Psalm 146

1 My soul, praise the Lord.

2 While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises to my God as long as I exist.

3 Trust not in princes, nor in the children of men, in whom there is no safety.

4 His breath shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth; in that day all his thoughts shall perish.

5 Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

6 who made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all things in them: who keeps truth for ever:

7 who executes judgment for the wronged: who gives food to the hungry. The Lord looses the fettered ones:

8 the Lord gives wisdom to the blind:

9 he will relieve the orphan and widow: but will utterly remove the way of sinners.

10 The Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Sion, to all generations.

Psalm 146 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.