Psalms 146 KJV
Praise to the God of Jacob
About This Psalm
Don't trust in princes - they die. Trust God who made heaven and earth and keeps faith forever.
1raise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.
2 While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.
3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:
6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:
7 Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:
8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:
9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
10 The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the LORD.
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Did You Know?
The psalm opens by addressing praise both to the community ('Praise ye the LORD') and to the self ('O my soul'), modeling an internal dialogue that moves personal resolve into public testimony rather than assuming spontaneous worship.
Its catalog of divine actions. Loosing the prisoners, opening the eyes of the blind, raising those bowed down. Directly parallels the programmatic mission statement of Isaiah 61, positioning the psalm as a liturgical anticipation of the Servantโs restorative work.
By declaring that human princes have no saving help because 'his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth,' the text subverts ancient Near Eastern royal ideology that treated kings as semi-divine guarantors of justice.
The closing affirmation that the LORD 'shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations' reclaims Zion theology after the exile, insisting that divine kingship persists independently of any standing Davidic ruler or temple structure.
As the first of the five 'Hallelujah' psalms that close the Psalter, chapter 146 initiates a deliberate crescendo in which praise itself becomes the theological answer to the laments and imprecations that dominate earlier books.