Psalm 148:2

Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

148:1-6 We, in this dark and sinful world, know little of the heavenly world of light. But we know that there is above us a world of blessed angels. They are always praising God, therefore the psalmist shows his desire that God may be praised in the best manner; also we show that we have communion with spirits above, who are still praising him. The heavens, with all contained in them, declare the glory of God. They call on us, that both by word and deed, we glorify with them the Creator and Redeemer of the universe.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Praise ye him, all his angels - Dwelling in the heavens. Compare the notes at Psalm 103:20.

Praise ye him, all his hosts - See the notes at Psalm 103:21 and the notes at Isaiah 1:9. All his armies - referring to the angels considered as marshalled into hosts, of which God is the Head and Leader.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. hosts—(compare Ps 103:21).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He inviteth the angels here, and the senseless creatures afterward, to praise God; not as if the former needed, or the latter were capable of, his exhortation, but only by a poetical rapture; the design whereof is, that men by this means might be more provoked to this duty. The angels are called

hosts, here and 1 Kings 22:19, for their vast numbers, exquisite order, and perfect subjection to their General, the Lord of hosts.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Praise ye him, all his angels,.... The Targum adds, who minister before him: the ministering spirits, the angels of Jehovah, even of Christ, who are his creatures, and at his command; and whom he sends forth to minister to others, Hebrews 1:7. And great numbers there are of them, thousands and tens of thousands, yea, an innumerable company; and all of them are under obligation to praise the Lord for their creation: for invisible spirits, as well as visible bodies, even the celestial thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, were created by him, by Christ, Colossians 1:16. And for their preservation in their beings, and confirmation in that happy estate in which they were created; being chosen and secured in Christ, the head of all principality and power, and so stood while others fell: and also for the various excellent powers, and faculties and properties, they are endowed with; they excel in strength, are possessed of great agility and swiftness; have a large share of knowledge, of things natural, civil, moral, spiritual, and evangelical; are perfectly holy, and without sin; and happy in the enjoyment of God, in whose presence they always are, and whose face they continually behold; and will ever remain in this state, being immaterial and immortal beings. And as praise is their duty, it is their work; in this they were employed at the creation of all things, then these sons of God and morning stars sang and shouted for joy; and at the incarnation of Christ, when they worshipped him; at the conversion of every sinner; and frequently join the church in this service, and will be concerned in it to all eternity: and when the psalmist calls upon them to engage in it, it does not suppose that they were deficient in it, or backward to it, or that he had any authority over them to require it of them; but it shows his great desire that the Lord might be praised by the noblest creatures, and in the best manner that could be, and how much his heart was in this work; and he does it to stir up himself and others the more unto it, from this consideration; that if those heavenly creatures should praise the Lord, then much more such as he and others, who were so very unworthy of the divine favours, and so much beholden to the Lord for them;

praise ye him, all his hosts; meaning either the angels as before, sometimes called the hosts of heaven, and the heavenly host; there being armies and legions of them, and these encamping about the saints in a military way; see 2 Kings 19:35; or else the celestial bodies, the sun, moon, and stars, as follow, sometimes called the host of heaven; and who are represented as militant, Genesis 2:1, 2 Kings 21:3.

Geneva Study Bible

Praise ye him, all {a} his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

(a) Because they are members of the same body, he sets them before our eyes, who are most willing and by their prompt obedience teach us to do our duty.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. Cp. Psalm 103:20 a, 21 a. Hosts may include both heavenly beings and heavenly bodies, and in Job 38:7 angels and stars join in praise: but here as in Psalm 103:21 the angels only seem to be meant (cp. 1 Kings 22:19; Nehemiah 9:6); the heavenly bodies follow in Psalm 148:3. The Q’rç and all the Versions read the plur. hosts; the K’thîbh has the sing. host.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Praise ye him, all his angels (comp. Psalm 103:20, 21). As the angels occupy the first rank in creation, and have the most to praise God for, they are fitly called upon to commence the song of jubilation. The praises of God must form their chief occupation through all eternity. Praise ye him, all his hosts; rather, all his host. In the "host of God" are included beings of inferior rank to angels - "ministers of his that do his pleasure" (Psalm 103:21). Psalm 148:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The call does not rise step by step from below upwards, but begins forthwith from above in the highest and outermost spheres of creation. The place whence, before all others, the praise is to resound is the heavens; it is to resound in the heights, viz., the heights of heaven (Job 16:19; Job 25:2; Job 31:2). The מן might, it is true, also denote the birth or origin: ye of the heavens, i.e., ye celestial beings (cf. Psalm 68:27), but the parallel בּמּרומים renders the immediate construction with הללוּ more natural. Psalm 148:2-4 tell who are to praise Jahve there: first of all, all His angels, the messengers of the Ruler of the world - all His host, i.e., angels and stars, for צבאו (Chethמb) or צבאיו (Kerמ as in Psalm 103:21) is the name of the heavenly host armed with light which God Tsebaoth commands (vid., on Genesis 2:1), - a name including both stars (e.g., in Deuteronomy 4:19) and angels (e.g., in Joshua 5:14., 1 Kings 22:19); angels and stars are also united in the Scriptures in other instances (e.g., Job 38:7). When the psalmist calls upon these beings of light to praise Jahve, he does not merely express his delight in that which they do under any circumstances (Hengstenberg), but comprehends the heavenly world with the earthly, the church above with the church here below (vid., on Psalm 29:1-11; Psalm 103), and gives a special turn to the praise of the former, making it into an echo of the praise of the latter, and blending both harmoniously together. The heavens of heavens are, as in Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27, Sir. 16:18, and frequently, those which lie beyond the heavens of the earth which were created on the fourth day, therefore they are the outermost and highest spheres. The waters which are above the heavens are, according to Hupfeld, "a product of the fancy, like the upper heavens and the whole of the inhabitants of heaven." But if in general the other world is not a notion to which there is no corresponding entity, this notion may also have things for its substance which lie beyond our knowledge of nature. The Scriptures, from the first page to the last, acknowledge the existence of celestial waters, to which the rain-waters stand in the relation as it were of a finger-post pointing upwards (see Genesis 1:7). All these beings belonging to the superterrestrial world are to praise the Name of Jahve, for He, the God of Israel, it is by whose fiat (צוּה, like אמר in Psalm 33:9)

(Note: The interpolated parallel member, αὐτὸς εἶπε καὶ ἐγενήθησαν, here in the lxx is taken over from that passage.))

the heavens and all their host are created (Psalm 33:6). He has set them, which did not previously exist, up (העמיד as e.g., in Nehemiah 6:7, the causative to עמד in Psalm 33:9, cf. Psalm 119:91), and that for ever and ever (Psalm 111:8), i.e., in order for ever to maintain the position in the whole of creation which He has assigned to them. He hath given a law (חק) by which its distinctive characteristic is stamped upon each of these heavenly beings, and a fixed bound is set to the nature and activity of each in its mutual relation to all, and not one transgresses (the individualizing singular) this law given to it. Thus ולא יעבר is to be understood, according to Job 14:5, cf. Jeremiah 5:22; Job 38:10; Psalm 104:9. Hitzig makes the Creator Himself the subject; but then the poet would have at least been obliged to say חק־נתן למו, and moreover it may be clearly seen from Jeremiah 31:36; Jeremiah 33:20, how the thought that God inviolably keeps the orders of nature in check is expressed θεοπρεπῶς. Jeremiah 5:22, by way of example, shows that the law itself is not, with Ewald, Maurer, and others, following the lxx, Syriac, Italic, Jerome, and Kimchi, to be made the subject: a law hath He given, and it passes not away (an imperishable one). In combination with חק, עבר always signifies "to pass over, transgress."