Psalm CXLVI

1 Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord, O my soul!

2 While I live I will 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. 6 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:

7 Which keepeth truth for ever: which executeth judgment for the oppressed: Which giveth food to the hungry.

8 The Lord looseth the prisoners: 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.

Psalm.

earth’s great ones with JEHOVAH. 445

This is the beffinnins: of that closing series of Psahns which a Haiieiujah has been called “Hallelujah Psalms.” The Septuagint ascribes this Psalm, and the three following, to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, but on what ground we know not. It seems probable, however, that they are nearly right as to the time of their composition; for it is likely that as the day of Christ’s first coming approached nearer, the Holy Spirit did indite songs of Zion that were fuller of triumph and praise than any preceding ones, and so constructed them, too, that they might be used afterwards in prospect of the day of his Second Coming. In these latter Psalms, the tone is that of fieace attained, and tribulation passed, for the most part. The Lord Jesus himself, as well as his followers, could take up this Psalm. Jehovah’s peculiar character, in contrast to all earthly princes, and benefactors, and friends, is the theme.

“I will praise Jehovah while I live;
I will play to my God so long as I am.”

Confide not in earth’s nobles, earth’s princely ones, who are each of them but ‘’ a son of man” (Dll) returning to his np”lJ^, dust;

“For salvation is not in any one of them;”

All their “thoughts,” their schemes for good or for evil, pass away. Blessed the man who has Jacob’s God (7^^ the strong one), “amid his help” (Psa. cxviii. 7, liv. 4); for he is Jehovah, maker of heaven, earth, and sea; and this Maker of heaven, earth, and sea, is the same

“Who keepeth truth for ever I” Whatever he has promised to the sons of men, he will perform. Whatever he promised about “The Seed of the woman,” he will perform it. Whatever he has spoken to David of the Son who was to sit on his throne, he will fulfil. Whatever he has declared by his prophets regarding Israel, he will accomplish — “the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham,” (Mic. vii. 20). Yes, the truth shall assuredly be kept; and there is mercy too, there is love, there is grace in this truth. For verses 7-9 describe the same Jehovah acting for men in accordance with his truth. We, in our day, read the words, and

446 PSALM CXLVI. — JEHOVAH AND EARTH’s GREAT ONES.

at every step we see their verification in the incarnate Son of God; even as Jesus, in singing those words when on earth, would have reference to himself as the great illustration of each clause (Luke xviii. 75; Matt. ix. 27), and as he may have thought upon them when he gave that answer to John’s disciples, Matt. xi. 4, 5, q. d., all that characterises Jehovah has been done by me. Did not Jesus relieve “all that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts x. S8), as a sample of verse 7; and did he not “give food to the hungry,” (John vi.)? Did Jesus not set free “the prisoners,’” when he beheld the Bethesda man, bound for thirty-eight years (John v.), and when he sent his angel to set Peter free, (Acts xii.)? How often did he “open the eyes of the blind!” and the literally “bowed down” he made straight (Lu’ce xiii. 16), as well as the spiritually laden (Matt. xi. 20); and, in spite of their low condition, “he loved the righteous” — for a fisherman of Galilee lay on his bosom; his parables told of a diseased Lazarus; and there was a Lazarus of Bethany, in whom he delighted. We know his care “of the stranger;” for we read of his words to the S3a-ophenician, and to the Samaritan leper (Luke xvii. 16-19); while “i/ie widow” oi Nain, and his tender words in John xiv. 18, tell how he “restored” {^’yV’*) to cheerfulness the orphan and the widow. His Second Coming shall tell what his purging the temple intimated (John ii, 15, Matt. xxi. 12), namely, how” He overturneth the wmj of (lie wicked.’’

This is he who is “King” for ever! This is “thy God, 0 Zion,” who shall be thine to all generations. The mention of such a King and God may well draw forth another “Hallelujah!” a “Hallelujah” such as we hear again in Rev. xix. ]-6, when “the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” For “that great voice of much people in heaven” fully accords in spirit, and may be joined with the Psalm before us, uttering, as it does, Rapturous praise, in contrasting all Earth’s great ones with Jehovah the King.