1Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, I tell myself.2I will praise the LORD as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath.3Don't put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there.4When their breathing stops, they return to the earth, and in a moment all their plans come to an end.5But happy are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the LORD their God.6He is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He is the one who keeps every promise forever,7who gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners.8The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts the burdens of those bent beneath their loads. The LORD loves the righteous.9The LORD protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.10The LORD will reign forever. O Jerusalem, your God is King in every generation! Praise the LORD!
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary -- www.christnotes.org)
"Chapter Contents
Why we should not trust in men. (1-4) Why we should trust in God. (5-10)
Commentary on Psalm 146:1-4
If it is our delight to praise the Lord while we live, we shall certainly praise him to all eternity. With this glorious prospect before us, how low do worldly pursuits seem! There is a Son of man in whom there is help, even him who is also the Son of God, who will not fail those that trust in him. But all other sons of men are like the man from whom they sprung, who, being in honour, did not abide. God has given the earth to the children of men, but there is great striving about it. Yet, after a while, no part of the earth will be their own, except that in which their dead bodies are laid. And when man returns to his earth, in that very day all his plans and designs vanish and are gone: what then comes of expectations from him?
Commentary on Psalm 146:5-10
The psalmist encourages us to put confidence in God. We must hope in the providence of God for all we need as to this life, and in the grace of God for that which is to come. The God of heaven became a man that he might become our salvation. Though he died on the cross for our sins, and was laid in the grave, yet his thoughts of love to us did not perish; he rose again to fulfil them. When on earth, his miracles were examples of what he is still doing every day. He grants deliverance to captives bound in the chains of sin and Satan. He opens the eyes of the understanding. He feeds with the bread of life those who hunger for salvation; and he is the constant Friend of the poor in spirit, the helpless: with him poor sinners, that are as fatherless, find mercy; and his kingdom shall continue for ever. Then let sinners flee to him, and believers rejoice in him. And as the Lord shall reign for ever, let us stir up each other to praise his holy name."
I love the praise psalms. Sometimes I love the "happy-happy" ones like Psalm 150, but this one has so much depth to it--not putting your trust in another person who, like me, is mortal, with all the weaknesses that entails, but in God ... and it doesn't deny that there are difficult life circumstances (blindness, oppression, etc.) but offers hope in those circumstances.
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