Biblion Bible Commentary
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Don't Trust in Princes
Psalms 146:1-10
1 Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh, my soul. · WEB
The last five psalms all begin and end with the same word, and this one starts by naming what is not worth relying on.
Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh, my soul Psalms 146:1.
The final five psalms each open and close with the same word, and they are the collection's ending — no headings, no authors, and no requests. Everything from here is praise.
While I live, I will praise Yahweh. I will sing praises to my God as long as I exist Psalms 146:2.
The limit is stated honestly in both clauses. As long as I live, as long as I am — and the next verses explain why the qualification matters.
Don't put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help Psalms 146:3.
The warning of the hundred and eighteenth psalm, and the reason follows.
His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish Psalms 146:4.
The collection's plainest statement about death, and it is offered as a practical argument rather than as doctrine. A prince cannot be relied on because his plans stop when he does — and in that very day leaves no interval.
The picture is the one the whole Psalter uses. The breath goes back, the body returns to the ground Genesis 3:19, and thinking ends. It is the reason the dead do not praise Psalms 115:17 and the reason the sixth psalm argued for more time.
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help... who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever Psalms 146:5–6.
The contrast is not between weak help and strong help but between help that expires and help that does not.
Who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh frees the prisoners. Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind. Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down... Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow Psalms 146:7–9.
Seven acts, and every one is for someone with no standing: the oppressed, the hungry, prisoners, the blind, the crushed, foreigners, orphans and widows. Jesus reads a nearly identical list in the synagogue at Nazareth and says it is being fulfilled Luke 4:18–21.
This is the psalm's answer to the princes. What a government is supposed to do for these people is what God is described as actually doing.
settled What this mark means