Inarticulate Praise

Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Psalm 148:3 NASB

Sun and moon – Imagine you live in the ancient world of the Near East. What does the sun mean to you? First, the obvious. The sun designates direction. Oh, were you going to say time? The rising of the sun is East, the setting West, and these two directions play a very important role in religious mythology of the ancient world. Next is time, the beginning of the day, the end of the day. And in case you didn’t realize it, no day is actually 24 hours exactly. The 24 hour day is a human convention forced upon an astronomical reality. Every day in any location is either just a bit longer or shorter than the 24 hour arbitrary ideal. That should cause you to rethink Genesis 1, maybe. Third, in the ancient world anything done in the light of day was considered deliberate. Thus, breaking a law or a taboo in the daytime meant automatic guilt, while at night things were not so clear (pun intended). Then there’s the phrase, “under the sun,” a reminder of the routine plodding of life, the endless fight against primal chaos in a world without YHVH. Finally, ancient religion believed that the sun had spiritual power for both blessing and punishment. That is why the ancients worshipped the sun. In Egypt, the sun god Re was the supreme god. The ninth plague is a direct assault on his power. Worship of the sun (and the moon) plagued Israel even after the demonstration in Egypt. In fact, it remains a significant influence in today’s religious world. Sun-day is no accident, and it has nothing to do with the resurrection on the “first” day of the week (which by Jewish reckoning would be anytime after sunset on Saturday).

Now perhaps we can grasp the significance of David’s exhortation to the sun and the moon to praise YHVH. It’s not just some part of the creation that must praise the Creator. It’s precisely those elements that carry the maximum religious pagan significance, that render men’s action culpable, that set the direction and the time for men, that signify power in pagan thought. The sun and the moon are not simply celestial bodies, created on the fourth day according to the Genesis account. They are the epitome of everything that idolatrous man feared, worshipped and used for guidance. David “converts” these idolatrous symbols into instruments of praise and in doing so he smashes any hint that the sun and the moon retain any inherent power. The praise of YHVH ensures that no religious symbolism remains in these two ancient objects of worship.

Of course, it is also important to recognize that David intends inanimate objects of creation to usher forth inarticulate praise. This thought is Hebraic. Often objects of creation, in fact even ideas, are personified or given human-action attributes. Consider the trees that clap, the stars that shout or Wisdom calling to men. The sun and the moon are no more or less God’s creation and as such, they too must shout His praise. In fact, the only thing God created that does not automatically offer Him praise and worship is us. We are the oddities of the created world. We choose how and whom we will praise. Perhaps we need to take a lesson from the sun and the moon, those pagan powers that now bow before the majesty of YHVH. Perhaps our complacency, our arrogance, our pride is really the only flaw in the creation. Time to get in line with the sun. Time to follow the song of the moon. He alone is worthy. Praise Him!

Topical Index: sun, moon, praise, Psalm 148:3