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In the final Hallelujah Psalm, the final psalm of the entire Psalter, pattern is all. Nine “Laud him” imperatives are preceded by one “Laud God” imperative (1b) and followed by one third-person jussive “let it laud the Lord” expression (6a). All of this is framed by two hallelujahs, “Laud the Lord” (1a, 6b).

That total of thirteen may seem uneven, but it parses in multiple ways. There are twelve imperatives plus one third-person verb. There are three namings of the Lord plus one of God. And there is a 1+2 frame around a block of 10 imperatives that are all detailed by prepositional phrases (1b-5b): three b- prepositions (“in,” 1b-2a), one k- preposition (“fitting,” 2b), then six b-prepositions (“in,” 3a-5b). Within the block of ten imperatives, the first four are cosmic (1b-2b), the last five musical (3b-5b), with the fifth, the sound of the shofar (3a), functioning as both cosmic and musical. From the fifth imperative until the end of the psalm, there are ten “instruments” all told. Seven of these are in the second set of five imperatives: “lute and lyre” (3b), “timbrel” (4a), “strings and reed” (4b), “cymbals that hang” (5a) and “cymbals that clash” (5b). The shofar or “horn” (3a) introduces the list, “whirling” is included with “timbrel” as part of a Hebrew idiom that may have indicated sound as well as movement (4a), and “breath” joins the chorus just outside the block of imperatives (6a).

In its movement from the cosmic to “all with breath,” the psalm recalls Psalms 146 and 148 most proximately, but more compellingly revisits the scene of creation as well, which each act of praise recreates. In its pattern and in its word choices, most importantly, Psalm 150 reenacts the heart of the Exodus, the giving of the law, with the music of worship as a new Song of Moses and of Miriam, the temple itself as Sinai made new.

Every line in the first half of Psalm 150 revisits words or phrases from both the Torah and the book of Psalms, cinching the two. In verse 1b, this hymnic decalogue begins, as do the decalogues in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and Psalm 15, with God’s “hallow” (beqodsho), an abstraction for divine apartness that extends to name the tabernacle, the temple sanctuary, Zion, and expands to the cosmos as well (e.g., Exod 3:5, 15:11,13, 26:33-34; Ps 2:6, 3:4, 15:1, 30:4, 60:6). Verse 1c turns to “his sturdy vault” (birqi`a `uzzo), a clear allusion to Genesis 1, where the created “vault” or firmament is named nine times, and a subtler reference to Psalm 19:1 (where raqi`a is rendered “cosmos” in this translation). Divine might (`uz) appears in Psalm 59:9 and 78:61, but also, like the word “hallow,” twice in the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:2,13): “my might and song is the Lord” and “with your care you led | the people you released / with your might you guided | to your hallowed home.” The word berov, “in the greatness of,” also appears in the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:7), close kin to the word kerov in the very next verse of Psalm 150, kerov gudlow, literally, “according to the greatness of his greatness,” translated here as “fitting his grand scale” (2b). (For rov, see Gen 16:10 and Deut 28:47,62; Pss 51:1, 69:16, 106:45. For godel, see Num 14:19, Deut 5:24, 32:3; Ps 79:11.) The word geburah is present not just in Psalm 150:2a as bigburotav, “his shows of strength,” but in at least seven other psalms (Pss 20:6, 21:13; 54:1; 66:7; 71:16,18; 80:2, 145 [3x]) and twice in the Torah (Exod 32:18, Deut 3:24).         

In just these first two verses of Psalm 150, then, references to creation and the Exodus tradition abound, emphasizing divine power and immensity. These four objects of praise are not just divine traits or locations or reasons for worship: they are the cosmos recreated in the imperatives of praise.

Similarly, verse 3’s four varied words cross the book of Psalms and recall the heart of the Torah. The noun teiqa`  (“blare”) is used only in Psalm 150, but its verb taqa` shows up in the Qorachite Psalm 47:1 and the Asaphite Psalm 81:3, in both cases, as here, not far from the shofar or “horn” (Ps 47:5, 81:3). In the Torah, the verb “to blare” runs throughout Numbers 10:3-10, God’s instructions to Moses to make the two silver trumpets (chatsotserot) that announce travel, war, and worship. The shofar itself first appears in the dramatic theophanies that surround the giving of the law on Sinai (Exod 19:16,19, 20:18). Together, halfway through the ten imperatives, this one “horn-blare” in Psalm 150:3a declares the arrival of the law and the worship of the assembled.

The importance of these terms in the Torah is emphasized by the comparative scarcity in the books of Moses of the next few terms, neivel and kinnor, “lute and lyre,” in verse 3b, tof and machol, “timbrel and whirling,” in 4a, minim and ugav, “strings and reed” in 4b, and tseltselim in verse 5. Most of these terms appear in psalms (neivel in Pss 57:8, 81:2, 108:2; kinnor in Pss 33:2, 43:4, 49:4, 147:7; tof in Pss 81:2, 149:3; machol in Pss 30:11, 149:3; neither minim nor ugav nor tseltselim show up in the book of Psalms). But lute and strings, whirling and cymbals are not in the Torah at all, the reed is mentioned only once (Gen 4:21) alongside the lyre, which is only mentioned twice (Gen 4:21, 31:27). The timbrel shows up twice (Gen 31:27, and in the Song of the Sea, Exod 15:20). It makes sense that specific musical instruments would be named less frequently than divine traits. But the contrast is emphatic between the first five lines and the last five lines of the ten imperatives. Psalm 150, which began by paralleling Psalms and Torah, now emphasizes the book of Psalms, but increasingly exceeds both books.

Only in its final three lines, verses 5a-6a, does Psalm 150 return to words that matter deeply to the Torah. Verse 5 describes two kinds of cymbals: the translation uses “cymbals that hang” and “cymbals that clash” to distinguish between the literal “cymbals of hearing” (tsiltselei shama`) and “cymbals of alarm” (tsiltselei teru`ah). While, again, there are no cymbals in the Pentateuch, the noun shama` appears most significantly in the book of Deuteronomy when other nations hear about the children of Israel (Deut 2:25, cf. Num 14:15). The imperative form shema` is obviously even more significant, introducing the terse prayer that is likely the most important single verse in the Hebrew Bible: “Hear, Israel: the Lord: your God: the Lord: One” (Deut 6:4). The word teru`ah—which sounds a little like Torah— is weighty as well, marking Rosh Hashanah in Leviticus 23:24 and Yom Kippur in Leviticus 25:9, and the blasts of the silver trumpets that convene worship in Numbers 10:5-6. Both nouns also appear in Davidic psalms, shama` in Psalm 18:44, teru`ah in Psalm 89:15.

Perhaps most significant of all is the noun that appears in verse 6, hannishamah, the breathing, all those “with breath.” In Psalm 18:15, the only other time this noun appears, the one “with breath” is the Lord, celebrated for intervening at the sea during the Exodus for blasting with nostrils to expose the very foundations of the earth. In the Torah, the noun sounds three times. In Genesis 2:7, it is the essence of life, breathed into human nostrils: “The Lord God shaped the mortal from the dust of the dirt and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life.” Creation and Exodus, brought together once more. But more, the word nishmat appears in Genesis 7:22 and Deuteronomy 20:16 as it does in the book of Joshua, as an indicator of the life to be lost in disasters and in genocide, the utter absence of breath.

Fittingly, the Psalter ends with the force of life itself, divine breath, mortal breath, brought together in an act of praise fully aware of human impermanence.