Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 148:9

Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:

9. Cp. Psa 104:16.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mountains, and all hills – As being among the loftiest objects of earth, raising their heads highest toward the heavens.

Fruitful trees, and all cedars – Fruitful trees, not as distinguished from those which are barren, but as distinguished from forest-trees, those whose nature is that they do not bear fruit. Of the latter, the cedar was the most prominent, and, therefore, is made the representative of the whole.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 148:9

Mountains and all hills.

Mountain pictures in Scripture

In Scripture mountains are used to set forth–

I. The place of special communion with God. The Bible often refers to mountains as if, in a special sense, they belonged to God. Actually all things are Gods–valleys as well as hills, plains as well as mountains. But I believe you never meet with God speaking of these other things as He does of mountains. He doesnt say, My valleys, My rivers, but He does say, My mountains. And when we stand and look at a mountain, with its top piercing the clouds, the thought may well come to us, If the valleys and plains have been given to man, God has reserved the mountains for Himself. If man is able to scale them he is unable to live upon them. And there are some whose summits can never be reached. Yes, if we want to banish little earth-born thoughts, and cares, and troubles, if we would exclude them by the entrance of greater thoughts, then climb the mountain, go to its summit if you can, and you are likely to come back another man. It is in accord with all this that our Saviour, when He wanted His three disciples to lose sight of earth while they beheld His heavenly glory, took them away to a mountain-top. And whenever He Himself wanted to leave the world behind Him, and to find a place where He could feel His Father to be very near, and have intimate communion with Him, He went up into a mountain to pray.

II. Gods great power. The old Hebrew teachers, when they wanted to show the people how strong the arm of Jehovah was, used, in effect, to point to the mountains, and say, Let me tell you what Jehovah can do with them. Isaiah is rich in imagery of this sort. At one time the prophet wished to make the people feel the immense disparity between themselves and God, and he asks them the significant question, Who hath weighed the mountains in scales? When the prophet again wishes to tell us what mighty things God has done, and especially to call attention to the quiet, easy, noiseless way that God can bring about marvellous events, how splendidly he effects this by saying, The mountains flowed down at Thy presence! When Jeremiah wished vividly to picture to the people the terrible judgments which his prophetic eye could see that God was about to bring upon their land because they had been rebellious, among other things he says: I beheld the mountains, and, lo! they trembled. When Nahum seeks to make the impenitent sinner sensible of the terrors of the Lord, even though He is slow to anger, he says, The mountains quake at Him, the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence. And Habakkuk shows that Jehovahs power is not to be trifled with when, more than once he says, The mountains saw Thee, and they trembled. Yes, these immovable hills tremble when they see God; and what, then, will impenitent sinners do–men who take no notice of what God has to say to them; who keep their thoughts bound down to earthly things, and never acknowledge God in any of His ways?

III. Great antiquity and unchangeableness (Hab 3:6; Psa 90:2; Isa 54:10).

IV. Symbols of immense obstacles and difficulties (Mat 17:20; 1Co 13:2).

1. The pathway of every individual life has its obstacles. Not only do we pass through cloud and sunshine, and along rough places and smooth, but sometimes we have to confront obstacles which seem to be as much beyond our power to move aside as the high mountain would be. But take courage, friend! for if you cant remove it, if you cant get it out of your way in an instant–as most of us in our impatience would like to do with all our mountain-difficulties–yet by steady and persistent effort you may master the mountain and get the right side of it by and by.

2. But mountains are put, too, in Scripture as symbols of difficulties which lie in the way of Christs conquest of the world. The Alps lay in the way of Hannibal and Napoleon when they were seeking to conquer Italy; and vaster mountains still seem to lie in the way of Christs conquest of the world. The unwillingness of the people to listen to the message of reconciliation is a mighty mountain in the way of the victorious march of the Saviour; and even when they listen the unbelief and cold indifference of men stand out like a vast mountain with snowy summit and ice-bound sides. We might well believe that these difficulties would never be overcome if God had not said they should be. But God can make even these icy mountains shake and tremble and melt away. The thing that is impossible with men is possible with God. Out of these very mountains God can make a way. He can convert a Saul, the persecutor and unbeliever, into Paul, the persuasive preacher. And if we have faith we shall not only climb mountains by an incessant effort, but we shall be able to put some of them out of the way (Isa 40:4-5). (J. Clarke, B. A.)

Mountains declare the majesty of Gods handiwork

The majesty of the Creator is set forth anew in the recent classification of natures vast work of what Warren Upham, of the United States Geological Survey, terms mountain-building. Mr. Upham says that he finds six modes of mountain construction throughout the western hemisphere; namely: folded, arched, domed, tilted, erupted, and eroded. The Appalachian-Laurentian systems are specimens of the folded mountain range; parts of the Cordilleran belt in Western United States, of the arched construction; the Henry Mountains in southern Utah, of the domed; the Sierra Nevadas, of the tilted; the Andes range, of the erupted as seen in the traces of grand volcanic-action throughout the entire extent; and lastly, the remnants of vast areas once uplifted, specimens of the eroded mode of mountain architecture. (Homiletic Review.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 9. Mountains, and all hills] Whether primitive, secondary, or alluvial; of ancient or recent formation, with all their contents, quarries, mines, and minerals. But what a profusion of wisdom and skill is lavished on these! To instance only in the different metals, earths, and minerals; especially the precious stones.

Fruitful trees] ets peri, fruit trees of all kinds.

And all cedars] Every kind of forest tree. The formation of the fruits, their infinitely varied hues and savours, proclaim the unsearchable wisdom and goodness of God: not less so, the growth, structure, and various qualities and uses of the forest trees.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible