Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance | Part 6: Isaiah  | Part 7: Jeremiah | Part 8: Minor Prophets | Part 9: The Gospels | Part 10: Acts | Part 11: Pauline Epistles 1 | Part 12: Pauline Epistles 2 | Part 13: Hebrews | Part 14: General Epistles | Part 15: Revelation | Part 16: Job | Part 17: Psalms 1 | Part 18: Psalms 2 | Part 19: Psalms 3 | Part 20: Psalms 4  

Psalm 148 begins with a command to praise the Lord (Heb haleluyah; Ps 148.1a) and where to do it (Ps 148.1b). Then begins a list of persons and things that the Psalmist intends to include in the command: namely, who and what should praise the Lord. The list is impressive: 

• angels and hosts (Ps 148.2) 

• sun, moon, and stars (Ps 148.3) 

• heavens and atmospheric waters (Ps 148.4) 

Now, what do all these things have in common? The Psalmist tells us: 

For he commanded, and they were created. ⁶ He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: He hath made a decree which shall not pass (Ps 148.5-6). 

People and things that God has created should praise him. 

But this list is not exhaustive, is it? There are no humans on it, or animals of any kind. 

Why not them? 

Oh, give him time; he’s just getting started. 

Now comes another list, what we might call Part 2 of the inventory. It includes 

• sea creatures (Ps 148.7) 

• atmospheric phenomena (Ps 148.8) 

• topography (Ps 148.9a) 

• trees (Ps 148.9b) 

• land animals, both wild and domesticated (Ps 148.10a) 

• reptiles and birds (Ps 148.10b) 

• humans of every political class (Ps 148.11) 

• … and of every age and sex (Ps 148.12) 

That last verse appears in the hymn “Praise Ye the Triune God”: “Young men and maidens, ye old men and children.” 

Those lists include just about everybody and everything, don’t they? At least from an earthly perspective, without the help of Voyager probes and hifalutin space telescopes. 

He ends the Psalm with a justification: why should all creation praise the Lord? 

¹³Let them praise the name of the Lord: For his name alone is excellent; His glory is above the earth and heaven. ¹⁴He also exalteth the horn of his people, The praise of all his saints; Even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. 

He’s not focusing on just one reason here; he has a litany. 

• Creation demonstrates the Creator’s uniqueness (Ps 148.13a). The word excellent speaks of altitude—the Creator is “very high,” at the very top of the list. There is no one who holds a close second place. 

• He is glorious (Ps 148.13b). This is a different Hebrew word from what we saw in the previous post, but it means the same thing: weight, heft, value. 

• He gives power to his people (Ps 148.14a). The word horn here refers to an animal horn, not so much the musical instrument—though of course ancient peoples did make musical instruments out of animal horns. The animal’s horn speaks of his power in combat. 

• He holds his people in relationship; they are “near unto him” (Ps 148.14b). He is a God of immanence as well as transcendence. And given the vastness of his Creation, that should strike us as surprising. “What is man, that thou are mindful of him?” (Ps 8.4). 

Praise is the least we can render to such a Creator. 

There’s a reason why a walk in the woods is good for the soul. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance | Part 6: Isaiah  | Part 7: Jeremiah | Part 8: Minor Prophets | Part 9: The Gospels | Part 10: Acts | Part 11: Pauline Epistles 1 | Part 12: Pauline Epistles 2 | Part 13: Hebrews | Part 14: General Epistles | Part 15: Revelation | Part 16: Job | Part 17: Psalms 1 | Part 18: Psalms 2 | Part 19:  Psalms 3

One Psalm derives from Creation that God is wise:

⁵ To him that by wisdom made the heavens: For his mercy endureth for ever. ⁶ To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: For his mercy endureth for ever. ⁷ To him that made great lights: For his mercy endureth for ever: ⁸ The sun to rule by day: For his mercy endureth for ever: ⁹ The moon and stars to rule by night: For his mercy endureth for ever (Ps 136).

This Psalm is an antiphonal hymn, with each verse including the refrain “For his mercy endureth for ever.” To our Western tastes this seems boring and distracting, but that’s because we don’t understand what’s going on here. Musicians will understand what “antiphonal” means: the leader reads or sings the first statement in the verse, and the chorus or audience repeats the refrain each time. This does two things: it cements the refrain in the minds of all who hear, and it allows them to hear plainly the “verses,” which specify the multiple ways the refrain is demonstrated. Thus it feels choppy to us, occasionally dividing sentences right the middle. It’s not intended to flow smoothly, like a Byron poem; it’s intended to challenge and convince the mind.

Let me take a moment, then, to develop the main idea in the Psalm before I develop the main idea of this post.

I’ve written before on the Hebrew word hesed, which is the “mercy” repeated in the refrain. It’s best captured, I think, as “steadfast loving loyalty.” The Big Idea, then, is that God has a loving relationship with his people and he will be unfailingly loyal to it. Every one of the 26 verses in this Psalm gives evidence of that fact.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to know and walk daily with such a person.

But we’ve come to this Psalm because of specific point the psalmist makes in verses 5-9. He cites God’s creative work—heaven, earth, the sun, the moon—as being products and therefore evidences of his wisdom.

What’s wisdom? It’s not simply intelligence, although it does include that. In Hebrew the word emphasizes the practical: wisdom is the ability to get things done. It’s close to what we call “common sense,” though it isn’t all that common.

The idea here is that God executed his purposes perfectly, flawlessly. The heavens and the earth and the sun and the moon are, and function, precisely as he intended them to, and thus as they should.

We sometimes come across people who seem to do everything right: perhaps an extremely well-disciplined musician or athlete. They execute well because they are diligent to practice and practice and practice and practice. And there’s always the possibility that they might miss a note, or a line drive.

God’s not like that. He executes perfectly because that’s who he is. He knows how to get things done, and right, every time. The cosmos is evidence of that.

And in the context of this Psalm, it’s evidence as well of his unfailing loyalty to his commitments.

I’ll note that the theme of wisdom is developed deftly, and much more thoroughly, in the book of Proverbs. We’ll get there in a bit.

But first, we need to look at one more theme, and then one more Psalm, one that’s completely given to a consideration of creation.

Two more posts on the Psalms, then one on Proverbs, and then we’re done.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance | Part 6: Isaiah  | Part 7: Jeremiah | Part 8: Minor Prophets | Part 9: The Gospels | Part 10: Acts | Pauline Epistles 1 | Part 12: Pauline Epistles 2 | Part 13: Hebrews | Part 14: General Epistles | Part 15: Revelation | Part 16: Job | Part 17: Psalms 1 | Part 18: Psalms 2  

Two Psalms, both well known, speak of Creation as revealing the glory of God. 

Psalm 8  

Psalm 8 begins and ends with a refrain: “O LORD our Lord, how excellent [majestic, glorious] is thy name in all the earth!” The first refrain adds, “Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.” In comparison with those heavens, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Ps 8.4). 

There’s a lot more going on in this Psalm than just this; it repeats the Dominion Mandate from Genesis 1.26-28, and it has Messianic implications as well. But for our purposes, we’ll focus on Creation’s role as a display of the glory of God: his power, his dominion, his greatness. 

Those who suppress their recognition of the Creator (Ro 1.18-20) are denied this avenue of worship.  

Does the suppression empower the denial, or does the denial empower the suppression? 

Good question. 

Psalm 19.1-6 

¹The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork. ²Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge. 

These two verses demonstrate the theme, but of course the thought continues for 4 more verses, which emphasize the global reach of this display of glory, with a special emphasis on the dominant feature of the heavens, the sun, which appears, as David’s simile so artfully paints it, “as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber” (Ps 19.5). 

We now know that David’s perspective, 10 centuries before Christ, was but a drop in the cosmic bucket. In the daytime, he had no idea how far the sun was radiating its heat, so far away that the light he was seeing was 8 minutes in the past. He didn’t know how large or hot it was. He was blind to the frequent solar prominences that briefly exceed the size of the earth. At night, even with the advantage of deliverance from light pollution, he could see perhaps a thousand stars, and all of them confined to a single galaxy. 

Galaxy? What’s that? He didn’t know that we’re part of a galaxy, the Milky Way. (The Greek word galaxias means “milky.”) He certainly didn’t know that there are more galaxies, millions of them, gathered in clusters, for as far as the very best of our telescopes can see, 50 billion light years in every direction—and that’s not the end of it. He didn’t know about the planets, or their rings, or the asteroid belt, or the heliosphere, or the Oort cloud, or the boundary out there where the molecules are unbelievably hot but feel cold because they’re so far apart. 

He didn’t know any of that. 

But he was still awed simply by what he could see with his unaided eyes. The Psalm makes it clear that just the sun and visible stars were enough to bring him to his knees. 

The Psalm considers the heavens for just 6 verses. The 8 remaining verses turn our attention to a more reliable revelation of God’s glory, the Scripture. The words David uses for it (law, testimony, statutes, commandment, judgments) make it clear that he has in mind the Torah, the 5 books of Moses; that and Joshua may have been all he had access to, besides the songs he was writing. 

It speaks volumes that he turns with such focus, respect, and delight to some 500-year-old writings after being so deeply moved by what he has seen in the heavens. We realize that that’s what the heavens should do; they should turn us to the words of the One who made them. 

There’s more in the Psalms. Next time. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance | Part 6: Isaiah  | Part 7: Jeremiah | Part 8: Minor Prophets | Part 9: The Gospels | Part 10: Acts | Pauline Epistles 1 | Part 12: Pauline Epistles 2 | Part 13: Hebrews | Part 14: General Epistles | Part 15: Revelation | Part 16: Job | Part 17: Psalms 1 

Psalm 90.2 

Another theme developed in the Psalms, based on Creation, is the concept of eternality. In the only Psalm designated as written by Moses, he writes, 

²Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God (Ps 90). 

The logic is simple. If the cosmos is created, then the Creator must have existed before his act of creation. It’s not a great leap of logic from there to eternity past; anyone who could create such a cosmos was likely not new at it. 

Those who deny theistic creation have wrestled with the question of precedence. A century ago a scientist proposed an “oscillating universe” theory, which would have the universe expanding and collapsing in a possibly infinite series of cycles, but mainstream cosmology rejected it for the currently popular “Big Bang” model (though I’ve seen some indications lately that the cyclic model might be making a comeback). 

So what was there before the Big Bang? In his work A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Stephen Hawking argued that at the moment of singularity, all laws of physics were rendered inoperative, with the result that we have no tools with which to investigate what preceded. So we don’t know, and we can’t know. 

In the biblical narrative, we can know, and we do know, though the details are limited. God did exist before the creation of the world, and he was doing things: specifically, the Father and the Son were in a loving relationship (Jn 17.24); the Father was foreordaining the Son to redeem humans with his own blood (1P 1.20)—which necessitates the foreordination of the incarnation; and God engaged in the work of election (Ep 1.4). Undoubtedly there’s more—a lot more—but it remains a mystery to us, at least for now. 

Psalm 102.25-27 

The Mosaic passage does not confine God’s existence to eternity past; he specifies God’s eternal future as well: “from everlasting to everlasting.” An anonymous Psalmist adds to that testimony: 

²⁵Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: And the heavens are the work of thy hands. ²⁶They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: ²⁷But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end (Ps 102). 

Here the writer contrasts God’s eternality to the mortality of creation: “They shall perish, but thou shalt endure.” We are foolish to place our hope or our confidence in material things—including other humans—because they are all temporary. Gold, silver, real estate, political leaders (especially political leaders!), friends, lovers—they will all pass away. 

But the Creator will not. As we’ve noted earlier, the author of Hebrews cites this passage and applies it specifically to the Son, demonstrating that he is infinitely superior to the angels (He 1.10-12). I also note that here in the Psalms, the author makes an application that the author of Hebrews chooses not to: 

²⁸The children of thy servants shall continue, And their seed shall be established before thee. 

The fact that God is eternal has personal ramifications for us. For as long as the present earth endures, God’s people will reproduce, their heritage will continue, and their God will know them. 

God’s eternality enables his faithfulness. 

Those who deny creation have no such assurance, no such hope. 

Creation indeed matters. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath | Part 5: Deliverance | Part 6: Isaiah  | Part 7: Jeremiah | Part 8: Minor Prophets | Part 9: The Gospels | Part 10: Acts | Pauline Epistles 1 | Part 12: Pauline Epistles 2 | Part 13: Hebrews | Part 14: General Epistles | Part 15: Revelation | Part 16: Job  

This post isn’t about Psalm 1; if it were, “Psalms 1” would be a barbarism. Rather it is one of several posts on the Psalms—”Psalms, Episode 1,” if you will. 

The book of Psalms contains the largest collection of creation theology in the Scripture, even more that we should expect proportionally from the longest book in the Bible. By my count, there are 16 references, appearing in all but one of the collection’s 5 “books,” with Book 5, Psalms 107-150, being the most densely populated. 

As we might expect from the relatively high numbers, these references develop several applicational themes. I’d like to take a few posts to cover them. 

Deliverance 

The most obvious deduction about the Creator, I think, is his power, evident from the vastness of the heavens and the evident power of earthly forces. It would make sense for God’s people, then, to call on his power for their protection and deliverance: 

¹⁶ The day is thine, the night also is thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. ¹⁷Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter. … ¹⁹O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: Forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever (Ps 74). 

¹¹The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: As for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. ¹²The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon [significant mountains] shall rejoice in thy name. ¹³Thou hast a mighty arm: Strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand. ¹⁴Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. ¹⁵Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance (Ps 89). 

²My help cometh from the Lord, Which made heaven and earth (Ps 121). 

⁵Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the Lord his God: ⁶Which made heaven, and earth, The sea, and all that therein is: Which keepeth truth for ever: ⁷Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: Which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: ⁸ The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: The Lord loveth the righteous: (Ps 146). 

Blessing 

A second, related theme is that of blessing, which I suppose we could consider the positive side of deliverance, or perhaps an extension of it: 

¹²The Lord hath been mindful of us: he will bless us; He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron. ¹³He will bless them that fear the Lord, Both small and great. ¹⁴The Lord shall increase you more and more, You and your children. ¹⁵Ye are blessed of the Lord Which made heaven and earth (Ps 115). 

¹Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, Which by night stand in the house of the Lord. ²Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, And bless the Lord.³The Lord that made heaven and earth Bless thee out of Zion (Ps 134). 

I note that this last passage speaks of reciprocity: we bless him, and he blesses us. This is not to say that we bless him in order to evoke his blessing, or that he blesses us because we bless him; this isn’t about back-scratching. But it does demonstrate that the Creator and his people are in relationship; they love and communicate with and respond to one another. 

Our consideration of the creation should affect us in these ways as well. We should be convinced of his power to deliver and to bless, and we should seek and respond to him in appropriate ways. 

Next time: Psalms 2, which will not be about Psalm 2. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash