection of Zion (vv.12-14); his manifestation by command in wind and storm (vv.15-18); and, finally and emphatically in climax, the unique disclosure of his word to Israel (vv.19-20) all expound the exclamation in 147:1:

How good it is to sing praises to our God,

how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

Placed primarily together as they are at the conclusion of the Psalter (Pss 146; 147; 148), these eclectic pieces draw together major motifs from all over the collection, binding them together as with a multicolored cord placed around a treasure and picking up its own hues.

5. Liturgy of Praise

Even though the saints God inspired to edit and arrange the Psalter have left the work without sufficient, specific liturgical direction to serve as the church’s book of worship (see introduction, Ps. 0:12), evidence abounds in these songs of their pre-Scriptural cultic use.

Pss 67 and 115, included in this treatment of “general hymns,” could well have stood by themselves as “liturgical hymns,” for they seem so obviously to have functioned not merely as hymns in a liturgy but as praise liturgies themselves. In each case the frequently changing referent in the addresses and highly mixed form give the surest clues to their liturgical function. Ps 67 begins with invocation with purpose (vv.1-2), moves to indirect call to praise (vv.3-5), and concludes with an affirmation of blessing and call to reverence (6-7). Ps 115 opens with an ascription of praise (v.1) and then moves to affirmation of God’s sovereign superiority to idols (vv.2-8), basing an antiphonal call to “trust in the Lord” and affirmation of help on that superiority (vv.9-11). Vv.12-13 affirm the Lord’s mindful blessing, poetically balancing the preceding section’s call to trust. An invocation of blessing and “increase” follows (vv.14-15), with a concluding instruction and affirmation of praise (vv.16-18).

At the very least, worship at the Jerusalem temple before and after the Exile finds expression at many points, even when the use of the specific psalm in question cannot be discerned. And while the editors apparently did not intend that users of the Psalter should recreate the worship of the Jerusalem temple, they left numerous clues by which we may enter the spirit and atmosphere of that worship.

At no place are these points of entrance clearer than in these hymns of praise and in passages that echo them. As the Psalter stands, the reader concludes this work by entry into a jubilant worship procession of singers and dancers. They do not simply accompany praise to the Lord with their instruments. Rather, the very playing of their instrument and the very movement of their dance is their praise to Yahweh (150:3-5). Not sufficient to refer generally to “musical instruments” (Am 6:5), this song (Ps 150) calls the pieces of the “orchestra” by name, enlisting their use in praise: trumpet (the “shophar” or ram’s horn, v.3; cf. 81:3; 98:6), harp (v.3; cf. 57:8; 92:3; 81:2; 98:5; sometimes a “ten-stringed” harp is specified, 33:1), lyre or harp (v.3; cf. 33:2; 43:4; 49:5; 71:22; 81:2; 147:7; 149:3), tambourine (v.4; cf. 81:2; 149:3), strings (v.4; cf. 45:8), flute (v.4), and two kinds of cymbals (differing in size or volume? v.5). In spite of the fact that the readers do not know how or where these instruments are to be placed or what specific “notes” are to be played, the sights and sounds of a sanctuary full of instruments and musicians rise in persons' minds, drawing them into the sanctuary. Movement of dance (149:3; 150:4) and lifting of the hands (134:2) in praise appear in the picture. Ps 30 shows the dominant association of these sights and sounds with praise and jubilation by contrasting them with sackcloth and wailing (30:11).

You turned my wailing into dancing;

you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

Elsewhere we hear of a grand procession of King Yahweh approaching the temple (68:24-27), with details from the route to the sanctuary to supplement the picture of Ps 150 taken inside its gates. Ps 24 places us right at the walls of the city and/or the temple gates, with the worshipers inquiring in an entrance liturgy (24:3, 7, 9).