Psalm 146:1-4

The LORD an Abundant Helper.

1 Praise the LORD! ¹Praise the LORD, O my soul!

2 I will praise the LORD ²while I live; I will ³sing praises to my God while I have my being.

3 ⁴Do not trust in princes, In mortal ⁵man, in whom there is ⁶no salvation.

4 His ⁷spirit departs, he ⁸returns to the earth; In that very day his ⁹thoughts perish.

Psalm 146:1-4 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.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 103:1
• 2. Psalms 63:4
• 3. Psalms 104:33
• 4. Psalms 118:9
• 5. Psalms 118:8; Isaiah 2:22
• 6. Psalms 60:11; Psalms 108:12
• 7. Psalms 104:29
• 8. Ecclesiastes 12:7
• 9. Psalms 33:10; 1 Corinthians 2:6

Footnotes

• [a] Or "Hallelujah!"
• [b] Heb YAH
• [c] Lit "a son of a man"
• [d] Lit "his earth"