NOTES for Psa 150

Praising Yahweh is a customary practice of Yahwist prayer, whether personal or communal. Here, however, judging by the mention of various musical instruments, the subject is worship either in a synagogue or, more probably, in the Temple. The latter is more probable because the psalm mentions a sanctuary—the word rendered 'holy place' in the Russian Synodal translation—which usually means either the Tabernacle or the Temple. But how can a person glorify God? The psalm speaks about this in some detail. The very mention of the sanctuary is telling. The corresponding Hebrew word means not only sanctuary but holiness: holiness as an inseparable quality of God's presence, without which a sanctuary would cease to be a sanctuary. For a human being, holiness means being sanctified through participation in the holiness of the Presence.

Without such participation, God cannot be glorified: His greatness is inseparable from His holiness. It is no coincidence that immediately after the 'holy place,' the text of the Russian Synodal translation mentions the 'firmament of power.' The corresponding Hebrew word can denote not only a 'firmament' as a kind of surface, but also simply emptiness, space. The space of God's action, the space of His providence—that is where God is glorified. Indeed, God's will becomes precisely a power within creation, in God's world, where His plan is carried out. Finally, God's greatness is connected with His energies, with what the Russian Synodal translation calls 'might.' The corresponding Hebrew word, however, denotes strength or power precisely as energy acting upon that toward which it is directed.

The idea of divine energies appears quite early in Yahwism; the teaching about them was already known to Second Temple Judaism. These energies signified God's presence in the world, making it His Kingdom even in that part which had been cut off from the fullness of God's greater world by an evil will opposing Him, whether that of a fallen human being or a fallen angel.

This is how the psalmist sees the expanding space of God's action: from the place of God's immediate presence to the space of His action, where His providence is manifested, and from there to His presence in the universe, which no longer depends on whether or not God is known in a particular part of that universe. The glorification is one, but its degree of awareness differs, depending on how fully the one who glorifies God perceives His will and its manifestation both in the place of praise and in the worshiper's own life.