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Psalm 145


I will give you glory, O God my King,
I will bless your name for ever.

I will bless you day after day
and praise your name for ever.
The Lord is great, highly to be praised,
his greatness cannot be measured.

Age to age shall proclaim your works,
shall declare your mighty deeds,
shall speak of your splendour and glory,
tell the tale of your wonderful works.

They will speak of your terrible deeds,
recount your greatness and might.
They will recall your abundant goodness;
age to age shall ring out your justice.

The Lord is kind and full of compassion,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all,
compassionate to all his creatures.

All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord,
and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign
and declare your might, O God,

to make known to men your mighty deeds
and the glorious splendour of your reign.
Yours is an everlasting kingdom;
your rule lasts from age to age.

The Lord is faithful in all his words
and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall
and raises all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all creatures look to you
and you give them their food in due time.
You open wide your hand,
grant the desires of all who live.

The Lord is just in all his ways
and loving in all his deeds.
He is close to all who call him,
who call on him from their hearts.

He grants the desires of those who fear him,
he hears their cry and he saves them.
The Lord protects all who love him;
but the wicked he will utterly destroy.

Let me speak the praise of the Lord,
let all mankind bless his holy name
for ever, for ages unending.

Commentary

This beautiful hymn is the last of the psalms attributed to David, and the introduction to the final chorus which closes the Book of Praises, the Psalter. Although it is an alphabetical psalm, the grandeur of the theme releases it from bondage to its structure.

I will give you glory, O God my King,
I will bless your name for ever.

I will bless you day after day
and praise your name for ever.
The Lord is great, highly to be praised,
his greatness cannot be measured.

Age to age shall proclaim your works,
shall declare your mighty deeds,
shall speak of your splendour and glory,
tell the tale of your wonderful works.

They will speak of your terrible deeds,
recount your greatness and might.
They will recall your abundant goodness;
age to age shall ring out your justice.
                                    (vv. 1-7).

David, himself a great king, addresses God as the sovereign Lord of the universe. He lifts up his eyes above petty mundane things, and above all personal interest, to focus his attention on God alone. This is the first step in real praise. The second is a clear decision to praise God regardless of personal circumstances. The psalms of praise abound with the statement “I will . . .” The third rule for praise is to have a motive: here God is praised for His grandeur, His greatness, His marvellous works, His splendour and His glory. True praise is also timeless, for it deals with the unsearchable sublimity and majesty of God, and each generation needs to join in the praise of the last generation in order to express its worship and thanks to God. The result is that the praise of mankind then flows down through human history like a swelling river making for the great eternal sea, where heaven and earth join in its praise of God.

David could not have known how literally his words would be fulfilled, for age after age have used his words to praise God! The wonders that God worked for his age pale into insignificance before the glory of the Christ event. Yet his words in this timeless psalm adequately praise God for both. In fact, his generation and ours join together in thanking God for all His redemptive works. There is room for the festal shouts of joy to ring out year after year to acclaim the miraculous mighty deeds of God on behalf of His children. Those who have entered personally into intimacy with God will spontaneously express the wonder of it all day after day in personal praise.

The Lord is kind and full of compassion,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all,
compassionate to all his creatures.
                                    (vv. 8-9).

To have to deal with a remote God of great splendour and majesty may evoke terror and fear, but hardly love. The greatest praise is reserved for God when He revealed His splendour and majesty through His loving-kindness and compassion to all His creatures, so that love and gratitude are the spontaneous response of His children to this good father. Verse 8 is almost word for word the self-revelation of God to Moses on Sinai (see Exodus 34:6), given in response to Moses’ plea that God should tell the people what He was really like. The fact that God showed Himself tender-hearted made Moses – and all of God’s servants after him – ecstatic with joy, because it meant that God could be touched by our needs, and therefore would respond with more of His saving interventions on our behalf. Witness the reaction of Jesus on seeing the grief of Mary after the death of her brother Lazarus in John 11. He was so deeply touched that He wept, and went to the tomb to raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was tender-hearted, and
this loving-kindness of God is universal, reaching not only all men but also all other creatures too (see Luke 12:24, 27; Jonah 4:1-11).

All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord,
and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign
and declare your might, O God,

to make known to men your mighty deeds
and the glorious splendour of your reign.
Yours is an everlasting kingdom;
your rule lasts from age to age.
                                     (vv. 10-13).

David moves now from praising God for His wonderful redemptive acts to the rule of His Kingdom which embraces all mankind. All the empires of this world fade away before the universal reign of God which will last for ever, for it takes neither its power nor authority from this world (see John 18:36-37). Even the kings in the ancient world acknowledged this – we read verse 13 repeated on the lips of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:33. Human powers all come to an end but God’s power is eternal. It is the psalmist’s way of saying: Sic transit gloria mundi (1 Timothy 1:17).

The Lord is faithful in all his words
and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall
and raises all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all creatures look to you
and you give them their food in due time.
You open wide your hand,
grant the desires of all who live.

The Lord is just in all his ways
and loving in all his deeds.
He is close to all who call him,
who call on him from their hearts.

He grants the desires of those who fear him,
he hears their cry and he saves them.
The Lord protects all who love him;
but the wicked he will utterly destroy.

Let me speak the praise of the Lord,
let all mankind bless his holy name
for ever, for ages unending.
                                   (vv. 14-21).

This section completes and crowns this wonderful psalm by extolling the graciousness of God towards everyone. God’s goodness, declared in verses 7-9, is now illustrated towards those in need. He keeps His promises by showing fatherly care towards those who have gone astray, and by offering comfort and relief to those who are overburdened from whatever source. God also supplies the spiritual and material hunger of all His creatures, and does so in joyous abundance – expressed in that wonderful phrase: “You open wide your hand (to) grant the desires of all who live.” The feeding is, therefore, not confined to the material, but to all of life’s needs, and there is a generosity in the giving that contrasts with the miserliness of human methods of help (see Matthew 6:25-34).

God’s goodness extends far beyond the mere offering of help in time of need, marvellous though that is. God’s nature is love, and so all His actions in our regard are motivated by love, by His desire to reach out to us and draw us close to Himself in loving union. This He does especially for those who open up to Him in prayer; they have the joy of answered prayer, where those who keep their distance from Him are unaware of this great privilege. The closer one comes to Him, the more one discovers that He is love and can be touched by a loving response from us. His readiness to answer prayer is only amazing if one remembers His splendour and majesty emphasized earlier in the psalm.

Finally, we hear of God’s protection for the “good” and His destruction of the “wicked”. It would hardly be a psalm about real life if there were no mention of the wicked, and it would definitely not be a psalm of David! God’s righteousness is upheld in the end, for His love is a just and holy love. Those who experience His protection are those who have entered into a life of loving obedience to His Word, while those who are “destroyed” are those who choose to live life without any protection from God, and so fall victim to their own sinfulness and to the wickedness they find in the world.

The psalm ends with David full of the praise of God Himself, and in union with all of creation in its praise. Uniting his personal testimony to that of “all flesh” he completes his song by stating the ultimate purpose that all creatures serve, namely, the praise of God. His vision, as wide as the universe, is as lasting as eternity.

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