Psalms 146:1-6

1 Praise the Lord! My whole being, praise the Lord.
2 I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praises to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes or other people, who cannot save you.
4 When people die, they are buried. Then all of their plans come to an end.
5 Happy are those who are helped by the God of Jacob. Their hope is in the Lord their God.
6 He made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in it. He remains loyal forever.

Psalms 146:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 146

This psalm is entitled by the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, "hallelujah", of Haggai and Zechariah; and by Apollinarius, the common hymn of them: and the Syriac inscription is still more expressive,

``it was said by Haggai and Zechariah, prophets, who came up with the captivity out of Babylon.''

Theodoret says this title was in some Greek copies in his time; but was not in the Septuagint, in the Hexapla: nor is it in any other Greek interpreters, nor in the Hebrew text, nor in the Targum; though some Jewish commentators, as R. Obadiah, take it to be an exhortation to the captives in Babylon to praise the Lord: and Kimchi interprets it of their present captivity and deliverance from it; and observes, that the psalmist seeing, by the Holy Spirit, the gathering of the captives, said this with respect to Israel; and so refers it to the times of the Messiah, as does also Jarchi, especially the Ps 146:10; and which, though they make it to serve an hypothesis of their own, concerning their vainly expected Messiah; yet it is most true, that the psalm is concerning the Messiah and his kingdom, to whom all the characters and descriptions given agree.

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Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.