What Does Psalm 148:7 Mean in the King James?
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The command places even the earth’s wild, hidden regions inside the LORD’s praise.
THE MEANING
The LORD is praised from the earth by what is wild and by what lies beyond sight. Dragons and deeps are addressed as participants, so no remote corner of the reader’s world stands outside the summons. The verse holds the monstrous and immeasurable within the same field of praise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that praise belongs only to human voices or orderly, visible life: the wild and the deep are already summoned into it.
THE ROOT
הַלְלוּ
halelu
GROWS FROM
הלל
H-L-L
Praise; celebrate
The plural command הַלְלוּ (halelu, “praise”) directly addresses the dragons and deeps that follow. Its root connects this summons to a wider vocabulary of praise, reaching beyond human speech into the earth’s untamed and hidden realms.
ALSO GROWS
tehillah: Praise; song of praise
תְּהִלָּה
The same root names praise as both the act summoned here and the song that carries it.
hallelu-Yah: Praise Yah
הַלְלוּיָהּ
This familiar compound preserves the root in a direct summons to praise the LORD.
THE PATTERN
Praise is a creation-wide response that reaches the wild, the hidden, and every creaturely realm.
The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.THE THREAD
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.Psalm 150:6 uses the same root, הלל (halal, “praise”). Psalm 148 summons dragons and deeps; Psalm 150 opens the call to every breathing creature.
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