Psalm 146:3-5

3 Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.

4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God.

Psalm 146:3-5 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 118:9
• 2. Psalms 60:11; S Psalms 108:12; Isaiah 2:22
• 3. S Genesis 3:19; S Job 7:21; Psalms 103:14; Psalms 104:29; Ecclesiastes 12:7
• 4. Psalms 33:10; 1 Corinthians 2:6
• 5. Psalms 33:18; Psalms 37:9; Psalms 119:43; Psalms 144:15; Jeremiah 17:7
• 6. Psalms 70:5; Psalms 71:5; Psalms 121:2