Psalm 146

Psalms 146:1-2

Praise the Lord, O my soul: The command of Praise ye the Lord opens the psalm and, as the brief for this book establishes, opens and closes each of the five psalms that close the Psalter, 146 through 150, the pattern named here at its start. The command turns at once into a personal vow, while I live will I praise the Lord, the plural call answered by one singer's own resolve. Delitzsch notes the psalm's own honesty about its limit, praise promised for as long as life lasts and no further claim made.

Psalms 146:3-4

Put not your trust in princes: The warning names no prince by title, only the son of man in whom there is no help, and grounds the warning in plain mortality, his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. Henry reads the verse as a plain contrast rather than a condemnation of rulers as such, the point being that even the best of them dies and his plans die with him, which no plan of the Lord's ever does. Barnes notes the same day language as deliberately sudden, a ruler's power ending as fast as his breath.

Psalms 146:5-6

Against the prince who cannot help stands the God of Jacob, named by the patriarch whose own story was one long dependence, and his qualification is given at once, maker of heaven and earth and sea, a claim no prince could make of himself. Which keepeth truth for ever answers verse 4's in that very day his thoughts perish word for word, a promise that does not end where a ruler's breath ends. Gill reads the pairing of these two half-verses as the psalm's whole argument compressed, the difference between a help that dies and a help that does not.

Psalms 146:7-8

The list of works, judgment for the oppressed, food for the hungry, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, and lifting for those bowed down, names exactly the acts the Gospels show the Messiah doing, a resemblance the bench notes rather than the New Testament directly quoting this verse: the blind receiving sight and the bowed being raised at Matt 11:5 and Luke 13:11-13, the same works Jesus points to as the sign of who he is. Spurgeon reads the list as a description of the Lord's own character in action, mercy named by what it does rather than by what it feels. The final phrase, the Lord loveth the righteous, closes the list on the one work no enemy can take away.

Psalms 146:9

The stranger, the fatherless and the widow name the three the law of Moses names together as those with no family power to protect them, and the psalm sets the Lord as the one who keeps them where no one else will. The way of the wicked he turneth upside down closes the verse as the list's own reversal, the powerful who prey on the powerless finding their own way overturned. Barnes reads the triad as the psalm's own test of true religion, the same three the law and the prophets return to again and again.

Psalms 146:10

The psalm closes where its argument has been heading, a reign that does not end unlike the prince of verse 4, named now specifically as Zion's own God, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord returns exactly as it opened, the same command framing the whole psalm and, as stated above, the same frame the four psalms following will each wear in turn. Henry reads the closing repetition as the psalm answering its own opening call, the reasons for praise now given before the command is repeated.