Psalms 145: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a song of praise addressed to God as king. The singer promises to bless God's name every day and forever, and says that each generation will pass on the story of God's mighty acts to the next. It describes God as gracious, slow to anger, good to all he has made, near to all who call on him truly, and the one who feeds every living thing; it also says he preserves all who love him and destroys all the wicked. It closes by calling every creature to bless God's holy name forever.

Claim by Claim

1. 145:1
   • This psalm is a praise belonging to David.
   • The speaker will exalt God.
   • The speaker addresses God as his God and as the king.
   • The speaker will bless God's name forever and ever.
2. 145:2
   • The speaker will bless God every day.
   • The speaker will praise God's name forever and ever.
3. 145:3
   • The LORD is great.
   • The LORD is greatly to be praised.
   • There is no searching out of the LORD's greatness.
4. 145:4
   • One generation will commend God's works to another generation.
   • They will declare God's mighty acts.
5. 145:5
   • The speaker will speak of the splendor of the glory of God's majesty.
   • The speaker will speak of the accounts of God's wondrous deeds.
6. 145:6
   • People will speak of the might of God's awesome deeds.
   • The speaker will recount God's greatness.
7. 145:7
   • People will pour forth the remembrance of God's abundant goodness.
   • People will sing joyfully of God's righteousness.
8. 145:8
   • The LORD is gracious.
   • The LORD is compassionate.
   • The LORD is slow to anger.
   • The LORD is great in steadfast love.
9. 145:9
   • The LORD is good to all.
   • The LORD's compassion is over all his works.
10. 145:10
    • All God's works will give him thanks.
    • God's faithful ones will bless him.
11. 145:11
    • They will speak of the glory of God's kingdom.
    • They will talk of God's power.
12. 145:12
    • The purpose is to make known to the sons of men God's mighty acts.
    • The purpose is to make known to the sons of men the glorious splendor of God's kingdom.
13. 145:13
    • God's kingdom is a kingdom of all ages.
    • God's dominion endures through every generation.
14. 145:14
    • The LORD upholds all who are falling.
    • The LORD raises up all who are bowed down.
15. 145:15
    • The eyes of all look expectantly to God.
    • God gives them their food at its proper time.
16. 145:16
    • God opens his hand.
    • God satisfies the desire of every living thing.
17. 145:17
    • The LORD is righteous in all his ways.
    • The LORD is faithful and kind in all his works.
18. 145:18
    • The LORD is near to all who call upon him.
    • The LORD is near to all who call upon him in truth.
19. 145:19
    • God will do the desire of those who fear him.
    • God will hear their cry.
    • God will save them.
20. 145:20
    • The LORD guards all who love him.
    • The LORD will destroy all the wicked.
21. 145:21
    • The speaker's mouth will speak the praise of the LORD.
    • All flesh is to bless God's holy name forever and ever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

145:1

The KJV's "my God, O king" can be misread as addressing a human king; in the Hebrew there is one addressee throughout, God, titled "the King." This psalm is also an acrostic: in Hebrew each verse opens with the next letter of the alphabet, which is why it reads as a series of parallel statements rather than a developing argument.

145:3

LORD printed in capital letters marks God's own personal name in Hebrew. Jewish readers did not say that name out loud, so English Bibles print LORD instead. "Unsearchable" means you can never reach the end of it, no matter how far you look.

145:4

A generation is all the people living at about the same time. Israelite parents were expected to tell their children the story of what God had done, and those children then told their own.

145:5

The KJV stacks nouns ("the glorious honour of thy majesty") because Hebrew intensifies by chaining related words rather than by piling on adjectives. The verb behind "I will speak" covers both talking about something and turning it over silently in the mind, which is why some translations read "I will meditate."

145:6

In 1611 "terrible" meant awe-inspiring, something that makes people tremble, not "very bad." The Hebrew word describes deeds that provoke fear and wonder at once.

145:7

"Memory" translates a Hebrew word meaning the fame or renown by which something is remembered, not a private recollection. "Abundantly utter" renders a verb meaning to gush or bubble over, the way a spring does.

145:8

This line quotes a fixed formula about God's character used repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 34:6). "Mercy" here translates *hesed*, meaning committed, dependable loyalty inside a relationship, closer to "faithful love" than to pity.

145:9

"Tender mercies" translates a Hebrew word built on the word for womb; it describes gut-level compassion, the feeling a parent has for a child.

145:10

"Saints" translates *hasidim*, from the same root as the "mercy" of verse 8: people bound to God by loyal love. It does not mean morally perfect people, and it carries none of the later church sense of a canonized saint.

145:11

A kingdom is all the people and places that a king rules. Saying God has a kingdom means he is in charge of everything.

145:12

"Sons of men" is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply human beings, everyone.

145:13

The acrostic skips a letter here: the verse beginning with the Hebrew letter *nun* is absent from the traditional Hebrew text, but a Dead Sea Scrolls copy and the ancient Greek and Syriac versions carry an extra line at this point, "The LORD is faithful in all his words and gracious in all his deeds." That is why some modern Bibles print a longer verse 13.

145:14

To be "bowed down" is to be bent over, the way a person stoops under a heavy load or under sadness. Lifting someone up meant helping them stand straight again.

145:15

"Meat" in 1611 English meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically.

145:16

The Hebrew is compressed and can be read two ways: that God satisfies every living thing with what it desires, or that he satisfies it out of his own favor and good pleasure.

145:17

The KJV's "holy" here renders *hasid*, the same word behind "saints" in verse 10. It means loyal, faithful, kind, not "set apart" or ritually pure.

145:18

"In truth" means sincerely and reliably; the Hebrew word covers both truthfulness and dependability, so the phrase points to people who mean what they say.

145:19

"Fear" here means reverent awe, taking God seriously enough to order one's life around him, rather than being frightened of him.

145:20

"The wicked" means people who choose to do evil and keep on choosing it.

145:21

"All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for every living creature, sometimes all humanity and sometimes everything that breathes.