I have been emphasizing in these final studies of Psalms that worship is a serious mental activity. It involves hard thinking, and it is possible only because of God's prior revelation in the Bible, which means that we must begin by studying that book. In order to praise God we must know who God is, and the only way we can know who he is and what he has done is by God's own disclosure of himself in Scripture. 

Here is where we need to see ourselves in the picture, if we have come to know God in Jesus Christ. For this is the importance of Israel, that it was through this people, providentially preserved by God, that the divine drama of redemption was unfolded. It was through Israel that the Messiah Savior came. Therefore, it is in the company of those who believe on that Savior that what was begun in the past and is referred to by the psalmist here was brought to fulfillment. It is through the church and her message that God may be seen and worshiped now. 

Having looked upward to the heavens and having called on the angels and the many heavenly bodies to worship God, the psalmist now looks downward to earth and calls on things terrestrial to join the worship chorus. Worship on earth is to echo that of heaven. As in the preceding section where the worship of heaven is sought from angels and the heavenly bodies, here worship is sought from two entities also: from the animal creation, and from human beings.

We are asking a lot of questions about worship in our study of the last few psalms of the Psalter: what worship is, how we should worship, where we should worship, and so on. In Psalm 148, we find who should worship or praise God and where, the answer being everyone everywhere should praise God from the highest heavens to the lowest spots on earth.

At first glance, verses 10 and 11 seem to be a digression in which the writer reflects on the value of godliness over physical strength. But this is not really a digression at all. He is still thinking about God, and what he is saying about God here is that he is not like most of us who are usually impressed with physical qualities—things we can see—and not with things we cannot see. Rather, “the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (v. 11.).