John Calvin Commentary Psalms 148:1

"Praise ye Jehovah. Praise ye Jehovah from the heavens: Praise him in the heights." — Psalms 148:1 (ASV)

Praise Jehovah from the heavens. He seems here to include the stars as well as the angels, and therefore heaven itself, the air, and all that is generated in it; for afterwards a division is made when he first calls upon angels, then upon the stars, and the waters of the firmament.

With regard to the angels, created as they were for this very purpose—that they might be diligent in this religious service—we need not wonder that they should be placed first in order when the praises of God are spoken of. Accordingly, in that remarkable vision which Isaiah describes (Isaiah 6:3), the cherubim cry out—Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. And in several other places of Scripture the angels are represented as praising God by such ascriptions.

How, then, can zeal like theirs need exhortations? Or, if they require to be incited, what can be more unseemly than that we, who are so sluggish in the service, should presume to exhort them to their duty? David, then, who did not equal the angels in zeal, but came far behind them, was not qualified to be an exhorter to them.

But this was not his purpose either; he would simply testify that it was the height of his happiness and desire to join in sacred concert with elect angels in praising God. And there is nothing unreasonable that, in order to stir himself up in the praises of God, he should call upon the angels as companions, although these run spontaneously in the service and are better suited to lead the way.

He calls them, in the second part of the verse—the armies of God; for they stand always ready to receive his orders. Ten thousand times ten thousand surround his throne, as Daniel says (Daniel 7:10). The same name is also applied to the stars, both because they are remarkable for the order which prevails among them and because they execute with inconceivable quickness the orders of God. But the angels are here called armies for the same reason they are elsewhere principalities and powers, since God exerts his power by their hands.