Praise the Lord

150:1 Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him in the sky, which testifies to his strength! 150:2 Praise him for his mighty acts! Praise him for his surpassing greatness! 150:3 Praise him with the blast of the horn! Praise him with the lyre and the harp! 150:4 Praise him with the tambourine and with dancing! Praise him with stringed instruments and the flute! 150:5 Praise him with loud cymbals! Praise him with clanging cymbals! 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NET) are from the NET Bible®, copyright ©1996, 2019 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

Psalm 150 gives one final call to praise the LORD. It says to praise him in his sanctuary and in the heavens. It calls for praise because of his mighty acts and his great majesty. It also names many ways of praise, with instruments, dance, and loud joy. The psalm ends by calling every living thing with breath to praise the LORD.

This psalm is the closing song of the Psalter. It is built as one strong call to praise. First, it tells where praise belongs: in God’s sanctuary and in the heavens. That means praise is both earthly and cosmic. God is honored in the worship of his people, and his greatness is shown in all creation.

Next, the psalm tells why God should be praised. He has done mighty acts. He is also great beyond measure. Praise is not empty noise. It answers to who God is and what he has done.

Then the psalm lists many ways of praising him. It names horns, strings, tambourines, flutes, cymbals, and dancing. The point is not to make a strict rule that every worship service must use these exact things. The point is that God deserves full, joyful, and fitting praise. The list shows variety and richness in worship.

At the end, the psalm widens the call to everyone and everything that has breath. All life should praise the LORD. So the whole psalm moves from the sanctuary to all creation, and from a specific people to every living creature. It ends where it began: Praise the LORD.

• God is to be praised in his sanctuary and in the heavens.
• Praise is grounded in God’s mighty acts and his great greatness.
• The list of instruments shows joyful and rich worship, not a rigid worship law.
• The call to praise reaches every living thing with breath.
• Psalm 150 ends the Psalter with doxology, not complaint.

• Praise the LORD.
• Praise God in his sanctuary.
• Praise him for his mighty acts.
• Praise him with the listed instruments and with dancing.
• Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

As the final psalm of the Psalter, this passage gathers the whole book into praise. It fits the Bible’s larger pattern that God’s people exist to honor him. Its universal call also points forward to the time when God’s glory will be openly praised by all creation.

Believers should make praise central in worship and in life. Worship should be joyful, reverent, and God-centered. This psalm also reminds us not to reduce praise to one narrow form. The right response to God’s greatness is wholehearted praise from every breath we have.

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