ALL

naD joH'a', Hoch SoH tuqpu'!
Praise the LORD, all you nations!

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Go outside tonight - or at least the next time you can, when there are stars to be seen.

If the clouds or streetlights make that impossible - go the library and get a book on astronomy, or a download a program like Celestia that lets you explore the sky.

However you do it, look at the stars and think about this word - "ALL." In Hebrew it's col, and here in Klingon we render it as Hoch, a terrific all encompassing word that means "everyone, all, everything." You can't get much more inclusive. Remember - that imperative "hallelujah" is a way of saying "y'ALL praise God."

naD joH'a', Hoch SoH tuqpu'!
Praise the LORD, all you nations!

I don't know that the Psalmist thinks everyone will praise God. What I do think is that the author is filled with excitement and delight at what the LORD has done. The writer of Psalm 117 has that kind of devotion that just spills over and calls out to everyone near and far, to all to Hoch, to praise God.

When you look out into the stars, and think of the countless worlds that lie out there, the call to all to praise God takes on an incredible scope. But it gets better.

You see, there are no boundaries, no borders in a faith that has that kind of excitement. The faith of the Bible is not a local faith. Though it seems national with Israel, or ethnic with churches that grow out of different language groups, when we read this Psalm, we call out Hallelujah! to all. The borders are gone.

Astronauts and cosmonauts have a different perspective than those of us on the ground. They've travelled out into the black of space - and when they look back they've been struck by something - "there aren't any lines," they've commented. We spend our lifetime seeing the world in terms of maps with carefully drawn lines - and once they get out beyond our atmosphere - it's clean. Those borders - for which so many have fought and died - are just gone.

Look out into the sky - the scope and breadth of the Universe tell us God's got no limits. We can delight in his grace, in the marvels of his creation and let our imagination take flight. With a Biblical faith, with a heart filled with praise to our maker as this psalm calls out, we can erase whatever boundaries separated us from each other and call, to one

and to ALL

Praise ye the LORD!