PSALM 145

¹A David song of praise.

                Let me exalt You, my God the king,^ℵ

                    and let me bless Your name forevermore.

                ²Every day let me bless You,^ב

                    and let me praise Your name forevermore.

                ³Great is the LORD and highly praised,^ג

                    and His greatness cannot be fathomed.

                ⁴Let one generation to the next extol Your deeds^ד

                    and tell of Your mighty acts.

                ⁵Of the grandeur of Your glorious majesty^ה

                    and Your wondrous acts let me treat.

                ⁶And the power of Your fearsome deeds let them say,^ו

                    and Your greatness let me recount.

                ⁷The fame of Your great goodness they utter,^ז

                    and of Your bounty they joyously sing.

                ⁸Gracious and merciful is the LORD,^ח

                    slow to anger, great in kindness.

                ⁹Good is the LORD to all,^ט

                    and His mercy is over all His creatures.

                ¹⁰All Your creatures, LORD, acclaim You,^י

                    and Your faithful ones bless You.

                ¹¹The glory of Your kingship they say,^כ

                    and of Your might they speak,

                ¹²to make known to humankind His mighty acts^ל

                    and the grandeur of His kingship’s glory.

                ¹³Your kingship is a kingship for all time,^מ

                    and Your dominion for all generations.

                ¹⁴The LORD props up all who fall^ס

                    and makes all who are bent stand erect.

                ¹⁵The eyes of all look in hope to You^ע

                    and You give them their food in its season,

                ¹⁶opening Your hand^פ

                    and sating to their pleasure all living things.

                ¹⁷Just is the LORD in all His ways,^צ

                    and faithful in all His deeds.

                ¹⁸Close is the LORD to all who call Him,^ק

                    to all who call to Him in truth.

                ¹⁹The pleasure of those who fear Him He performs,^ר

                    and their outcry He hears and rescues them.

                ²⁰The LORD guards all who love Him,^ש

                    and all the wicked He destroys.

                ²¹The LORD’s praise let my mouth speak,^ת

                    and let all flesh bless His holy name

                          forevermore.

PSALM 145 NOTES

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1. song of praise. This is the only psalm so designated. The Hebrew term tehilah yields in rabbinic Hebrew the plural tehilim, which is the set title in Hebrew for the Book of Psalms. Although psalms of supplication are actually more numerous in the canonical collection, the assumption of postbiblical Jewish tradition was that the purpose par excellence of the poetry of psalms was to praise God. This assumption accords with the view of the ancient editors, for the last six psalms, beginning with this one, are all psalms of praise. It should be said that even the psalms of supplication very often contain elements of praise.

Let me exalt. The Hebrew ʾaromimkha shows an initial aleph, marking the beginning of an alphabetic acrostic. Nun, the fourteenth letter of the alphabet, is missing, so the psalm has twenty-one verses instead of twenty-two. But most of the ancient translations as well as a text of this psalm found at Qumran and also one medieval Hebrew manuscript have a verse for nun. “Trustworthy [neʾeman] is God in all His ways, / and faithful in all His deeds.” The evidence strongly suggests that this line was in the original psalm and some-how was dropped in the tradition of scribal transmission that became the Masoretic Text. The mode of the verbs here should be noted. Previous English translations usually render them as simple future verbs. But the suffix ah of several verbs in the second versets (verses 1, 2, and 5) indicates a jussive or optative mode (“let me,” “may I”), and this translation registers that nuance.

my God the king. Divine kingship is the leading topic of this song of praise, with a special emphasis on terms of kingship in the central lines of the psalm, verses 11–13.

2. bless . . ./ praise. In keeping with its generic purpose, the psalm abounds in synonyms for praise. The Hebrew verb halel, “praise,” is cognate with the noun tehilah, “song of praise.” The poet does not appear to make distinctions among the synonyms (exalt, bless, extol, praise). In keeping with this deployment of synonymity, there is a prevalence of semantic balance between versets, without much sign of the pattern of intensification from first verset to second generally characteristic of biblical poetry. Perhaps this poetic style was felt appropriate for this doxological rehearsal of God’s virtues as king of the world.

6. let them say, / . . . let me recount. The switch from third-person plural to first-person singular is disorienting, and some scholars emend the second verb to read “let them recount.” It is quite possible, however, that the received text in shuttling between persons reflects the intention of the poet, which would be to weave his own voice of praise with the universal chorus of praise.

8. Gracious and merciful is the LORD. This whole line is a citation of the pronouncement of the divine attributes in Exodus 34:6.

9. Good is the LORD to all. In keeping with the theme of God’s kingship, the perspective of this psalm is universal rather than national. God’s beneficent dominion extends over all living creatues, and “all flesh” (verse 21) praises Him.

21. The LORD’s praise. The psalm that began with the generic rubric of “praise” (tehilah) neatly concludes by highlighting the same term.