Psalms 146: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm opens and closes with a call to praise the LORD, and the speaker promises to praise God for as long as he lives. He warns against trusting human rulers, whose plans end the day they die, and says instead that the person whose help and hope is in the God of Jacob is blessed. The rest of the psalm lists what this God does: he made everything, keeps faith, and acts for the oppressed, the hungry, prisoners, the blind, the bowed down, foreigners, orphans, and widows, while frustrating the way of the wicked.

Claim by Claim

1. 146:1
   • A call is given to praise the LORD.
   • The speaker calls on his own soul to praise the LORD.
2. 146:2
   • The speaker says he will praise the LORD as long as he lives.
   • The speaker says he will sing praises to his God as long as he exists.
3. 146:3
   • The hearers are told not to put their trust in nobles.
   • The hearers are told not to trust in a human being.
   • A human being has no power to deliver.
4. 146:4
   • A man's breath goes out of him.
   • He returns to the ground he came from.
   • On that same day his plans perish.
5. 146:5
   • The one whose help is the God of Jacob is happy.
   • The one whose hope is in the LORD his God is happy.
6. 146:6
   • The LORD made heaven and earth.
   • The LORD made the sea.
   • The LORD made everything that is in them.
   • The LORD keeps faithfulness forever.
7. 146:7
   • The LORD executes justice for the oppressed.
   • The LORD gives food to the hungry.
   • The LORD sets prisoners free.
8. 146:8
   • The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
   • The LORD raises up those who are bowed down.
   • The LORD loves the righteous.
9. 146:9
   • The LORD watches over resident foreigners.
   • The LORD sustains the fatherless and the widow.
   • The LORD makes the way of the wicked crooked.
10. 146:10
    • The LORD will reign forever.
    • The LORD is Zion's God.
    • The LORD reigns to all generations.
    • A call is given to praise the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

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

146:1

"Praise ye the LORD" translates a single Hebrew word, halelu-yah (the source of the English "hallelujah." It is a plural command, addressed to a gathering rather than to one person. The psalm opens and closes with it. "LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH; Jewish readers said "Lord" aloud in its place, and English translations have followed that custom. "My soul" in Hebrew (nephesh) means the whole living self, not a spirit part inside a body) closer to "myself" or "my whole being."

146:2

"While I have any being" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning "while I still am", for as long as I exist. It is a parallel restatement of "while I live," not a claim about a state beyond death.

146:3

"The son of man" here is ordinary Hebrew idiom for a human being, a member of the human race, mortal as opposed to divine. It carries no special title in this verse. "In whom there is no help" means no power to rescue or deliver, not merely unhelpfulness. "Princes" covers rulers and powerful officials generally, not only royal sons.

146:4

"His breath goeth forth" (the Hebrew word (ruach) means breath, wind, or spirit at once; the picture is of the breath leaving the body at death. "He returneth to his earth" echoes the account of humans being formed from soil and returning to it. "His thoughts perish" is not about opinions or memories: the Hebrew word means plans, schemes, or projects) the things a powerful person intended to do.

146:5

"Happy" in the King James Version renders a Hebrew word closer to "fortunate" or "well off", a statement about someone's enviable situation rather than about their mood. "The God of Jacob" identifies God by his relationship with Jacob, the ancestor from whom the tribes of Israel descended and who was renamed Israel; the phrase is a standard way of naming the God of the nation's founding stories.

146:6

"Which" was ordinary King James English for "who" when speaking of a person. "Keepeth truth for ever" does not mean he tells no lies: the Hebrew word (emet) means reliability or steadiness, so the sense is that he keeps faith: he can be depended on to do what he has said.

146:7

"Executeth judgment for the oppressed" means carrying out a legal verdict in their favor. In the King James Version "judgment" usually means justice or a just decision, not condemnation, and "the oppressed" are those being crushed or exploited by someone stronger. "Looseth the prisoners" pictures untying or unbinding, the prisoners are in chains rather than behind bars.

146:8

"Bowed down" pictures a person bent over, the way someone stoops under a heavy load or under grief. "The righteous" are people who live the way God asks, honest and fair with others.

146:9

The KJV's "strangers" means foreigners or immigrants living in Israel, not people who are unfamiliar.

146:10

Zion was the hill in Jerusalem where the temple stood. The name came to mean the whole city and the people in it. "Unto all generations" means on through the children, and their children, without stopping.