Psalms 146

Praise the LORD, O my soul.

2. While I live will I praise the LORD:

I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

3. Put not your trust in princes,

Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

4. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth;

In that very day his thoughts perish.

5. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,

Whose hope is in the LORD his God:

6. Which made heaven and earth,

The sea, and all that in them is;

Which keepeth truth for ever:

7. Which executeth judgment for the oppressed;

Which giveth food to the hungry:

The LORD looseth the prisoners;

8. The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind;

The LORD raiseth up them that are bowed down;

The LORD loveth the righteous;

9. The LORD preserveth the strangers;

He upholdeth the fatherless and widow;

But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

10. The LORD shall reign for ever,

Thy God, O Zion, unto all generations.

THE remaining are all Praise-songs, each commencing with “HALLELUJAH;” i.e., a call to all the people to praise the Lord. Noticeably this word belongs to the later Hebrew, not being found in any Psalm ascribed to David, nor indeed in any of the Psalms of the first three books. In the Psalms of the age of the restoration it occurs very frequently. These Psalms obviously belong to the age of the restoration. C.

These closing Psalms are impassioned calls to the universal praise of God. The vast whole of the visible and rational as well as the invisible and irrational creation is here summoned to praise the Lord. For His blessings upon the earth; for His glories in the heavens; for His rich, abundant bounties and His ever watchful and sustaining providences; for His wisdom, and power, and goodness, and especially for His sovereign mercy to man; for His love and grace to the Church, for the constitution of her ordinances, for the power He hath given unto her, and the final exaltation which He hath promised her—for all these blessings and hopes the inspired singer exhorts the universe of celestial, terrestrial, rational, and sentient creatures to unite in one general song of ardent, grateful praise. Above all and with peculiar distinction is the exhortation addressed to man, the temporary and accountable ruler of the earth; to those who behold and comprehend His wise and wondrous working. B.

As we get toward the end, and as the book closes, it is Hallelujah, praise. As the ancient Church ceases to speak to us, as she lays down her lyre and ceases to touch it, the last tones are tones of heaven; as if the warfare were done, the conflict accomplished, and she were anticipating either the revelations which are to make her glorious here, the “new thing” which God is about to “create” when He places her under another dispensation, or as you and I (I trust) shall do when we come to die, anticipating the praise and occupation of that eternity and rest for which we hope in the bosom of God. Binney.

The perfect naturalness of the Psalms appears, perhaps, most forcibly in their exultant freedom and joyousness of heart. It is true, as Lord Bacon says, that “if you listen to David’s harp you will hear as many hearse-like airs as carols;” yet still the carols are found there more than anywhere else. “Rejoice in the Lord.” “Sing ye merrily.” “Make a cheerful noise.” “Take the Psalm, bring hither the tabret, the merry harp, with the lute.” “Oh, praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God.” “A joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.” This, in fact, is the very meaning of the word “Psalm.” The one Hebrew word which is their very pith and marrow is “Hallelujah.” They express, if we may so say, the sacred duty of being happy. Be happy, cheerful, and thankful as ever we can, we cannot go beyond the Psalms. Stanley.

1. Hallelujah! Praise, oh my soul, Jehovah! The Hallelujah never appears in any Psalm which bears the name of David, and is indeed as characteristic of the later Psalms as the Selah is of the more ancient. A.

2. The prevailing character of the Divine revelation is joyful; and this appears in its psalmody. The Gospel, to all who understand it aright, is melody—music; the highest harmony of God with man, of man with man, of man with himself. It is throughout a noble hymn, swelling to the strain, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men;” and he who enters fully into its spirit cannot but have his soul suffused with a sacred joy that will overflow in utterance of praise. Ker.—Praise calls into exercise the highest faculties and affections of our nature. It requires little more than animal instinct to tell our wants and plead for relief with the importunity that cries give, give. But praise lifts us to a higher sphere and employs our noblest powers. There is no prayer in heaven, but God inhabits the praises of eternity. Praise puts us in the best receiving attitude before God. It opens the heart that He may come in and sup with us. H. J. V.

Alas for that capital crime of the Lord’s people, barrenness in praises! Oh, how fully I am persuaded that a line of praises is worth a leaf of prayer, and an hour of praises is worth a day of fasting and mourning! J. Livingstone.

4. The primary idea of breath and the secondary one of spirit run into each other in the usage of the Hebrew word, ruah, so that either may be expressed in the translation without entirely excluding the other.

His breath (or spirit) goeth forth. The spirit goeth free or inviolate in essence; death is not the end, but the outgoing of the soul, a transmigration or journey from one place to another. “It goeth forth;” so the character of our weakness we see in the issue; it is an argument of our eternity; for man indeed is perishing, but so is not his spirit. The phoenix goes forth or out of his ashes, “the spirit returneth to God who gave it;” that is, it abides still: and as in the body it pleased God to enclose the soul for a season, so it may as well exist elsewhere without it, if God will; for it hath no rise at all from the clay; yea, it bears in it immortality, an image of that breast whence it is breathed. T. Williamson.

He returneth to his earth. The earth is “his.” It is “his” as it is the only property which he has in reversion. All that a man—a prince, a nobleman, a monarch, a millionaire—will soon have will be his grave, his few feet of earth. That will be his by the fact that for the time being he will occupy it, and not another man! But that, too, may soon become another man’s grave, so that even there he is a tenant only for a time; he has no permanent possession even of a grave. Barnes.

His thoughts perish. With his breath his thoughts, or “purposes,” or “schemes,” however grand the conception, however masterly the execution, all come to an end. The science, the philosophy, the statesmanship of one age is exploded in the next. The men who are the masters of the world’s intellect to-day are discrowned to-morrow. In this age of restless and rapid change they may survive their own thoughts; their thoughts do not survive them. P.

All the thinkings of men that are not really and thoroughly true, however beautiful and magnificent they may be, and whatever favor they may find with their parents or with man to whom they are presented, when men come to die they will find that they all perish and become nothing if they are not true; when the mind enters into the world of truth, pure truth and intellect, it will find it can carry nothing but truth with it. We may apply this to purposes, projects, and intentions: “In that very day his thoughts perish.” Binney.—As the purposes of all about worldly things perish in the approaches of death, so do the purposes of some about spiritual and heavenly things. How many have had purposes to repent, to amend their lives and turn to God, which have been prevented and totally broken off by the extremity of pain and sickness, but chiefly by the stroke of death when they have (as they thought) “been about to repent.” Caryl.

The sowers for earth have their harvest here: Success in their schemes; quiet, intellectual enjoyment; exemption from pain and loss; the fruits of worldly-wise sagacity. And that is all. “When the breath goeth forth they return to their dust and all their thoughts perish.” The grave is not to them the gate of paradise, but simply the impressive mockery which the hand of death writes upon that body for which they lived, and with which all is gone. They reap corruption, for all they have toiled for decays! F. W. R.

Whose hope is in the Lord. In spiritual as in earthly things there is great strength in hope, and therefore God’s people are carefully to cultivate that grace. A wellgrounded hope that having been made new creatures in Jesus Christ we are His; that with our names, though unknown to fame, written in the Book of Life we have grace in possession and heaven in prospect; that after a few more brief years, pure as the angels that sing before the throne, we shall be brought with gladness into the palace of the King, to be like Christ, and with Christ, seeing Him eye to eye and face to face—such hopes are powerful springs of action. The source of a peace that passeth understanding, nothing could be better calculated to wean our affections from the world and deepen our abhorrence of sin, and inflame our desires to be holy as God is holy. Guthrie.

Hope is the ease; yea, the life of our hearts, which would otherwise break and even die within us. Despair is no small part of hell. God cherishes hope, as He is the lover of souls. Satan, our enemy, cherishes despair when his more usual way of presumption fails. Hope anticipates salvation as fear does evil. It is the hypocrite’s hope that perishes, and all who hope for durable happiness on earth must be deceived. But “happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, which keepeth truth forever.” Woe to me “if in this life only I had hope.” But the righteous hath hope in his death. And hope maketh him not ashamed. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. “Lay hold,” then, oh my soul, “upon the hope set before thee;” it is thy “sure and steadfast anchor,” without which thou wilt be as a shipwrecked vessel. It is an encouraging grace; it excites our “diligence,” and helps “to full assurance unto the end.” It is a desiring grace, and is earnest to obtain the glory hoped for. It is a comforting grace, for “the God of hope fills us with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Shake off despondency, oh my soul, “and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Baxter.

The assurance of hope rests on the promises of God. It is allied to faith; nay, it grows out of faith, and it increases with the increase of faith. It results from a firm, unshaken trust in God’s gracious declarations. To see ourselves accepted, we must previously “see the things that are freely given us of God.” As it is the open view of Gospel promises of free salvation through Jesus Christ which first brings us into vital union with our Redeemer, so it is the further application of the same promises to our own case, the seeing of ourselves as included in them, which gives us the joy of assurance. J. W. A.

6. Two reasons are here given for relying upon God: His almighty power as exercised and proved in the creation of the world, and His unchangeable fidelity. A.—He who made heaven can make a heaven for us, and make us fit for heaven. He who made the earth can preserve us while we are on earth, and help us to make good use of it while we sojourn upon it. He who made the sea and all its mysteries can steer us across the pathless deeps of a troubled life and make it a way for His redeemed to pass over. This God who still makes the world by keeping it in existence is assuredly able to keep us to His eternal kingdom and glory. Which keepeth truth forever. This is a second and most forcible justification of our trust; the Lord will never permit His promise to fail. He is true to His own nature, true to the relationships which He has assumed, true to His covenant, true to His Word, true to His Son. S.

Truth is a word of frequent occurrence and of wide signification in the Bible. The primary meaning of the Greek word is openness. But in the Hebrew the primary idea of truth is that which sustains, which does not fail or disappoint our expectations. The true, therefore, is that which can be depended upon, which does not fail, or change, or disappoint. In this sense God is true as He is immutable and faithful. His promise cannot fail; His Word never disappoints. His Word abideth forever. When our Lord says, “Thy Word is truth,” He says that all that God has revealed may be confided in as exactly corresponding to what really is, or is to be. His Word can never fail, though heaven and earth pass away. C. Hodge.—He is one “who keepeth truth forever.” It is the central thought of the Psalm. For on this ground beyond all others is God the object of trust. He is true and His Word is truth, and that Word He keeps, not for a time, but forever.

7-9. These verses portray God’s character as a ruler. It is such a God who is Zion’s King (v. 10). Such an one men may trust, for He is not like the princes of the earth (v. 3). P.

S. The Lord openeth the eyes. Here and everywhere the Scripture assumes that only those who have received Christ are really awake and truly see. Other men walk about like those that walk in their sleep. Objects are shadowy and indistinct to them. They do not seem to realize whither they are going, nor by what they are surrounded. They seem not to see or to be fastened only upon dreamlike fancies. The

Christian is awake. He has done dreaming. He alone truly sees. What is shadow and what is substance is clear to him. Illusions have vanished. Earth, man, and time look to him as they are. Light upon the reality of things shines only in Christ. A. L. Stone.

9. Jehovah preserves strangers; orphan and widow He relieves; and the way of wicked men makes crooked. The stranger, the orphan, and the widow are constantly presented in the Law as objects of compassion and beneficence. Relieves, restores, raises up from their low condition. As a straight path is an emblem of prosperity, to render one’s path crooked is to involve him in calamity. A.—He turneth aside. Rendered by the E. V. in Ecclesiastes, “made crooked.” That which happens in the course of God’s providence, and as the inevitable result of His righteous laws, is usually ascribed in Scripture to His immediate agency. P.

The way of the wicked He turneth upside down. He overturns their plans, defeats their schemes, makes their purposes accomplish what they did not intend they should accomplish. The Hebrew word here means to bend, to curve, to make crooked, to distort; then, to overturn, to turn upside down. The same word is applied to the conduct of the wicked in Psalm 119: 78: “They dealt perversely with me.” This is the eleventh reason why those who put their trust in God are happy. It is that God is worthy of confidence and love, because He has all the plans of wicked men entirely under His control. Barnes.

A striking illustration of the folly of counting God out of one’s plans for life is given in the course of William M. Tweed. Here was a man who sought wealth and power, and who for a time seemed successful in their pursuit. Apparently he did not propose to obey God or to live for a life to come. What he wanted was worldly prosperity. He thought he had it. He went to Congress. He gathered his millions. He controlled the material interests of the metropolis of his country. He openly defied public sentiment and courts of justice in the prosecution of his plans. He was a brilliant and therefore a dangerous example of successful villainy. But the promise of prosperity for the life which now is is only to the godly. As Tweed lay dying in a prison-house in the city he once ruled, his confession of bitter disappointment was, “My life has been a failure in everything. There is nothing I am proud of.” If any young man wants to come to an end like this, the way to it is simple and plain. “The great God that formed all things both rewardrewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors.” S. S. T.

10. And the beauty and glory of the case is that this precious, munificent, and righteous reign shall endure forever! The very God of Zion is to sit on the throne of the heavens and the earth through all generations. Oh, give His name all praise! C.

Let our voices be in harmony with our conduct, lest haply our good voices give testimony against our evil conduct. Oh, what a happy Alleluia in heaven, where angels are the temple of God! For there must be the most perfect harmony of those who sing praise, where the singers enjoy a gladness free from anxiety; where no war in the members wars against the law of the mind; where there is no conflict with appetite wherein the victory of love can be endangered. Here, then, let us sing Alleluia while we are still in anxiety, that we may be able some day to sing it there free from anxiety. Even here, amid dangers, amid temptations, let Alleluia be sung both by ourselves and by others. For, it is written, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.” Therefore let us even in this world sing Alleluia. Man is still guilty; but God is faithful. Oh, what a happy Alleluia in the world to come! Oh, how free from anxieties! Oh, how free from adversaries! where no enemy will exist, where no friend is lost. Praises to God there, and praises to God here; but here sung by those that are anxious, there by those who are freed from anxiety; here by those who must die, there by those who will live forever; here in hope, there in possession of reality; here in the Way, there in the Country. Therefore let us sing for the solace of our toil; even as travellers are wont to sing, cheer thy toil by singing; sing, and walk on. Now, indeed, the glory of our God, the glory of our Christ is hidden, and with Him our own also is hidden. “But when Christ, your Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” Then there shall be Alleluia in reality; now we have it in hope. Hope sings it, love sings it now, love shall also sing it then; but now love sings it hungering, then love will sing it enjoying. Behold, you now hear the Word, and take delight in hearing it; and in your delight you praise God. If you love the dewdrops so much, how greatly will you love the actual fountain! Augustine.

Song, Secular and Spiritual. Its Adaptations and Uses.

Song, secular or sacred, is natural, in accordance with and demanded by our material and spiritual being. It is physically beneficial. It stirs the bodily energies and gives intensity and recruiting power to daily toil. It has special exclusive adaptations to our social nature. It is demanded by the social element in all intelligent creatures. Hail-fellowship among worldly men and holy fellowship among holy beings, angels and men, were impossible without it. It is the only vehicle by which mutual sentiments, tastes and sympathies can find common, simultaneous expression. It is the mighty instrument by which these sentiments, tastes, and sympathies, be they degrading or elevating, impure or holy, are deepened, strengthened, made more active and effective for evil or good. A single song was one of the most potent instrumentalities in achieving the French Revolution. A single choral of Martin Luther, with its Doxology, in various tongues, has contributed vastly to the advance of a pure Reformed Christianity over the earth.

More than these physical and social effects is the influence of song upon the spiritual nature, upon the mind, the heart. Constituted man is with a susceptibility in every faculty to be touched and stirred to life and enjoyment by harmonious sounds. True harmony, so far as its own proper influence goes, is only quickening and beneficial alike to the understanding, the will, and the emotions. It refreshes, invigorates, stimulates, and elevates the tone of thought, of purpose, of aspiration, and feeling. Even upon the worldly spirit it has this effect. The voice of tender, plaintive song is the only thing that ever excites a serious thought or an unselfish desire in some world-loving, self seeking souls. But to the Christian it is a most powerful impulse, a most blessed help, solace, joy. It comes in to aid and cheer in all his experiences—toiling, struggling, fainting, rejoicing, sorrowing, living, and dying. Sacred song, springing from and expressing the soul of devotion, quickens into activity every spiritual grace of the believer; it helps to exalt, refine, and expand his whole spiritual being. It calls out most naturally and exercises most purely and effectively penitence, submission, gratitude, faith, and love. It aids him in the labors, the cares, the discouragements of life; in his struggles with temptation; in his burdening sense of unworthiness and guilt; in his endurance of trouble, pain, and affliction. It calms the troubled waves of his soul as did the voice of

Jesus the stormy sea. When, in its wearying toils and wearing cares, in its deepest heart struggles and griefs, the trusting soul breaks forth in tenderest, sweetest songs, it is sustained and comforted, it is possessed with peace and joy, while it gathers strength and courage for future struggle and duty. “Nothing comforts me more in my greatest sufferings,” said Baxter, “or seems more fit for me while I wait for death, than singing Psalms of praise to God.”

And as these are the blessed effects of devotional song upon the believer’s spiritual life, so we know that the deepest feelings of the Christian do always find the most natural channel for their flow in such song. President Edwards writes: “I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance, and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the mean time singing forth with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.”

“I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm, and used to take the opportunity at such times to view the clouds and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God’s thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplation of my glorious God. While thus engaged it always seemed natural to me to sing or chant forth my meditations, or to put my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice.” It has been thus with the most eminent saints. Living, they have found their sweetest, tenderest devotion and their deepest comfort, their simplest trust and their loftiest aspirations, their purest gratitude and their warmest affection, their firmest assurance, their brightest hopes, and their highest rapture in the same sacred songs of Zion. And to the dying Christian how precious, how comforting, how blessed these songs, as (we all well know) almost every death of the earnest, fervent believer testifies. Nearer as such an one has drawn to the presence of Jesus, has the music of that name refreshed the soul the more. Nearer as such an one has drawn to the glory and the joy of the ransomed throng, has he participated or desired to hear those songs of gratitude and praise which form a chief part in their Divine and lasting employ. By considerations conclusive, powerful, and touching as these—considerations personal to each—is the duty of sacred song in God’s worship, in the closet, the family, and pre-eminently in the sanctuary urged upon all. B.