Psalm 103
22 verses · Hymn of praise
Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Introduction
David, the Psalm of Mercies Remembered, Book 4: The LORD reigns, Poetry, Psalms Overview.
The heading gives this psalm to David. It is praise with no request in it, and it opens with a man speaking to himself and telling himself to remember. He counts what God has done for him, then widens the count to what God did for Israel in the days of Moses, then widens it again to every creature in heaven and on earth. Listen for the pictures he uses to measure mercy, taken from the sky, the horizon and a father's home, and for the way the psalm closes on the same words it began with.
Context
- Who
- The singer's own soul first, then the angels, the hosts and every work in God's dominion
- What
- A hymn of thanks for God's mercy, sung first to the singer's own soul and then to all creation.
- Where
- Israel, among a people who knew the words God spoke to Moses at Sinai.
- When
- The reign of David, about 1010 to 970 BC by the superscription.
- Why
- To train a worshipper to remember what God has done and forgiven.
Historical context
Verse 8 is God's own description of Himself, spoken to Moses at Exodus 34:6 and repeated at Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2, so a hearer met it as the formula his nation kept saying back to God. Crowning in verse 4 is what is done to a king, set here on a life just redeemed from the Pit. As far as the east is from the west names two points that never meet and always stay the same distance apart. The dust of verse 14 recalls Genesis 2:7 and 3:19, the forming of man from the ground and the sentence returning him to it. The grass and the wild flower of verses 15 and 16 are the spring growth of that country, which came up after the rain and was gone when the hot east wind passed over it.
Significance
For a worshipper the psalm was an act of memory, with nothing asked for in it and its two opening commands given to the singer's own soul. It put mercy in measures a person could picture, the height of the sky and the width of the horizon, and put tenderness in the one relation everyone knew, a father with his own children.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The classical reading begins from a count. The psalm says bless the Lord, my soul, five times, and Rashi reads the five as the five worlds in which a man lives, citing the Sages in tractate Berakhot 10a on the man who lived in his mother's womb and sucked at her breasts and so on through the rest (Rashi on Psalms 103:1:1, Rashi on Psalms, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY).
The mercies of the middle of the psalm are read as mercies shown to Moses and to Israel through him. On verse 7 Rashi says simply that God makes His ways known to Moses, which ties the psalm to Exodus 33 and 34 rather than to a general statement about providence (Rashi on Psalms 103:7:1, same edition).
The frailty of verses 14 to 16 Rashi keeps concrete. He reads the remembering of dust as God remembering and having forgotten nothing, and the wind that passes over a man as mortal illness passing over him (Rashi on Psalms 103:14:1 and 103:16:1, same edition). The closing call of verse 22 he widens to all who are in the places of God's dominion (Rashi on Psalms 103:22:1).
Ibn Ezra comments on sixteen verses of this chapter, the largest single bench of his comments in these thirty psalms, and Sefaria holds no English version of any of them. They are cited by reference (Ibn Ezra on Psalms 103:1:1 and the fifteen references beside it), with one further comment of Rashi and one of Radak in the same condition.
What the rabbis say
Rashi passes on one aggadic tradition here. On the renewed youth of verse 5 he writes of an eagle that renews its wings and feathers from year to year, and adds that there is a Midrash Aggadah "about a kind of eagle that returns to its youth when it becomes old" (Rashi on Psalms 103:5:1, same edition). The site reports it as what the rabbis taught.
The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this psalm, twenty eight under Midrash and twelve under Talmud, and it carries the locator for each one with no text. The Babylonian Talmud gathers on the first two verses at Berakhot 10a:13, 10a:15 and 10a:21, which is the page Rashi cited, and it reads verse 11 at Menachot 31b:8 and at Tamid 32a:2.
The Jerusalem Talmud cites verse 2 at Berakhot 2:3:5 and 2:4:10 and verse 9 at Rosh Hashanah 1:3:4. Midrash Tehillim treats the psalm at 103:7, 103:11 and 103:12, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer reads the eagle of verse 5 at 45:4, and Avot DeRabbi Natan reads verse 14 at 16:3 and at Recension B 30:3. The site reports where the rabbis cite the verse and reports no saying, because the locator carries none.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Psalms 103, in The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra and Radak, their comments on Psalms 103, cited by reference; Sefaria holds no English version; The Midrash and the Talmud, the forty locators on Psalms 103 in scripts/data/sources/sefaria/psalms/103.json.
Psalms 103:1-2
all that is within me: The psalm opens with a man giving orders to his own soul. Two of them, bless the LORD and forget none of His kind deeds, make the whole psalm an act of memory. What follows is a list of what the LORD has done.
Psalms 103:1
“Bless, &c.--when God is the object, praise. my soul--myself (Ps 3:3; 25:1), with allusion to the act, as one of intelligence. all . . . within me-- (De 6:5). his holy name-- (Ps 5:11), His complete moral perfections.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Psalms 103:1
“Blessing God and giving him glory must be the alpha and the omega of all our services. He began with Bless the Lord, O my soul! and, when he had penned and sung this excellent hymn to his honour, he does not say, Now, O my soul! thou hast blessed the Lord, sit down, and rest thee, but, Bless the Lord, O my soul! yet more and more.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 103:1
“If even the prophet, who was inflamed with a more intense and fervent zeal than other men, was not free from this malady, of which his earnestness in stimulating himself is a plain confession, how much more necessary is it for us, who have abundant experience of our own torpor, to apply the same means for our quickening?”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Psalms 103:1
“Bless the Lord O my soul. Soul music is the very soul of music. The Psalmist strikes the best keymote when he begins with stirring up his inmost self to magnify the Lord. He soliloquizes, holds self-communion and exhorts himself, as though he felt that dulness would all too soon steal over his faculties, as, indeed, it will over us all, unless we are diligently on the watch.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
ConnectionsPsalms 103:22
do not forget all His kind deeds—: Kind deeds translates gemul, a word for what one person has done for another. Psalm 116:12 uses the same root, asking what can be returned to the LORD for all His goodness. Moses warned at Deuteronomy 8:11 to 14 that plenty makes people forget.
Psalms 103:2
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his rewards. The Lord has bestowed many rewards upon us, he has bestowed great benefits upon us: for he made the heaven, the earth, all the elements for us. The sun itself and the moon and the stars and all the elements run and run back again for our sake. O wretched creatures that we are: the elements serve us, and we do not serve the Lord. It is a great thing, therefore, that God made for our sake all the things we see.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Homily 29, on Psalm 102patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:2
“Bless the Lord, O my soul. He is in real earnest, and again calls upon himself to arise. Had he been very sleepy before? Or was he now doubly sensible of the importance, the imperative necessity of adoration? Certainly, he uses no vain repetitions, for the Holy Spirit guides his pen; and thus he shews us that we have need, again and again, to bestir ourselves when we are about to worship God, for it would be shameful to offer him anything less than the utmost our souls can render.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:2
“How is it that we are so listless and drowsy in the performance of this the chief exercise of true religion, if it is not because our shameful and wicked forgetfulness buries in our hearts the innumerable benefits of God, which are openly manifest to heaven and earth?”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Psalms 103:3-5
forgives all your iniquities: The list runs pardon, healing, rescue from the Pit, a crown, and good things to satisfy. Crowning is what is done to a king, and it is set here on a life just redeemed. The renewed youth is compared to an eagle's.
Psalms 103:3
“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Here David begins his list of blessings received, which he rehearses as themes and arguments for praise. He selects a few of the choicest pearls from the casket of divine love, threads them on the string of memory, and hangs them about the neck of gratitude. Pardoned sin is, in our experience, one of the choicest boons of grace, one of the earliest gifts of mercy, —in fact, the needful preparation for enjoying all that follows it. Till iniquity is forgiven, healing, redemption, and satisfaction are unknown blessings.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
3 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:3
“Who heals all your infirmities. Our soul has many infirmities. As many sins, so many infirmities. Indeed, there was also that woman in the Gospel, who for eighteen years had a spirit of infirmity, and could not lift her head upright... See what he says. When someone has a spirit of infirmity, he is bent over, he looks downward, he gazes at the earth, he cannot see heaven.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Homily 29, on Psalm 102patristic
Psalms 103:3
“Who forgiveth all thy iniquities He now enumerates the different kinds of the divine benefits, in considering which he has told us that we are too forgetful and slothful. It is not without cause that he begins with God's pardoning mercy, for reconciliation with him is the fountain from which all other blessings flow.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Psalms 103:3
“These two go together; for, as for God, his work is perfect and not done by halves; if God take away the guilt of sin by pardoning mercy, he will break the power of it by renewing grace. Where Christ is made righteousness to any soul he is made sanctification, 1 Cor. i.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
redeems your life from the Pit: Redeems is gaal, the verb of the kinsman who buys back a relative's land at Leviticus 25:25. The Pit is shachat, the grave, the word of Psalm 16:10. Psalm 8:5 also crowns man, there with glory and honor.
Psalms 103:4
“Who crowns you in mercy and compassions. Who crowns you. When he has redeemed, then he crowns. And he crowns, not because of your merits, but because of his own mercy. "O Lord, you have crowned us as with a shield of your good will." See what he says, O Lord, you have crowned us as with a shield of your good will. Does anyone crown with a shield? Surely he who crowns, crowns with flowers, crowns with gold, crowns with the other kinds of crowns. Does anyone crown with a shield?”
Jerome · written before 420 · Homily 29, on Psalm 102patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:4
“Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. By purchase and by power the Lord redeems us from the spiritual death into which we had fallen, and from the eternal death which would have been its consequence. Had not the death penalty of sin been removed, our forgiveness and healing would have been incomplete portions of salvation, fragments only, and but of small value, but the removal of the guilt and power of sin is fitly attended by the reversal of the sentence of death which had been passed upon us.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
renewed like the eagle’s: The eagle molts and grows new feathers, and the older commentators saw renewed youth in that change. Isaiah 40:31 sets the same bird beside those who wait on the LORD and renew their strength. The good things that satisfy are daily provision.
Psalms 103:5
“Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, or rather "filling with good thy soul." No man is ever filled to satisfaction but a believer, and only God himself can satisfy even him. Many a worldling is satiated, but not one is satisfied. God satisfies the very soul of man, his noblest part, his ornament and glory; and of consequence he satisfies his mouth, however hungry and craving it might otherwise be. Soul-satisfaction loudly calls for soul-praise, and when the mouth is filled with good it is bound to speak good of him who filled it.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:5
“When God, by the graces and comforts of his Spirit, recovers his people from their decays, and fills them with new life and joy, which is to them an earnest of eternal life and joy, then they may be said to return to the days of their youth, Job xxxiii. Goodness and Compassion of God. 6 The L ORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 103:6-8
executes righteousness and justice: Verse 6 puts God's government on the side of the wronged, and verse 7 names where Israel learned it, from Moses. Verse 8 is the LORD's name for Himself, spoken to Moses at Exodus 34:6, abounding in loving devotion and slow to anger. The psalm is quoting God's own words.
Psalms 103:6
“The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are of oppressed. Our own personal obligations must not absorb our song; we must also magnify the Lord for his goodness to others. He does not leave the poor and needy to perish at the hands of their enemies, but interposes on their behalf, for he is the executor of the poor and the executioner of the cruel. When his people were in Egypt he heard their groanings and brought them forth, but he overthrew Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Man's injustice shall receive retribution at the hand of God.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
He made known His ways to Moses: Moses asked at Exodus 33:13 to be shown the LORD's ways, and this verse records the answer. Israel saw the deeds, the plagues and the sea. Moses was given the ways behind them, the character that verse 8 goes on to name.
Psalms 103:7
“He made known his ways unto Moses. Moses was made to see the manner in which the Lord deals with men; he saw this at each of the three periods of his life, in the court, in retirement, and at the head of the tribes of Israel. To him the Lord gave specially clear manifestations of his dispensations and modes of ruling among mankind, granting to him to see more of God than had before been seen by mortal man, while he cornmaned with him upon the mount. His acts unto the children of Israel.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:7
“Or by his ways we may understand his precepts, the way which he requires us to walk in; and by his acts, or designs (as the word signifies), his promises and purposes as to what he will do with us.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion: Slow to anger is erekh appayim in the Hebrew, long of nostrils, the picture of anger slow to kindle. Moses pleaded the same words for Israel at Numbers 14:18. Jonah 4:2 and Joel 2:13 repeat them.
Psalms 103:8
“The Lord is merciful and gracious. Those with whom he deals are sinners. However much he favours them they are guilty and need mercy at his hands, nor is he slow to compassionate their lost estate, or reluctant by his grace to lift them out of it. Mercy pardons sin, grace bestows favour: in both the Lord abounds. This is that way of his which he made known to Moses (Ex 34:6), and in that way he will abide as long as the age of grace shall last, and men are yet in this life.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:8
“The Lord is merciful and gracious,.... So he made himself known to Moses, Exo 34:6, and so David found him to be, and therefore calls upon his soul to bless his name.”
Psalms 103:9-12
nor harbor His anger forever: God's anger has an end, and He has held back the repayment the sins deserve. Two measures are given, height for the loving devotion and distance for the sin. The heavens stand above the earth, and east never reaches west.
Psalms 103:9
“He will not always chide. He will sometimes, for he cannot endure that his people should harbour sin in their hearts, but not for ever will he chasten them; as soon as they turn to him and forsake their evil ways he will end the quarrel. He might find constant cause for striving with us, for we have always something in us which is contrary to his holy mind, but he refrains himself lest our spirits should fail before him.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:9
“Though he signify his displeasure against us for our sins by the rebukes of Providence, and the reproaches of our own consciences, and thus cause grief, yet he will have compassion, and will not always keep us in pain and terror, no, not for our sins, but, after the spirit of bondage, will give the spirit of adoption.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
repaid us according to our iniquities: Ezra confessed the same thing at Ezra 9:13, that God had punished Israel less than its iniquities deserved. Repaid is gamal, from the root behind the kind deeds of verse 2. What He withholds here He gives as mercy in verse 11.
Psalms 103:10
“He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Else had Israel perished outright, and we also had long ago been consigned to the lowest hell. We ought to praise the Lord for what he has not done as well as for what he has wrought for us; even the negative side deserves our adoring gratitude.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
as high as the heavens: So great translates gavar, a verb for being strong or prevailing, the word of Psalm 117:2. Isaiah 55:9 uses the same measure of heaven over earth for the LORD's ways and thoughts. Those who fear Him recur in verses 13 and 17.
Psalms 103:11
“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. Boundless in extent towards his chosen is the mercy of the Lord; it is no more to be measured than the height of heaven or the heaven of heavens. "Like the height of the heavens" is the original language, which implies other points of comparison besides extent, and suggests sublimity, grandeur, and glory.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
so far has He removed: Removed translates a Hebrew verb for putting a thing far away. The scapegoat of Leviticus 16:21 to 22 carried the iniquities of Israel away into the wilderness. Micah 7:19 gives a second picture, sins hurled into the depths of the sea.
Psalms 103:12
“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. O glorious verse, no word even upon the inspired page can excel it! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love! What a load to move, and yet is it removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Fly as far as the wing of imagination can bear you, and if you journey through space eastward, you are further from the west at every beat of your wing.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:12
“As far as the east is from the west,.... Which Kimchi thinks is mentioned because it contains the length of the habitable world; and therefore it is not said as far as the north is from the south; since a man can go from east to west, but not from north to south, because of the extreme heat and cold.”
Psalms 103:13-14
As a father has compassion: The picture is a father's ordinary tenderness toward his own children. Then comes the ground of it: God knows the frame He made and remembers it is dust. He formed the man from dust at Genesis 2:7 and pronounced the same over him at Genesis 3:19.
Psalms 103:13
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. To those who truly reverence his holy name, the Lord is a father and acts as such. These he pities, for in the very best of men the Lord sees much to pity, and when they are at their best state they still need his compassion. This should check every propensity to pride, though at the same time it should yield us the richest comfort.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:13
“Like as a father pitieth his children,.... When in any affliction, disorder, or distress: the Lord stands in the relation of a Father to his people; they are his children by adopting grace, through the covenant of grace with them; by a sovereign act of his own will he puts them among the children, predestinates them to the adoption of children; and sends his Son to redeem them, that they might receive it, and his Spirit to bear witness to their spirits, that they are his children; and towards these he has all the affections of a tender parent.”
He knows our frame: Frame translates yetser, from the verb for a potter shaping clay. The One who knows the frame is its maker. Psalm 78:39 gives the same ground for compassion, that the LORD remembered Israel was flesh.
Psalms 103:14
“For he knoweth our frame. He knows how we are made, for he made us. Our make and build, our constitution and temperament, our prevailing infirmity and most besetting temptation he well perceives, for he searches our inmost nature. He remembereth that we are dust. Made of dust, dust still, and ready to return to dust. We have sometimes heard of "the Iron Duke, " and of iron constitutions, but the words are soon belied, for the Iron Duke is dissolved, and other men of like rigour are following to the grave, where "dust to dust" is an appropriate requiem.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:14
“So do not forget the weak. Remember, Lord, that you have made me weak; remember that you have formed me from dust. How can I stand unless you always strengthen this clay, so that my strength may come forth from your face? When you turn your face away, everything is thrown into turmoil; if you pay attention, woe is me; you have nothing in me to look at, except the stains of sin; it is neither useful to abandon me, nor is it beneficial to behold me; for while we are seen, we offend.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Interrogation of Job and Davidpatristic
Psalms 103:15-16
his days are like grass—: Man gets grass and a wild flower of the field for his picture. The flower blooms, and the wind passes once and takes it. The ground it grew on keeps no record that it stood there.
Psalms 103:15
“As for man, his days are as grass. He lives on the grass, and lives like the grass. Corn is but educated grass, and man, who feeds on it, partakes of its nature. The grass lives, grows, flowers, falls beneath the scythe, dries up, and is removed from the field: read this sentence over again, and you will find it the history of man.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:15
Concerning the resurrection more will be said later; but now let us return to our immediate subject. We have shown that even holy people have, without any consideration for their merits, suffered many difficult things in this world, together with toil and misery. So David, in self-reflection, says, "Remember, Lord, that we are dust; as for [a] man, his days are but as grass"; and in another place, "[A] man is like a breath, his days pass away as a shadow."
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Death of Satyrus 2.29patristic
its place remembers it no more: A hot desert wind could scorch a meadow in a day. Job 7:10 says the same of a man gone down to the grave, whose place will know him no longer. Verse 17 sets the lasting loving devotion of the LORD against that forgetting.
Psalms 103:16
“For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. Only a little wind is needed, not even a scythe is demanded, a breath can do it, for the flower is so frail. How small a portion of deleterious gas suffices to create a deadly fever, which no art of man can stay. No need of sword or bullet, a puff of foul air is deadlier far, and fails not to lay low the healthiest and most stalwart son of man. And the place thereof shall know it no more. The flower blooms no more.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:17-19
from everlasting to everlasting: The grass gets its answer here, a loving devotion with no start and no finish. It runs to the children's children of those who keep covenant. The whole promise rests on a throne set up in heaven, and a kingdom that rules everything.
Psalms 103:17
“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,.... In opposition to the frailty of man, the stability and duration of the mercy of God is observed. This reaches from one eternity to another; it is from everlasting in the heart of God: it appeared in the choice of the vessels of mercy; in the covenant of grace, which is founded upon it, and filled with it; every blessing of which flows from it, and therefore are called the "sure mercies of David".”
2 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:17
“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. Blessed but! How vast the contrast between the fading flower and the everlasting God! How wonderful that his mercy should link our frailty with his eternity, and make us everlasting too! From old eternity the Lord viewed his people as objects of mercy, and as such chose them to become partakers of his grace; the doctrine of eternal election is most delightful to those who have light to see it and love wherewith to accept it.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:17
“Observe, [1.] The description of those to whom this mercy belongs. They are such as fear God, such as are truly religious, from principle. First, They live a life of faith; for they keep God's covenant; having taken hold of it, they keep hold of it, fast hold, and will not let it go.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
remember to obey His precepts: Remember picks up verse 14, where the LORD is mindful that man is dust. The covenant people answer that memory with their own. Deuteronomy 7:9 joins the same two, loving devotion kept to a thousand generations of those who keep His commandments.
Psalms 103:18
“Children of the righteous are not, however, promised the Lord's mercy without stipulation, and this verse completes the statement of the last by adding: To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The parents must be obedient and the children too.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Psalms 103:18
“To such as keep his covenant,.... The covenant of grace, which is peculiarly the Lord's covenant, as distinct from man's; and which he keeps himself, and is ever mindful of it.”
established His throne in heaven: Established translates kun, the verb of Psalm 93:2, where His throne was set firm long ago. Micaiah saw the LORD on that throne at 1 Kings 22:19, with the host of heaven standing beside Him. Verses 20 to 22 call that court to bless Him.
Psalms 103:19
“The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens,.... The heaven is his throne; here he sits enthroned in all the glory of his majesty, with all his attendants upon him, and courtiers about him. The Lord Christ is now in heaven; and where he will continue to the restitution of all things, and from whence his people expect him at the last day.”
2 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:19
“The Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens. Here is a grand burst of song produced by a view of the boundless power, and glorious sovereignty of Jehovah. His throne is fixed, for that is the word; it is estabhshed, settled, immovable. About his government there is no alarm, no disorder, no perturbation, no hurrying to and fro in expedients, no surprises to be met or unexpected catastrophes to be warded off;—all is prepared and fixed, and he himself has prepared and fixed it.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:19
“He takes cognizance of all the inhabitants, and all the affairs, of this lower world, and disposes all persons and things according to the counsel of his will, to his own glory ( Dan. iv. 35 ): His kingdom rules over all kings and all kingdoms, and from it there is no exempt jurisdiction.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 103:20-22
all His angels mighty in strength: The call widens from one soul to the angels, then to the hosts, then to every work in every place God rules. The angels are described by what they do: they carry out His word and listen for His command. The last line lands back on that one soul.
Psalms 103:20
"Your will be done on earth as in heaven." God's divine and blessed angels do the will of God, as David said in the psalm, "Bless the Lord, all his angels, mighty in strength, that do his pleasure." So then in effect this is what you mean when you pray, "as in the angels your will is done, so likewise be it done on earth by human beings, O Lord."
Cyril of Jerusalem · written before 386 · Mystagogical Lectures 23:14patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:20
“In short, the blessed angels are glorious attendants upon the blessed God. Observe, (1.) How well qualified they are for the post they are in. They are able; for they excel in strength; they are mighty in strength (so the word is); they are able to bring great things to pass, and to abide in their work without weariness.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 103:20
“Bess the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength. Finding his work of praise growing upon his hands, he calls upon "the firstborn sons of light" to speak the praises of the Lord, as well they may, for as Milton says, they best can tell. Dwelling nearer to that prepared throne than we as yet have leave to climb, they see in nearer vision the glory which we would adore.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:20
“Bless the Lord, ye his angels,.... For their creation, being made by him; for their preservation, living, moving, and having their being in him; and for their happiness, in which they are continued, owing to their being chosen of God in Christ, and to their confirmation by Christ. These are always employed in the work of blessing and praising the Lord nor are they in the least backward to it, nor remiss it; nor does this address unto them suppose anything of this kind.”
you servants who do His will: Servants translates meshartav, the same word used of the flames of fire at Psalm 104:4. Hebrews 1:14 calls the angels ministering spirits sent to serve. Hosts is the army of heaven, the word in the title LORD of Hosts.
Psalms 103:21
“Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts,.... Which some understand of the sun, moon, and stars, sometimes called the hosts of heaven; and who in their way bless and praise the Lord; see Psa 148:2. Others, of the angels, as before; who are sometimes styled the heavenly host, Luk 2:13, and may be so called from their numbers, there being legions of them; and for their military employment, in guarding and protecting the saints, in encamping about them, and fighting for them.”
2 more voices on this verse
Psalms 103:21
“Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; to whatever race of creatures ye may belong, for ye are all his troops, and he is the Generallissimo of all your armies. The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea, should all unite in praising their Creator, after the best of their ability. Ye ministers of his that do his pleasure; in whatever way ye serve him, bless him as ye serve.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
Psalms 103:21
“To obey is better than sacrifice; for angels obey, but do not sacrifice. (2.) What their service is. They are his angels, and ministers of his --his, for he made them, and made them for himself--his, for he employs them, though he does not need them--his, for he is their owner and Lord; they belong to him and he has them at his beck.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
all places of His dominion: The closing line repeats verse 1 word for word, framing the psalm. Psalm 104 opens with the same line and goes on to name the works one by one. Revelation 5:13 hears every creature in heaven and on earth give that blessing.
Psalms 103:22
“Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion. Here is a trinity of blessing for the thrice blessed God, and each one of the three blessings is an enlargement upon that which went before. This is the most comprehensive of all, for what can be a wider call than to all in all places? See how finite man can awaken unbounded praise! Man is but little, yet, placing his hands upon the keys of the great organ of the universe, he wakes it to thunders of adoration!”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular Baptist
How this psalm is built
The form: A hymn in which the psalmist stirs up his inmost self to magnify the Lord, and soliloquizes before he sings, as Spurgeon classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Bless the LORD, O my soul, at both ends | Verse 1 opens with the soul commanded to bless the LORD and verse 22 closes with the same command after the angels, the hosts and all His works have been called in. Matthew Henry marks the return: the psalmist began with it and came back to it when the hymn was penned and sung.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Psalm 103:1. | Psalm 103:1, Psalm 103:22 |
| The five benefits in order | Verses 3 to 5 list what God does in five participles: forgives, heals, redeems, crowns and satisfies. Adam Clarke numbers them as a list and John Calvin reads the enumeration as the cure for the forgetfulness verse 2 names, since a benefit unnamed is a benefit forgotten.John Calvin, Commentaries, 1554, on Psalm 103:3. | Psalm 103:3, Psalm 103:4, Psalm 103:5 |
| The two measures | Verse 11 measures the loving devotion by height, as high as the heavens are above the earth, and verse 12 measures the removal of sin by distance, as far as the east is from the west. Adam Clarke marks why the second measure was chosen, since east and west can never meet in one point but stay for ever at the same distance.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Psalm 103:12. | Psalm 103:11, Psalm 103:12 |
| The call widens by ranks | Verses 20 to 22 hand the command outward, first to the angels who carry out His word, then to all His hosts, then to every work in every place of His dominion, and then back to the one soul it started with. The order is a chain of command run in reverse.Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4, 1874, on Psalm 103:20. | Psalm 103:20, Psalm 103:21, Psalm 103:22 |
Where it comes from
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
Verse 8 is God's own name for Himself, spoken to Moses at Exodus 34:6, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. The psalm is quoting God's words about God, which is why verse 7 names Moses in the line before it. Verse 14 rests on Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 3:19, the forming of man from dust and the sentence that returns him to it.
Its historical value
The line at verse 8 is one of the most quoted sentences in the Old Testament and it can be traced. It is spoken at Exodus 34:6, repeated at Numbers 14:18, and taken up at Nehemiah 9:17, Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2. A student who follows it is following a formula that Israel kept saying back to God, and Psalm 103 is where it is set inside praise rather than inside a plea.
The debated point
What the renewed youth of verse 5 means has been read two ways by the commentators the site cites. Matthew Henry reads it of the Spirit's work, that when God recovers His people from their decays and fills them with new life and joy it is an earnest of eternal life. Adam Clarke keeps it nearer the body and reads the whole list as benefits a man receives in this life, forgiveness, restored health and preservation from destruction. The site carries both, since the verse names an eagle and no more.
In the Psalter
Psalm 103 and Psalm 104 open with Bless the LORD, O my soul and close with it, and in the Berean text of this store those are the only two chapters of the Psalter where the line stands at all. Psalm 103 blesses God for what He does to a man; Psalm 104 blesses Him for what He made. The grass of verse 15 answers the grass of Psalm 102:11, where the same figure was used of one dying man.
The door
The name carries the sentence of verse 8 and where else it stands, and Forgiveness carries the measure of verse 12.
Keep studying
Studies10
People and groups1
Words12
Subjects7
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4, 1874, on Psalm 103:1; John Calvin, Commentaries, 1554, on Psalm 103:1 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Psalm 103:1.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The painting
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. Claude Lorrain, 1648. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.