“Halleluiah!” D
Scriptures: Ps 148, 75, etc.
Praise the LORD from (in) the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and smoke,
storm wind that does his word (vv. 7-8, partially trans. mine), …
Last time, we saw how the Lord is to be praised in the second half of this psalm, which is different from the first half. The sea monsters and the deep depths represent the opposite of God’s creation, so we need to meditate on how they praise the Lord. The Lord created these things, but if so, did the Lord intentionally create something that would do the opposite of his creation from the beginning? Absolutely not, just as God did not create sinful humans and a world filled with sin and filth from the beginning. After humans sinned, God’s wrath, signified by “fire and hail, snow and smoke,” began to manifest on the earth. God gets glorified, whether by acts of blessing, judgment, or curse. In this psalm, we can see an allusion to the glory that came to be realized through Christ’s
death on the cross.
… mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars (v. 9), …
The “fire and hail, snow and smoke” are things that come down or appear on the earth from the “waters above the heavens” in v. 4, while “mountains and all hills” and “fruit-trees and all cedars” are things that emerged from the dry land that appeared from the waters under the heavens, which correspond to “sun, the moon” and “all stars of light” in v. 3, which were created in the expanse of heavens and are visible from the earth between clouds.
… wild animals and all cattle, creeping creatures and flying birds (v. 10), …
