Psalm 145

1 I will exalt thee, my God, my king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

2 Every day will I bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

3 The Lord is great, and greatly to be praised; and there is no end to his greatness.

4 Generation after generation shall praise thy works, and tell of thy power.

5 And they shall speak of the glorious majesty of thy holiness, and recount thy wonders.

6 And they shall speak of the power of thy terrible acts; and recount thy greatness.

7 They shall utter the memory of the abundance of thy goodness, and shall exult in thy righteousness.

8 The Lord is compassionate, and merciful; long suffering, and abundant in mercy.

9 The Lord is good to those that wait on him; and his compassions are over all his works.

10 Let all thy works, O Lord, give thanks to thee; and let thy saints bless thee.

11 They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy dominion;

12 to make known to the sons of men thy power, and the glorious majesty of thy kingdom.

13 Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is faithful in his words, and holy in all his works.

14 The Lord supports all that are falling, and sets up all that are broken down.

15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their food in due season.

16 Thou openest thine hands, and fillest every living thing with pleasure.

17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.

18 The Lord is near to all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.

19 He will perform the desire of them that fear him: and he will hear their supplication, and save them.

20 The Lord preserves all that love him: but all sinners he will utterly destroy.

21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.

Psalm 145 Meaning and Commentary

David's [Psalm] of praise. This psalm is rendered by Ainsworth "a hymn of David"; and the whole book of Psalms is from hence called "the Book of Hymns"; see Ephesians 5:19; It seems to have been a psalm David took great delight in, and it may be that he often repeated and sung it, as it was made by him with great care and contrivance, in a very curious manner, as well as he was assisted in it by divine inspiration; for it is wrote in an alphabetical order, each verse: beginning with the letter of the alphabet in course, and goes through the whole, excepting one letter; and very probably it was composed in this form that it might be the more easily committed to memory, and retained in it. The Jews have a very high opinion of it; their Rabbins say, that whoever says this psalm thrice every day may be sure of being a child of the world to come. This is mentioned by Arama and Kimchi; and which the latter explains thus, not he that says it any way, but with his mouth, and with his heart, and with his tongue. It seems to have been written by David after the Lord had granted him all his requests put up in the preceding psalms, and had given him rest from all his enemies; and when he turned his prayers into praises; for this psalm is wholly praise from one end to the other; and so are all the five following ones; they begin and end with "hallelujah": nor is there a single petition in them, as I remember; so that it may in some sense be said, "here the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." It no doubt, as Cocceius observes, belongs to the Messiah and his kingdom, which is everlasting, Psalm 145:13.