Psalms 146:1-6

1 Alleluia. My soul, praise thou the Lord;

2 I shall praise the Lord in my life (I shall praise the Lord all my life); I shall sing to my God as long as I shall be.

3 Do not ye trust in princes; neither in the sons of men, in whom is no health. (Do not ye trust in princes, or in your leaders; nor in other people, in whom there is no help, or deliverance.)

4 The spirit of him shall go out, and he shall turn again into his earth; in that day all the thoughts of them shall perish. (The breath of your prince, or of your leader, shall go out of him, and he shall return to the dust; and on that day all his thoughts shall perish.)

5 He is blessed, of whom the God of Jacob is his helper; his hope is in his Lord God, (He is blessed, whom the God of Jacob is his helper; his hope is in the Lord his God,)

6 that made heaven, and earth; the sea, and all things that be in those. Which keepeth truth into the world, (who made heaven, and earth; and the sea, and all the creatures that be in them. Who keepeth the truth safe forever,)

Psalms 146:1-6 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.