In our latest faculty blog, Old Testament Lecturer Revd Dr Thomas Renz explores Psalm 148 and what it means to call on natural things to praise the LORD.

Psalm 148 calls upon the sun and moon to praise the LORD, and also on lightning and hail, snow and clouds, mountains and hills. What do we do when we call on those entities to praise the LORD? 

After all, they cannot respond to our invitation. Do the sun and moon and “shining stars” behave any differently when we call upon them to praise the LORD? No, they don’t. 

Do the great sea creatures form a choir when we call on them to praise God? Of course not. 

The “mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars” and perhaps nearly all the entities addressed in Psalm 148 will be what they are and do what they do regardless of what we say.

We can perhaps manipulate the fruit trees a little to bear more fruit and we can talk to the cattle and thereby perhaps to some extent bend them to our will but they won’t respond to us standing before them and saying “Praise the LORD!” 

Only when the psalm addresses fellow human beings in verses 11–12 might we perhaps expect our appeal to find a response. But let me bracket out humanity and the angelic world addressed in verse 2 because they are different classes of being, and focus on the world of verses 3–10.

Thunderstorm and lightning may be awe-inspiring but they can also be frightening. How do they and the other entities mentioned praise the LORD? 

What does it mean for them to praise God?


How mountains and hills praise God

The first question to contemplate is perhaps this: Can they do otherwise? And I think the answer must be in the negative. None of these entities has a will with which they could decide to turn towards God or away from Him. They do not decide whether to keep God’s commands or not. God designed them in a certain way and they behave according to what we call “the laws of nature” (e.g., sun, moon, lightning, hail, snow, clouds) or “instinct” (the animal world) which is to say according to the way in which God created them. And this is what it means for them to praise the LORD. 

Arguably all created entities, whether living creatures or what in common understanding are “inanimate” things like hills and mountains, praise the Creator by being what they truly are and doing that which is in their true nature to do. And most created entities cannot do otherwise, as they have not been created with a free will. 

Sun and moon, the shining stars, the highest heavens, the waters above the skies, the great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds do God’s bidding inescapably simply by being what they are. 

It’s we who need to make a decision whether to praise God or not. So why call on these entities to praise the LORD, if, in some sense, they are doing so inevitably anyway?

The whole universe is one big “church”

By summoning every level of creation – heavenly beings, suns, planets and moons, weather systems, wild and tamed animals, rocks and plants – to praise the LORD, we join ourselves to other created entities to form one big community which does God’s bidding, reflects God’s good design, and so manifests God’s majesty and gives glory to the Creator. Yes, made in the image of God we have a special role within creation, but in one sense we are merely to do voluntarily what other parts of creation do inexorably.

The difference between us and the Creator is far, far greater than the difference between humanity made in the image of God and a piece of dust at the outer edges of the universe. In summoning all created entities to praise God, we acknowledge ourselves to be creatures and accept that even all the good things we enjoy like sunshine and rain serve us only by serving God first of all. We are not to manipulate and bend the rest of creation towards our comfort but acknowledge that all things exist to God’s glory.

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We are not to manipulate and bend the rest of creation towards our comfort but acknowledge that all things exist to God’s glory.

So, when we call on lightning and hail, snow and clouds and a whole host of other entities to praise the LORD, we affirm something about our place in creation and acknowledge that everything exists to bring glory to the Creator. In our call we unite all these creatures in worship, allowing their different “voices” to play their part, as we respond to the One to whom we owe our existence. 

St Augustine observes that these creatures do not have voices and hearts to praise God, but when we study them and praise God in our contemplation, it can be said that in a way they themselves are praising God (Exposition of the Psalms, Psalm 148), just as we may say that “the harp praises God” when it is used by someone to praise God. 

Our contemplation and praise makes all creation a kind of church that sings praises to God. In calling various entities to the praise of God we remind ourselves that everything that is created has been created for the glory of God. This has implications on our view of the world as well as our view of God.


The universe is a good place

If we focus our attention on humanity, we may think the world is a hostile place, turned away from its Creator. There is a lot of corruption and evil, unbelief and disobedience within humanity, even while there is also much goodness. But if we lift our eyes beyond humanity, we see that in fact most of the physical creation praises God by doing his will and we are invited to increase this praise further by contemplating creation and praising God for it. 

If God’s kingdom is “the range of God’s effective will” (Dallas Willard), then God’s kingdom is all around us and we are perhaps wrong to think of “heaven” only as the heights where angels worship the triune God. It is arguably also the air around us where “stormy winds do his bidding” (Psalm 148:8). The prayer that God’s will be done “on earth as in heaven” is a prayer for evil spiritual forces to be subdued and for humanity to fall in with the obedience and praise offered by the other parts of physical creation. (Augustine in his exposition explores how we may be filled with wonder even about the arrangement of the parts of a flea or gnat, if only we consider God’s providence.)

But what about natural disasters and illness? Thunderstorm and lightning, volcanos and earthquakes are part of God’s good creation but they can be very frightening because humanity is no longer in tune with God. Illness, by contrast, is arguably a shortcoming, not a positive good, and the fact that its distribution is not equitable gives it an additional sting. 

There would be no illness and suffering, if humanity had not turned away from God, but we can rarely pinpoint the wrong because the causal relationship between rebellion against God and suffering does not operate on an individual level. Nevertheless, in so far as illness signals to us that something is not right, it is also doing God’s will.

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We express our faith in God and our trust in his providence when we pray and praise God in adversity.

Praising God in the midst of trials and suffering is an important theme in Scripture. We express our faith in God and our trust in his providence when we pray and praise God in adversity. But no-one in the Bible ever calls upon plague and pestilence to praise the Lord, even when they are doing God’s will. 

To praise God for his good creation and to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over good and evil does not lead us to conclude that everything that happens is the best that could have happened to the glory of God. No, but Psalm 148 encourages us to look at everything that is and happens with a desire to please God and praise him for his artistry and power, even in thunderstorm and lightning, and for his providence and ability to bring good out of evil. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!