1Hallelujah.
2Let me praise the LORD while I live,
let me hymn to my God while I breathe.
3Do not trust in princes,
in a human who offers no rescue.
4His breath departs, he returns to the dust.
On that day his plans are naught.
5Happy whose help is Jacob’s God,
his hope—for the LORD his God,
6maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and of all that is in them,
Who keeps faith forever,
7does justice for the oppressed,
gives bread to the hungry,
the LORD looses those in fetters.
8The LORD gives sight to the blind.
The LORD makes the bent stand erect.
The LORD loves the righteous.
9The LORD guards sojourners,
but the way of the wicked He contorts.
10The LORD shall reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Hallelujah.
PSALM 146 NOTES
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1. Praise the LORD. Although this psalm has a certain kinship with the thanksgiving psalms, it is more precise to view it as a psalm of praise because it is a general celebration of God’s benevolent qualities rather than the personal expression of gratitude for having been saved from some plight.
2. while I breathe. The literal sense of the Hebrew beʿodi is “while I still [am].”
3. who offers no rescue. The literal meaning is “who has no rescue.”
4. to the dust. Literally, this reads “to his soil,” with a probable allusion to Genesis 3:19, “till you return to the soil.” The continuation of the passage in Genesis emphasizes “dust,” ʿafar. Here and in Genesis, the clear reference of the phrase is to death.
his plans. The Hebrew ʿeshtonot appears only here, but it is related to a verbal stem in Jonah that means “to think” or “to reflect.” The use of this word is one of several linguistic indications in the poem that this is Late Biblical Hebrew.
9. sojourners, / orphan . . . widow. Repeatedly in biblical literature, these are the exemplary instances of the vulnerable and the disenfranchised in society who are in need of special protection. The “sojourner” is a resident alien.
sustains. The verb ʿoded appears only here and in Psalm 147. In modern Hebrew, it means “to encourage,” which could conceivably be its meaning here. But it probably is derived from the adverb ʿod, “still” (as in the declined form ʿodi in verse 2 that has been commented on). In that case, the likely sense is to enable someone to persist, or to sustain someone.
the way of the wicked He contorts. Again and again in biblical imagery, a straight or level way is a secure way to go. A crooked way—one in which, let us say, there are hairpin turns—is the antithesis, the just deserts of the wicked.