Psalm 146:5-10

5 Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God,

6 Who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is therein; who keepeth truth for ever;

7 Who executeth judgment for the oppressed, who giveth bread to the hungry. Jehovah looseth the prisoners;

8 Jehovah openeth [the eyes of] the blind; Jehovah raiseth up them that are bowed down; Jehovah loveth the righteous;

9 Jehovah preserveth the strangers; he lifteth up the fatherless and the widow; but the way of the wicked doth he subvert.

10 Jehovah will reign for ever, [even] thy God, O Zion, from generation to generation. Halleluiah!

Psalm 146:5-10 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.

Footnotes

• [a] Or 'keepeth,' as Ps. 145.20.
• [b] Or 'upholdeth.'
• [c] Properly 'make tortuous.'