The author of this psalm is unknown. The occasion on which it was composed was probably the same as that on which the two previous psalms and the two following were written - each commencing and closing with a Hallelujah. That occasion was, most probably, as before remarked, the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the captivity, and the dedication of the temple.
The psalm is, in general, a call on all parts of the universe to praise the Lord. It is properly divided into two portions. In the first Psalm 148:1-6, the call is addressed to the heavens - to all that is above the earth - to praise Yahweh; in the second Psalm 148:7-14, the call is addressed to all the dwellers on the earth to unite in that praise. The psalm is most animated and triumphant. The language accords with the sentiment. It is adapted to the most animating and spirit-stirring music; and these psalms - this and the two preceding and the two following - in style, in sentiment, in poetic beauty, in sublimity, in their adaptedness to fill the soul with lofty emotions - are eminently suited to close the whole collection - the entire Book of Psalm. Little can be needed, or can be added, in illustration of the sentiments of the psalm.

The psalmist calls on all the creation to praise the Lord. The angels and visible heavens, Psalm 148:1-6; the earth and the sea, Psalm 148:7; the meteors, Psalm 148:8; mountains, hills, and trees, Psalm 148:9; beasts, reptiles, and fowls, Psalm 148:10; kings, princes, and mighty men, Psalm 148:11; men, women, and children, Psalm 148:12, Psalm 148:13; and especially all the people of Israel, Psalm 148:14.
This Psalm has no title: but by the Syriac it is attributed to Happai and Zechariah, and the Septuagint and the Ethiopic follow it. As a hymn of praise, this is the most sublime in the whole book.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 148
This psalm seems to have been written about the same time, and by the same person, as the preceding; even by the psalmist David, when he was in profound peace, and at rest from all his enemies; and the kingdom of Israel was in a well settled and prosperous condition, both with respect to things civil and ecclesiastical, as appears from Psalm 148:14. And as it may respect future time, the times of the Messiah, of whom David was a type, it will have its accomplishment in the latter day, when there will be just occasion for all creatures, in heaven and earth, to praise the Lord; and which the Evangelist John, in vision, saw and heard them doing, Revelation 5:11. Aben Ezra says, this psalm is exceeding glorious and excellent, and has deep secrets in it; in which the psalmist speaks of two worlds, the upper and the lower. As for the title of this psalm, the Septuagint, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, and Apollinarius, entitle it as the two preceding.

(Psalm 148:1-6) The creatures placed in the upper world called on to praise the Lord.
(Psalm 148:7-14) Also the creatures of this lower world, especially his own people.

Hallelujah of All Heavenly and Earthly Beings
After the Psalmist in the foregoing Hallelujah has made the gracious self-attestation of Jahve in the case of the people of revelation, in connection with the general government of the almighty and all-benevolent One in the world, the theme of his praise, he calls upon all creatures in heaven and on earth, and more especially mankind of all peoples and classes and races and ages, to join in concert in praise of the Name of Jahve, and that on the ground of the might and honour which He has bestowed upon His people, i.e., has bestowed upon them once more now when they are gathered together again out of exile and Jerusalem has risen again out of the ruins of its overthrow. The hymn of the three in the fiery furnace, which has been interpolated in Daniel 3:1 of the Book of Daniel in the lxx, is for the most part an imitation of this Psalm. In the language of the liturgy this Psalm has the special name of Laudes among the twenty Psalmi alleluiatici, and all the three Psalm which close the Psalter are called αἶνοι, Syriac shabchûh (praise ye Him).
In this Psalm the loftiest consciousness of faith is united with the grandest contemplation of the world. The church appears here as the choir-leader of the universe. It knows that its experiences have a central and universal significance for the whole life of creation; that the loving-kindness which has fallen to its lot is worthy to excite joy among all beings in heaven and on earth. And it calls not only upon everything in heaven and on earth that stands in fellowship of thought, of word, and of freedom with it to praise God, but also the sun, moon, and stars, water, earth, fire, and air, mountains, trees, and beasts, yea even such natural phenomena as hail, snow, and mist. How is this to be explained? The easiest way of explaining is to say that it is a figure of speech (Hupfeld); but this explanation explains nothing. Does the invitation in the exuberance of feeling, without any clearness of conception, here overstep the boundary of that which is possible? Or does the poet, when he calls upon these lifeless and unconscious things to praise God, mean that we are to praise God on their behalf - ἀφορ ᾶν εἰς ταῦτα, as Theodoret says, καὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν σοφίαν καταμανθάνειν καὶ διὰ πάντων αὐτῷ πλέκειν τὴν ὑμνῳδίαν? Or does the "praise ye" in its reference to these things of nature proceed on the assumption that they praise God when they redound to the praise of God, and find its justification in the fact that the human will enters into this matter of fact which relates to things, and is devoid of any will, and seizes it and drags it into the concert of angels and men? All these explanations are unsatisfactory. The call to praise proceeds rather from the wish that all creatures, by becoming after their own manner an echo and reflection of the divine glory, may participate in the joy at the glory which God has bestowed upon His people after their deep humiliation. This wish, however, after all rests upon the great truth, that the way through suffering to glory which the church is traversing, has not only the glorifying of God in itself, but by means of this glorifying, the glorifying of God in all creatures and by all creatures, too, as its final aim, and that these, finally transformed (glorified) in the likeness of transformed (glorified) humanity, will become the bright mirror of the divine doxa and an embodied hymn of a thousand voices. The calls also in Isaiah 44:23; Isaiah 49:13, cf. Psalm 52:9, and the descriptions in Isaiah 35:1., Isaiah 41:19; Isaiah 55:12., proceed from the view to which Paul gives clear expression from the stand-point of the New Testament in Romans 8:18.