Psalms 146:1-7

1 Let the Lord be praised. Give praise to the Lord, O my soul.

2 While I have breath I will give praise to the Lord: I will make melody to my God while I have my being.

3 Put not your faith in rulers, or in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

4 Man's breath goes out, he is turned back again to dust; in that day all his purposes come to an end.

5 Happy is the man who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

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

7 Who gives their rights to those who are crushed down; and gives food to those who are in need of it: the Lord makes the prisoners free;

Psalms 146:1-7 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.