Psalms 103:8-18

8 Yahweh is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness.

9 He will not always accuse; Neither will he stay angry forever.

10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us for our iniquities.

11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is his lovingkindness toward those who fear him.

12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 Like a father has compassion on his children, So Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.

14 For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

16 For the wind passes over it, and it is gone. Its place remembers it no more.

17 But Yahweh's lovingkindness is from everlasting to everlasting with those who fear him, His righteousness to children's children;

18 To those who keep his covenant, To those who remember to obey his precepts.

Psalms 103:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 103

\\<>\\. The Targum adds, ``spoken in prophecy,'' as doubtless it was, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Some think it was written by David, after a fit of illness, and his recovery from it, since he speaks of his diseases being healed, and his youth renewed; for which reason the Syriac interpreter suggests it was written in his old age; for he makes the subject of the psalm to be, ``concerning coldness which prevailed upon him in old age;'' but rather he wrote it when his heart was warm with a sense of the love of God, and spiritual blessings of grace flowing from thence; and in it celebrates and sings the benefits of New Testament times; and it is a psalm suitable to be sung by every believer, under a quick sense of divine favours: wherefore the above interpreter better adds, ``also an instruction and thanksgiving by men of God;'' whom the psalmist may very well be thought to personate, even in Gospel times; and much rather than the Jews in captivity, as Kimchi thinks.