Psalms 146:1-8

1 Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah, O my soul.

2 As long as I live will I praise Jehovah; I will sing psalms unto my God while I have my being.

3 Put not confidence in nobles, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his purposes perish.

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;

Psalms 146:1-8 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]. Adam.