1 Let the Lord be praised. Give praise to God in his holy place: give him praise in the heaven of his power.
I will come into your house with burned offerings, I will make payment of my debt to you, Keeping the word which came from my lips, and which my mouth said, when I was in trouble. I will give you burned offerings of fat beasts, and the smoke of sheep; I will make offerings of oxen and goats. (Selah.) Come, give ear to me, all you God-fearing men, so that I may make clear to you what he has done for my soul.
I will make the offerings of my oath, even before all his people; In the Lord's house, even in Jerusalem. Praise be to the Lord.
And over the heads of the living beings there was the form of an arch, looking like ice, stretched out over their heads on high. Under the arch their wings were straight, one stretched out to another: every one had two wings covering their bodies on this side and two covering their bodies on that side. And when they went, the sound of their wings was like the sound of great waters to my ears, like the voice of the Ruler of all, a sound like the rushing of an army: when they came to rest they let down their wings. And there was a voice from the top of the arch which was over their heads: when they came to rest they let down their wings. And on the top of the arch which was over their heads was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the form of the seat was the form of a man seated on it on high.
And God said, Let there be a solid arch stretching over the waters, parting the waters from the waters. And God made the arch for a division between the waters which were under the arch and those which were over it: and it was so. And God gave the arch the name of Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
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Commentary on Psalms 150 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Final Hallelujah
The call to praise Jahve “with dance and with timbrel” in Psalms 149:3 is put forth here anew in Psalms 150:4, but with the introduction of all the instruments; and is addressed not merely to Israel, but to every individual soul.
The Synagogue reckons up thirteen divine attributes according to ex. Psalms 34:6. ( שׁלשׁ עשׂרה מדּות ), to which, according to an observation of Kimchi, correspond the thirteen הלּל of this Psalm. It is, however, more probable that in the mind of the poet the tenfold halaluw encompassed by Hallelujah's is significative; for ten is the number of rounding off, completeness, exclusiveness, and of the extreme of exhaustibleness. The local definitions in Psalms 150:1 are related attributively to God, and designate that which is heavenly, belonging to the other world, as an object of praise. קדשוּ (the possible local meaning of which is proved by the קדשׁ and קדשׁ קדשׁים of the Tabernacle and of the Temple) is in this passage the heavenly היכל ; and רקיע עזּו is the firmament spread out by God's omnipotence and testifying of God's omnipotence (Psalms 68:35), not according to its front side, which is turned towards the earth, but according to the reverse or inner side, which is turned towards the celestial world, and which marks it off from the earthly world. The third and fourth hălalu give as the object of the praise that which is at the same time the ground of the praise: the tokens of His גּבוּרה , i.e., of His all-subduing strength, and the plenitude of His greatness ( גּדלו = גּדלו ), i.e., His absolute, infinite greatness. The fifth and sixth hălalu bring into the concert in praise of God the ram's horn, שׁופר , the name of which came to be improperly used as the name also of the metallic חצצרה (vid., on Psalms 81:4), and the two kinds of stringed instruments (vid., Psalms 33:2), viz., the nabla (i.e., the harp and lyre) and the kinnor (the cithern), the ψαλτήριον and the κιθάρα ( κινύρα ). The seventh hălalu invites to the festive dance, of which the chief instrumental accompaniment is the תּף (Arabic duff , Spanish adufe , derived from the Moorish) or tambourine. The eighth hălalu brings on the stringed instruments in their widest compass, מנּים (cf. Psalms 45:9) from מן , Syriac menı̂n , and the shepherd's pipe, עגב (with the Gimel raphe = עוּגב ); and the ninth and tenth, the two kinds of castanets ( צלצלי , construct form of צלצלים , singular צלצל ), viz., the smaller clear-sounding, and the larger deeper-toned, more noisy kinds (cf. κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον , 1 Corinthians 13:1), as צלצלי שׁמע (pausal form of שׁמע = שׁמע , like סתר in Deuteronomy 27:15, and frequently, from סתר = סתר ) and צלצלי תרוּעה are, with Schlultens, Pfeifer, Burk, Köster, and others, to be distinguished.
The call to praise has thus far been addressed to persons not mentioned by name, but, as the names of instruments thus heaped up show, to Israel especially. It is now generalized to “the totality of breath,” i.e., all the beings who are endowed by God with the breath of lie (Heb.: נשׁמת חיּים ), i.e., to all mankind.
With this full-toned Finale the Psalter closes. Having risen as it were by five steps, in this closing Psalm it hovers over the blissful summit of the end, where, as Gregory of Nyssa says, all creatures, after the disunion and disorder caused by sin have been removed, are harmoniously united for one choral dance ( εἰς μίαν χοροστασίαν ), and the chorus of mankind concerting with the angel chorus are become one cymbal of divine praise, and the final song of victory shall salute God, the triumphant Conqueror ( τῷ τροπαιούχῳ ), with shouts of joy. There is now no need for any special closing beracha . This whole closing Psalm is such. Nor is there any need even of an Amen (Psalms 106:48, cf. 1 Chronicles 16:36). The Hallelujah includes it within itself and exceeds it.