146:3-8The writer portrays powerful people as inadequate saviors, making false promises they cannot deliver (146:3). God is the hope and the help of the needy. Jesus affirms his concern for the poor and afflicted in Luke 4:18-21; 7:21-23. He does not separate the physical needs from spiritual needs but attends to both. While God, not the government, is the hope of the needy. we are his instruments to help here on earth.
Life Application Study BiblePsalmsChapter 146
Psalm 146
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original pages: 995, 996
146Psalm 146
1Let all that I am praise the LORD.
2I will praise the LORD as long as I live.I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.
3Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;there is no help for you there.
4When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,and all their plans die with them.
5But joyful are those who have the God of Israel* as their helper,whose hope is in the LORD their God.
6He made heaven and earth,the sea, and everything in them.He keeps every promise forever.
7He gives justice to the oppressedand food to the hungry.The LORD frees the prisoners.
8The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.The Lorop lifts up those who are weighed down.The LORD loves the godly.
9The LORD protects the foreigners among us.He cares for the orphans and widows,but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.
10The LORD will reign forever.He will be your God, O Jerusalem,* throughout the generations.Praise the LORD!Theme: What gives God joy? Although God created everything, his greatest.from our genuine worship and trust.Author: Anonymous, written when the exiles returned to Jerusalem1 47 1 Praise the LORD!How good to sing praises to our God!
Textual footnotes
- See note on 44:4,
- 146:10 Hebrew Zion.
Life Application Notes 2 notes
146:9God's plans frustrate the “plans of the wicked” because his values are the opposite of society’s. Jesus turned society's values upside down when he proclaimed that “many who seem to be the greatest now will be the least important then, and those who are considered least important now will be the greatest then (Matthew 19:30). “If you try to hang onto your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” (Matthew 16:25). Don't be surprised when others don’t understand your Christian values; but don’t give in to theirs.
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