Psalm 150 is the last psalm in the collection. This final psalm is one last encouragement to praise and worship the God of Heaven. His mighty deeds and “excellent greatness” make him worthy of praise. Psalm 150 brings the Book of Psalms to a close with these words, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

The author of Psalm 149 encouraged all the godly people of Israel to sing songs of praise to God with dancing, melody making, and with the sounds of the lyre and tambourine. He also encouraged the warriors of Israel to praise the Lord. They were honored to be tools in the hand of God to carry out His campaigns of justice and judgement.

Psalm 148 is another psalm of worship. The author called on the angels, human beings, and all elements of creation to praise their Creator. Those called to worship include kings, princes, young men, old men, mountains, sea creatures, mighty cedars, tiny insects, heavenly beings, and natural elements like water, fire, and wind.

Psalm 147 is a psalm of worship. The author gives a list of reasons why God is worthy of praise. Some of the reasons apply specifically to the nation of Israel, while others are more general. God’s power over nature is one of the highlights of the chapter.

Psalm 146 is all about how God is a superior king to any earthly king. Human rulers live short lives, and their ambitions often die with them. In contrast, God is an eternal king. His reign spans every generation. Not only is God an everlasting King, He is also superior to all human rulers in virtue. He is the upholder of all righteousness, purity, and justice.

Psalm 145 is a psalm full of worship. David blessed the Lord for His great power and His kind nature. His praise was enthusiastic and overflowing. The psalm displays a great balance between the glory and greatness of God and His gentleness and kindness.

In Psalm 144, David, the warrior king of Israel, asked the Lord to fight for their nation and send power from Heaven to defeat their cruel and dishonest enemies. At the end of the psalm, David spoke a blessing over his people and asked God to bless them with prosperity.

Psalm 143, like Psalm 142 before it, was written by David during a hard time in his life. Troubles in David’s life had left his soul exhausted. His soul was desperately in need of God’s help. In his downcast state, he intentionally meditated on the great works of God from the past. His hope was in the Lord to deliver him just as the Lord had delivered so many of His saints in the past.

Psalm 142 follows the pattern of many of David’s previous psalms, it opens with David voicing a problem and ends with David expressing confidence that the Lord would bring him through the problem. David’s problem was discouragement, but even during those days of discouragement he wrote psalms like this one to express trust in God’s plan to eventually bring him to better days.

In Psalm 141, David asks the Lord to protect his heart from temptation. He was open to correction and advice, but he didn’t want to be influenced by godless people. He prayed that God would help him evade the traps of those who hated him and cause them to stumble into their own snares.

Psalm 140 is a psalm of David in which he prays for the Lord to cause the schemes of the wicked to backfire. Violent, arrogant, crafty, sneaky, and godless men were threatening David, and David asked the Lord to protect him against all their cunning traps.

Psalm 139 is a poetic meditation on the infinite knowledge of the Creator God. David is the author, and he expresses his amazement of how intimately God knows him. God knew his actions, his thoughts, and even knew him before he was fully formed in his mother’s womb. The end of the psalm is a request from David to God to use His infinite knowledge to punish the wicked and bloodthirsty people of the earth.

David authored Psalm 138 and wrote of his devotion to God above all the pagan deities. He wrote that the kings of the earth would one day come to recognize God as supreme and worthy of their worship. He described God as his personal helper and as a helper to the humble people of the world. He asked God to use him for His will and expressed trust that God would protect him and accomplish all He intended through him.

Psalm 137 was written during or after Judah’s exile in Babylon. The writer recalls his sadness at having to sing songs about Jerusalem while a captive in a foreign land. He encourages his heart not to forget about the Promised Land and God’s covenant with Judah. The last 3 verses contain a curse, which the author speaks over Edom for helping the Babylonians conquer Jerusalem.

Psalm 136 is unique in its layout. Each of its 26 verses ends with the same phrase, “…His steadfast love endures forever.” It is a psalm of thanksgiving and worship to God, celebrating God’s power over nature and His enduring blessings on the nation of Israel. It is similar in theme to Psalm 135.

The author of Psalm 135 was overflowing with praise, and he worshipped the Lord for several of His attributes, including His power over nature, His goodness, and His support to the nation of Israel.

In Psalm 134, the unnamed author speaks to the priests and servants of the Temple who serve God during the night hours. He encourages them to lift their hands in praise to God, and he asks God to bless them from His place on Mount Zion.

David celebrates brotherly unity. He used two illustrations to describe the blessing of unity, writing that it was like oil running down the head of the High Priest and like the dew of Mount Hermon, a mountain in northern Israel.

In Psalm 132, the author appeals to God to bless Israel for the sake of David, God’s faithful servant. He “reminds” God of His promises to David to keep one of his descendants on the throne forever and to bless the city of Jerusalem (Zion).

Psalm 131 is an expression of humility. We don’t know why it was written or when it was written, but it could be a response to accusations of arrogance. The psalmist wrote as if speaking to God, and he told the Lord that he was not arrogant, haughty, or sinfully ambitious. He compared his soul to a calm and quiet child, a weaned child.