Psalms 148:7 · World English Bible
Psalms 148:7 Meaning Praise Yahweh From the Earth
Praise Yahweh from the earth, you great sea creatures, and all depths;
What does Psalms 148:7 mean?
Everything in creation sings His praise, though you do not understand it: the praising is already going on The line comes from the Quran, and Sufis quote it constantly. Someone praying can feel like the only voice in an empty room, starting something out of nothing.
From the Sufism reading below.
Psalms 148:7 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Sufism
SUFISM
Sufism
Everything in creation sings His praise, though you do not understand it: the praising is already going on The line comes from the Quran, and Sufis quote it constantly. Someone praying can feel like the only voice in an empty room, starting something out of nothing. Here the calling joins a sound that was going long before anyone thought to add to it.
Fiṭrah: The nature a thing is born with Fiṭrah names the shape God gave a creature at the start. Creatures with no words and no ceremonies fill that shape out completely, just by living as what they are. Anyone who assumes praise has to sound religious finds a wider door: a life lived as it was made already counts.
Tajallī: God showing Himself in a particular form Ibn Arabi uses the word for God appearing in one form after another, never the same twice. Each existing thing displays a piece of Him that nothing else can display. The creatures a person finds strange or useless are not spare parts; each holds something no other creature could hold.
Jalāl: God's majesty, the side of Him that overwhelms Sufis set God's majesty beside His beauty, jamāl. Beauty draws a person in; majesty stops them cold and makes them feel small. Awe in front of something huge and past our control belongs to praise as much as delight does, so being scared of a thing's size sits close to honoring the One who set that size.
Ghaflah: Heedlessness, living unaware of God The word names the fog most days are lived in. The praise around a person stays loud while their hearing goes dull from hurry, worry, and habit. Al-Ghazali pictures the heart as a mirror that collects rust, showing less and less of whatever stands in front of it.
Dhikr: Remembrance, keeping God in mind Dhikr means holding God in mind, often by repeating His name aloud or under the breath. Someone who has seen how much praise runs through everything can feel late to it, and very small. Adding a voice to a chorus asks far less than starting a song alone.
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Live Psalms 148:7 today
- Today, look at one living thing you usually find pointless, a spider in the corner, weeds by the sidewalk, pigeons on the wire. Let it exist without deciding whether it is worth anything.
- In a conversation, hold back the urge to sort someone into useful or not useful to you. Ask one question about the part of their life you know least about.
- When something big and out of your control presses on you today, traffic, a diagnosis, a decision made over your head, let yourself feel the size of it without arguing. Fear has somewhere to go when you stop insisting nothing is bigger than you.
What have I written off as having no point, and what would change if I stopped?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 51
The Tao gives rise to all things and each one follows its own nature without instruction. Nothing has to be taught how to be what it is.
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi keeps turning to the useless and the overlooked: the gnarled tree nobody can cut, the creature with no obvious purpose. He says their uselessness is exactly where their worth is hiding.
Buddhism
The teaching asks for goodwill toward all living beings, those seen and unseen, great and small, near and far. Nothing is left outside the circle for being strange or unhelpful.
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