Psalm 103
22 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 146×2Psalms 57×2Isaiah 40×2Psalms 9×2Psalms 78×2Nehemiah 9×2
Summary
Chapter summary
'Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name', and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth, healeth, redeemeth, crowneth, satisfieth. Jehovah is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness. 'He hath not dealt with us after our sins… As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.' Man's days are as grass, but the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting. Bless Jehovah, all his works.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 103The history
The psalm is built out of the words God spoke to Moses on the mountain after the golden calf — merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Every Israelite had heard that sentence; hearing it opened out into a whole song would have felt like watching a familiar door swing wide.
Two of its pictures are legal. To carry sins away as far as the east is from the west is what the scapegoat did on the Day of Atonement — a live goat with the nation's guilt laid on its head, led out into the wilderness and released where it could not find its way back. East and west, unlike north and south, have no meeting point.
The picture of human frailty is farming. Grass in that country comes up green after the rains and then the hot east wind blows off the desert for a few days and the field is straw. A man's life is not compared to an oak; it is compared to something that fails inside a single week.
The eagle in the last stretch was a familiar sight over the Judean hills. Ancient observers noticed that a bird in molt looks ragged and then comes back strong and glossy, and that image of renewed youth is what the line reaches for.
What it meant to them
For people who brought animals to an altar again and again, the news that God removes sin rather than merely covering it was enormous. The song puts that mercy in family terms: a father's pity for his children, and a father who remembers what dust they are made of.
It ends by widening out from one soul to angels, armies, and every work of God — the smallest voice in Israel joining a chorus that fills the universe.
Sources cited
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 103
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 103. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 1 · Bookends: the same words open and close
PERICOPE. 'Bless the LORD, O my soul' opens (v.1) and closes (v.22). Verbatim frame.
Psalms 103:22→Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul!
ASV/WEB text
v. 12 · Written to them
Far as east from west: transgressions removed
topics/forgiveness→MannaFest topical index
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.