That is the strength of God’s people: they alone sing God’s truth, and no one can take it from them. The saints confess that their covenant God rules over all creation, a confession that to the human ear sounds ridiculous, impossible, but the impossible, the ridiculous, is true. Israel sings of a horn, a metaphor for victorious strength. This psalm is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. Oppressed by a foreign power, God’s people confess the Lord to be the supreme king of the universe, and they call all creation, all kings, all nations to praise him. That’s all the more remarkable when you consider that this psalm was probably written after the exile, under Persian rule.
As the adopted people of God, Israel receives the high calling to summon all creation to praise the Lord. God is working to restore man to his high place, close to him, and he starts that work with Israel. Yet this psalm is there, in a fallen world. The thought of all creation uniting to praise God is unthinkable because sin has brought disharmony and discord. Between fellow humans there is hatred, murder, warfare, and corruption. Man has become blind to God, lost in idol worship. He is often at the mercy of the elements. Expelled from paradise, man feels little and helpless under the sun, moon, and stars, unable to imagine that he rules the creatures of the land and sea (Ps 8).
We don’t experience that kind of dominion, but that’s because of the fall into sin. True, we don’t feel as though the angels and nature and animals and world rulers will praise God because we say so. So the thought of people directing a cosmic orchestra to God’s praise is not as crazy as it sounds. Man was created in the image of God, fit to rule under God, from paradise, close to his throne. Remember the high calling that God gave to Adam and Eve in Paradise, to have dominion over the works of his hands. After all, we confess that creation was made “to serve man, to the end that man might serve his God” (BC, Art. It would be one thing if God was directing the orchestra, but God’s people. God’s people act as though they’re directing a cosmic orchestra, and all the elements of creation are musical instruments about to play a universal tune together. “Okay, heavens, praise the Lord! Angels, sun, moon, you stars up there, and you sky as well, all together now! Now, earth, it’s your turn: you mountains, trees, let’s go, animals, and people everywhere – kings, princes, old, young – all together now!” It’s a bit weird. The saints are telling the heavens and the earth what to do. The word “praise” is a command, which begs the question: who is giving the command? Oddly enough, the people who sing this psalm appear to be the ones giving orders. Notice how often it has the word “all:” all angels, all heavenly hosts, all shining stars, all hills, all cedars, all cattle, all people, all rulers, all saints. In short, the psalm summons all creation to join in cosmic praise for God. These together have to praise the Lord from the earth because his splendour is above the earth and the heavens. The second part summons an array of earthly elements to join in praising the Lord: sea creatures and ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds, heat and cold, mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, a variety of animal kinds, and finally, classes of people: kings, princes, rulers, men, women, old and young. All three have to praise the Lord because he created them for that purpose. In the first part, the psalmist mentions three levels of heaven: the realm of the angels, the realm of the stars, and the realm of the clouds (cf. Psalm 148 begins and ends with “Praise the Lord.” Between these two Hallelujahs, the psalm has two parts, the first about praising the Lord from the heavens (verses 1-6), and the second about praising him from the earth (verses 7-14).
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