Psalms 150:1-6
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:a praise him with the psaltery and harp.
4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance:b praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
The full choir, the full band, and the full heart, are here exhorted to praise the Lord. Surely this, when holy prophets joined in the worship, must resemble heaven itself. But oh how can drunkards, swearers, harlots, and infidels go about polluting churches by singing their Messiah?
Psalms 150:3. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the psaltery. 1 Samuel 10:5. Praise him with the harp, the kinnor.
Psalms 150:4. Praise him with the timbrel, the tambour. Praise him with the machol, as in Psalms 149:3. Praise him with the minnim, a stringed instrument. Praise him with the uggab, a kind of organ.
Psalms 150:5. Praise him with the cymbals. Praise him with the cymbals of jubilee. If the machol be counted, Psalms 149:3, here are nine instruments. Tirinus, the learned jesuit, has the following note on this subject. “See Cassiodorus, Boëthius, and Marianus, where the use of instruments of music in the church, is not only accounted pious, but grateful to God; and not for young men only, as St. Justin thinks, but likewise in heaven also, where St. John heard the utmost perfection of the harp. Revelation 5:8; Revelation 14:2.” Yet the use of instruments in christian worship was by no means general, though the three fathers here cited speak positively of its existence. Nothing can exceed the voice of a whole congregation praising God.
REFLECTIONS.
We are now come to the close of this ancient and most excellent book of Psalms. It is an exhortation to praise God in the full concert of heaven and earth. The singers of the sanctuary, and every musician, from him who touched the tender lyre, to him who could blow the shrillest trumpet, are here called upon to use his utmost skill, and to utter all the fervours of his heart in giving glory to JEHOVAH, who dwelleth in his sanctuary on earth, which is figurative of his eternal abode in the highest firmament of heaven. Thirteen times in this way does the Spirit call upon them to the glorious duty; and well knowing the inadequacy of all human efforts to give him the glory that is due, he closes with all that language can utter Let all that have breath praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen: so be it for evermore.
Now, as these sacred songs trace sad scenes of war, of exile, of treasons, and of sins, and as they are mixed with songs of joy, and finally close with praise in the loudest strains; so, poor, weak and dejected soul, may all thy tears terminate in joy, and all thy griefs in everlasting hymns of praise in God's holy place below, and in the high firmament of his eternal abode.
Yet though the version be clothed in the happiest dress that pious poets, aided by a divine influence, can possibly give; and though the sentiments of piety everywhere expressed in the psalms be of the purest kind; still they are not adequate, without a collection of hymns in the language of the new testament, to supply all that is wanted in a christian congregation. Then a congregation connects in hymn, the substance of revelation, and worships God on earth in the language of heaven.