The Final Word is Praise Text: Psalm 150:6
Introduction: The Logic of the Cosmos
We have come to the end of the Psalter. After one hundred and fifty psalms, after every conceivable human emotion has been brought before God, lament, confession, anger, confusion, joy, and thanksgiving, the entire book concludes with a final, thunderous, all-encompassing command. The book of Psalms is the prayer book of the saints, and it teaches us how to talk to God. But it ends by teaching us the final purpose of all speech, all life, all existence. It ends with praise.
Our secular age is an age of rebellion, and at the heart of that rebellion is a profound deafness. The cosmos is shouting the glory of God. The heavens are declaring it, the firmament is showing it, and every living thing is testifying to it. But modern man has his fingers in his ears. He has convinced himself that he lives in a silent, meaningless universe, a great cosmic accident full of random noise. He believes the final word is nothing, a void from which we came and to which we will return.
But the Bible says the final word is not nothing. The final word is a name. The final word is praise. Psalm 150 is the great crescendo, the grand finale of the entire songbook of Israel. It begins with "Praise Yah," and it ends with "Praise Yah." It summons the entire orchestra of creation, from the sanctuary to the heavens, from trumpets to cymbals, to join in this chorus. And then, in this final verse, the lens pulls back to its widest possible aperture, to include every last creature that could possibly be included. This is not a suggestion. It is a command, and it is the fundamental law of the universe. To obey it is life. To disobey it is to fight against the very grain of reality, which is a fight you will lose.
This final verse is the logical and necessary conclusion to everything that has come before. It is the summation of our duty and the definition of our existence. If God is God, then praise is the only sane response. Anything else is a form of cosmological treason.
The Text
Let everything that has breath praise Yah.
Praise Yah!
(Psalm 150:6 LSB)
The Universal Mandate
We begin with the scope of the command:
"Let everything that has breath praise Yah." (Psalm 150:6)
After summoning the trumpets, harps, timbrels, strings, pipes, and cymbals, the psalmist turns from the inanimate instruments to the animate singers. And the choir he summons is universal. The qualification for membership is not ethnicity, not moral performance, not intellectual capacity, and not social standing. The sole prerequisite is breath.
The Hebrew word here is neshamah. This is the "breath of life" that God Himself breathed into Adam's nostrils in the garden, making him a living soul (Gen. 2:7). This is not just the mechanical process of respiration. This is the animating principle of life, the spark of existence that comes directly from God. Therefore, the logic is airtight. If your life, your very breath, is a direct, moment-by-moment gift from God, then the only proper use of that breath is to return it to Him in praise. To use the breath He gives you to curse Him, or to ignore Him, or to praise yourself, is the height of absurdity. It is like a musical instrument rebelling against the musician who is playing it.
This command is a great leveler. It includes the king on his throne and the prisoner in the dungeon. It includes the eagle in the sky and the worm in the ground. It includes the infant taking its first breath and the old man breathing his last. If you have breath, you are in the choir. You have no excuse. Your very existence is your enlistment. The question is not whether you were created to praise God, but whether you are doing it.
This is a direct polemic against the mute idols of the nations. As Psalm 115 tells us, their idols have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see; noses, but do not smell. They have no breath in them. And those who make them become like them, mute, deaf, and dead. But our God is the living God, the source of all breath, and He creates a living people who use that breath to praise Him. This is the great antithesis: a world full of dead idols worshipped by spiritually dead people, over against the living God worshipped by a people He has made alive.
The Object of Praise
And who are we to praise? The text is specific.
"...praise Yah." (Psalm 150:6)
The command is not to praise a generic, abstract deity or a vague "higher power." We are to praise Yah. This is the shortened, poetic form of Yahweh, the covenant name of God. This is the name He revealed to Moses at the burning bush. This is the "I AM WHO I AM," the self-existent, eternal, and unchanging God. But it is more than that. It is His personal, covenant name. This is the God who makes promises and keeps them. This is the God who bound Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the God who redeemed Israel from Egypt. This is the God who gave His law and dwelt among His people.
To praise "Yah" is to praise the God of redemption. It is to praise the God who acts in history, who gets His hands dirty, who comes down to save. It is not enough to acknowledge a creator in some detached, deistic sense. We are commanded to praise the God who has revealed Himself by name, the God who has entered into a binding relationship with His people.
For us, who live on this side of the cross, this command is filled with even greater meaning. The one who fully embodied the name of Yahweh, the great I AM, was the Lord Jesus Christ. When Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Jesus is the full and final revelation of the covenant-keeping God. He is the one who came to save His people from their sins. Therefore, when we praise Yah, we are praising the Triune God: God the Father, through God the Son, by the power of God the Holy Spirit. All our praise is directed to the Father, but it is only possible because of the finished work of the Son, who purchased our right to praise, and it is only effective by the Spirit, who gives us the breath of new life to sing it.
The Final Hallelujah
The psalm, and the entire Psalter, ends with one final, declarative shout.
"Praise Yah!" (Psalm 150:6)
This is the Hebrew phrase Hallelujah. It is both the beginning and the end of this psalm. It functions as the bookends for this great explosion of praise. It is not a request; it is a summons. It is a call to arms. It is the watchword of the people of God.
The book of Psalms contains the entire range of human experience. It has dragged us through the depths of despair and lifted us to the heights of ecstasy. It has shown us gut-wrenching lament and glorious confidence. But it does not end in the valley. It does not end in questioning. It does not end in ambiguity. It ends here. It ends with an unadorned, unqualified, absolute command to praise the covenant God. This is the telos, the goal, the final purpose of all things.
This tells us that no matter what we are going through, no matter how deep the valley, the final word is Hallelujah. No matter how fierce the battle, the final word is Hallelujah. No matter how profound the grief, the final word is Hallelujah. All of history is moving toward this point: the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11). On that day, this command will be universally fulfilled. Every creature that has breath will praise Yah.
Conclusion: Your Breath, His Praise
So what does this mean for us, right now? It means that your next breath has a purpose. It is a God-given instrument for praise. You can use it to complain, to gossip, to lie, to boast, or you can use it for the purpose for which it was given.
The world tells you that you are an accident, that your breath is just a biological function, and that your voice should be used to praise yourself, your autonomy, your truth. But God says your breath is a gift, and it has a non-negotiable purpose attached. Your life is not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, and that begins with the breath in your lungs.
This is intensely practical. When you wake in the morning, your first breath belongs to Him. When you face a trial, your anxious breaths can be turned to prayer and praise. When you gather for worship, your voice is not an optional accessory; it is a required instrument in the orchestra. We are not here to be an audience, watching a performance. We are the choir, and we have a divine mandate to sing.
The Christian life is one long education in saying "Hallelujah" in every circumstance. It is learning to praise Yah when you are on the mountaintop, and it is learning to praise Yah when you are in the valley of the shadow of death. It is the discipline of taking the breath God gives you and returning it to Him with interest. For one day, this book of Psalms will be fulfilled, and we will join that great multitude from every tribe and tongue and nation, a choir of all things that have breath, and the sound will be like the roar of many waters, and the final word, forever and ever, will be Hallelujah.