1 Bless Jehovah, my soul,
And all within me [bless] His holy name!
2 Bless Jehovah, my soul!
And forget not all His benefits,
3 Who forgives all thy iniquity,
Who heals all thy diseases,
4 Who redeems thy life from the pit,
Who crowns thee [with] loving-kindness and compassions,
5 Who satisfies thy mouth (?) with good,
[So that] thy youth is renewed like the eagle.
6 Jehovah executes righteousness
And judgments for all the oppressed.
7 He made known His ways to Moses,
To the children of Israel His great deeds.
8 Full of compassion and gracious is Jehovah,
Slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness.
9 He will not continually contend,
And will not keep His anger for ever.
10 Not according to our sins has He dealt with us,
And not according to our iniquities has He recompensed us.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
[So] great is His loving-kindness to them that fear Him.
12 As far as sunrise is from sunset,
[So] far has He put our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
Jehovah has compassion on them that fear Him.
14 For He--He knows our frame,
Being mindful that we are dust.
15 Frail man--like grass are his days,
Like a flower of the field, so he flowers.
16 For a wind passes over him and he is not,
And his place knows him no more.
17 But the loving-kindness of Jehovah is from everlasting even to
everlasting upon them that fear Him,
And His righteousness is to children's children;
18 To those who keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His statutes to do them.
19 Jehovah has established His throne in the heavens,
And His kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless Jehovah, ye His angels,
Ye mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Hearkening to the voice of His word!
21 Bless Jehovah, all His hosts,
Ye His ministers, who perform His will!
22 Bless Jehovah, all His works,
In all places of His dominion!
Bless Jehovah, my soul!
There are no clouds in the horizon, nor notes of sadness in the
music, of this psalm. No purer outburst of thankfulness enriches the
Church. It is well that, amid the many psalms which give voice to
mingled pain and trust, there should be one of unalloyed gladness,
as untouched by sorrow as if sung by spirits in heaven. Because it
is thus purely an outburst of thankful joy, it is the more fit to be
pondered in times of sorrow.
The psalmist's praise flows in one unbroken stream. There are no
clear marks of division, but the river broadens as it runs, and
personal benefits and individual praise open out into gifts which are
seen to fill the universe, and thanksgiving which is heard from every
extremity of His wide dominion of loving-kindness.
In ver. 1-5 the psalmist sings of his own experience. His _spirit_,
or _ruling self_, calls on his "soul," the weaker and more feminine
part, which may be cast down (Psalms xlii., xliii.) by sorrow, and
needs stimulus and control, to contemplate God's gifts and to praise
Him. A good man will rouse himself to such exercise, and coerce
his more sensuous and sluggish faculties to their noblest use.
Especially must memory be directed, for it keeps woefully short-lived
records of mercies, especially of continuous ones. God's gifts are
all "benefits," whether they are bright or dark. The catalogue of
blessings lavished on the singer's soul begins with forgiveness and
ends with immortal youth. The profound consciousness of sin, which
it was one aim of the Law to evoke, underlies the psalmist's praise;
and he who does not feel that no blessings could come from heaven,
unless forgiveness cleared the way for them, has yet to learn the
deepest music of thankfulness. It is followed by "healing" of "all
thy diseases," which is no cure of merely bodily ailments, any more
than redeeming of life "from the pit" is simply preservation of
physical existence. In both there is at least included, even if we do
not say that it only is in view, the operation of the pardoning God
in delivering from the sicknesses and death of the spirit.
The soul thus forgiven and healed is crowned with "loving-kindness
and compassions," wreathed into a garland for a festive brow, and its
adornment is not only a result of these Divine attributes, but the
very things themselves, so that an effluence from God beautifies the
soul. Nor is even this all, for the same gifts which are beauty are
also sustenance, and God satisfies the soul with good, especially
with the only real good, Himself. The word rendered above "mouth" is
extremely difficult. It is found in Psalm xxxii. 9, where it seems
best taken in the meaning of _trappings_ or _harness_. That meaning
is inappropriate here, though Hupfeld tries to retain it. The LXX.
renders "desire," which fits well, but can scarcely be established.
Other renderings, such as "age" or "duration"--_i.e._, the whole
extent of life--have been suggested. Hengstenberg and others regard
the word as a designation of the soul, somewhat resembling the other
term applied to it, "glory"; but the fact that it is the soul which
is addressed negatives that explanation. Graetz and others resort to
a slight textual alteration, resulting in the reading "thy misery."
Delitzsch, in his latest editions, adopts this emendation doubtingly,
and supposes that with the word _misery_ or _affliction_ there is
associated the idea "of beseeching and therefore of longing," whence
the LXX. rendering would originate. "Mouth" is the most natural word
in such a connection, and its retention here is sanctioned by "the
interpretation of the older versions in Psalm xxxii. 9 and the Arabic
cognate" (Perowne). It is therefore retained above, though with some
reluctance.
How should a man thus dealt with grow old? The body may, but not the
soul. Rather it will drop powers that can decay, and for each thus
lost will gain a stronger--moulting, and not being stripped of its
wings, though it changes their feathers. There is no need to make
the psalmist responsible for the fables of the eagle's renewal of
its youth. The comparison with the monarch of the air does not refer
to the process by which the soul's wings are made strong, but to the
result in wings that never tire, but bear their possessor far up in
the blue and towards the throne.
In vv. 6-18 the psalmist sweeps a greater circle, and deals with
God's blessings to mankind. He has Israel specifically in view in the
earlier verses, but passes beyond Israel to all "who fear Him." It
is very instructive that he begins with the definite fact of God's
revelation through Moses. He is not spinning a filmy idea of a God
out of his own consciousness, but he has learned all that he knows of
Him from His historical self-revelation. A hymn of praise which has
not revelation for its basis will have many a quaver of doubt. The
God of men's imaginations, consciences, or yearnings is a dim shadow.
The God to whom love turns undoubting and praise rises without one
note of discord is the God who has spoken His own name by deeds
which have entered into the history of the world. And what has He
revealed Himself to be? The psalmist answers almost in the words of
the proclamation made to Moses (vv. 8, 9). The lawgiver had prayed,
"I beseech Thee . . . show me now Thy ways, that I may know Thee";
and the prayer had been granted, when "the Lord passed by before
him," and proclaimed His name as "full of compassion and gracious,
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth." That proclamation
fills the singer's heart, and his whole soul leaps up in him, as he
meditates on its depth and sweetness. Now, after so many centuries
of experience, Israel can repeat with full assurance the ancient
self-revelation, which has been proved true by many "mighty deeds."
The psalmist's thoughts are still circling round the idea of
forgiveness, with which he began his contemplations. He and his
people equally need it; and all that revelation of God's character
bears directly on His relation to sin. Jehovah is "long of
anger"--_i.e._, slow to allow it to flash out in punishment--and as
lavish of loving-kindness as sparing of wrath. That character is
disclosed by deeds. Jehovah's graciousness forces Him to "contend"
against a man's sins for the man's sake. But it forbids Him to be
perpetually chastising and condemning, like a harsh taskmaster.
Nor does He keep His anger ever burning, though He does keep His
loving-kindness aflame for a thousand generations. Lightning is
transitory; sunshine, constant. Whatever His chastisements, they have
been less than our sins. The heaviest is "light," and "for a moment,"
when compared with the "exceeding weight of" our guilt.
The glorious metaphors in vv. 11, 12, traverse heaven to the zenith,
and from sunrise to sunset, to find distances distant enough to
express the towering height of God's mercy and the completeness of
His removal from us of our sins. That pure arch, the topstone of
which nor wings nor thoughts can reach, sheds down all light and heat
which make growth and cherish life. It is high above us, but it pours
blessings on us, and it bends down all round the horizon to kiss the
low, dark earth. The loving-kindness of Jehovah is similarly lofty,
boundless, all-fructifying. In ver. 11_b_ the parallelism would be
more complete if a small textual alteration were adopted, which would
give "high" instead of "great"; but the slight departure which the
existing text makes from precise correspondence with _a_ is of little
moment, and the thought is sufficiently intelligible as the words
stand. Between East and West all distances lie. To the eye they bound
the world. So far does God's mercy bear away our sins. Forgiveness
and cleansing are inseparably united.
But the song drops--or shall we say rises?--from these magnificent
measures of the immeasurable to the homely image of a father's
pity. We may lose ourselves amid the amplitudes of the lofty,
wide-stretching sky, but this emblem of paternal love goes straight
to our hearts. A pitying God! What can be added to that? But that
fatherly pity is decisively limited to "them that fear Him." It is
possible, then, to put oneself outside the range of that abundant
dew, and the universality of God's blessings does not hinder
self-exclusion from them.
In vv. 14-16 man's brief life is brought in, not as a sorrow or as
a cloud darkening the sunny joy of the song, but as one reason for
the Divine compassion. "He, He knows our frame." The word rendered
"frame" is literally "formation" or "fashioning," and comes from
the same root as the verb employed in Gen. ii. 7 to describe man's
creation, "The Lord God _formed_ man of the dust of the ground." It
is also used for the potter's action in moulding earthen vessels
(Isa. xxix. 16, etc.). So, in the next clause, "dust" carries on
the allusion to Genesis, and the general idea conveyed is that of
frailty. Made from dust and fragile as an earthen vessel, man by his
weakness appeals to Jehovah's compassion. A blow, delivered with the
full force of that almighty hand, would "break him as a potter's
vessel is broken." Therefore God handles us tenderly, as mindful of
the brittle material with which He has to deal. The familiar figure
of fading vegetation, so dear to the psalmists, recurs here; but it
is touched with peculiar delicacy, and there is something very sweet
and uncomplaining in the singer's tone. The image of the fading
flower, burned up by the simoom, and leaving one little spot in the
desert robbed of its beauty, veils much of the terror of death, and
expresses no shrinking, though great pathos. Ver. 16 may either
describe the withering of the flower, or the passing away of frail
man. In the former case, the pronouns would be rendered by "it" and
"its"; in the latter, by "he," "him," and "his." The latter seems the
preferable explanation. Ver. 16_b_ is verbally the same as Job vii.
10. The contemplation of mortality tinges the song with a momentary
sadness, which melts into the pensive, yet cheerful, assurance that
mortality has an accompanying blessing, in that it makes a plea for
pity from a Father's heart.
But another, more triumphant thought springs up. A devout soul,
full-charged with thankfulness based on faith in God's name and ways,
cannot but be led by remembering man's brief life to think of God's
eternal years. So, the key changes at ver. 17 from plaintive minors
to jubilant notes. The psalmist pulls out all the stops of his organ,
and rolls along his music in a great _crescendo_ to the close. The
contrast of God's eternity with man's transitoriness is like the
similar trend of thought in Psalms xc., cii. The extension of His
loving-kindness to children's children, and its limitation to those
who fear Him and keep His covenant in obedience, rest upon Exod.
xx. 6, xxxiv. 7; Deut. vii. 9. That limitation has been laid down
twice already (vv. 11-13). All men share in that loving-kindness,
and receive the best gifts from it of which they are capable; but
those who cling to God in loving reverence, and who are moved by that
blissful "fear" which has no torment, to yield their wills to Him
in inward submission and outward obedience, do enter into the inner
recesses of that loving-kindness, and are replenished with good, of
which others are incapable.
If God's loving-kindness is "from everlasting to everlasting," will
not His children share in it for as long? The psalm has no articulate
doctrine of a future life; but is there not in that thought of
an eternal outgoing of God's heart to its objects some (perhaps
half-conscious) implication that these will continue to exist?
May not the psalmist have felt that, though the flower of earthly
life "passed in the passing of an hour," the root would be somehow
transplanted to the higher "house of the Lord," and "flourish in
the courts of our God," as long as His everlasting mercy poured its
sunshine? We, at all events, know that His eternity is the pledge of
ours. "Because I live, ye shall live also."
From ver. 19 to the end, the psalm takes a still wider sweep. It now
embraces the universe. But it is noticeable that there is no more
about "loving-kindness" in these verses. Man's sin and frailty make
him a fit recipient of it, but we do not know that in all creation
another being, capable of and needing it, is found. Amid starry
distances, amid heights and depths, far beyond sunrise and sunset,
God's all-including kingdom stretches and blesses all. Therefore, all
creatures are called on to bless Him, since all are blessed by Him,
each according to its nature and need. If they have consciousness,
they owe Him praise. If they have not, they praise Him by being.
The angels, "heroes of strength," as the words literally read, are
"His," and they not only execute His behests, but stand attent before
Him, listening to catch the first whispered indication of His will.
"His hosts" are by some taken to mean the stars; but surely it is
more congruous to suppose that beings who are His "ministers" and
perform His "will" are intelligent beings. Their praise consists in
hearkening to and doing His word. But obedience is not all their
praise; for they, too, bring Him tribute of conscious adoration
in more melodious music than ever sounded on earth. That "choir
invisible" praises the King of heaven; but later revelation has
taught us that men shall teach a new song to "principalities and
powers in heavenly places," because men only can praise Him whose
loving-kindness to them, sinful and dying, redeemed them by His blood.
Therefore, it is no drop from these heavenly anthems, when the psalm
circles round at last to its beginning, and the singer calls on his
soul to add its "little human praise" to the thunderous chorus.
The rest of the universe praises the mighty Ruler; he blesses the
forgiving, pitying Jehovah. Nature and angels, stars and suns, seas
and forests, magnify their Maker and Sustainer; we can bless the God
who pardons iniquities and heals diseases which our fellow-choristers
never knew.