to kneel · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person feminine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
soul
נַ֭פְשִׁיNaf.shi
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
within
קְ֝רָבַ֗יke.ra.Vai
H7130
properly · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
holy
קָדְשֽׁוֹka.de.Sho
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
name
שֵׁ֥םshem
H8034
an appellation · noun, common masculine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 146:1-2 Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.
Psalms 57:7-11 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Psalms 111:1 Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.
1 Corinthians 14:15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with…
Psalms 103:22-104:1 Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, sing…
Psalms 99:3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 103:1-5
David is here communing with his own heart, and he is no fool that thus talks to himself and excites his own soul to that which is good. Observe,
I. How he stirs up himself to the duty of praise, Psa 103:1, Psa 103:2. 1. It is the Lord that is to be blessed and spoken well of; for he is the fountain of all good, whatever are the channels or cisterns; it is to his name, his holy name, that we are to consecrate our praise, giving thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. 2. It is the soul that is to be employed in blessing God, and all that is within us. We make nothing of our religious performances if we do not make heart-work of them, if that which is within us, nay, if all that is within u…
Bless the Lord, O my soul,.... His better part, his soul, which comes immediately from God, and returns to him, which is immaterial and immortal, and of more worth than the world: God is to be served with the best we have; as with the best of our substance, so with the best of our persons; and it is the heart, or soul, which he requires to be given him; and such service as is performed with the soul or spirit is most agreeable to him; he being a Spirit, and therefore must be worshipped in spirit and in truth: unless the spirit or soul of a man, is engaged in the service of God, it is of little avail; for bodily exercise profiteth not; preaching, hearing, praying, and praising, should be both…
Psalm 103:1-5
A Psalm of David. [162]
1. Bless Jehovah, O my soul! and all my inward parts, bless his holy name. 2. Bless Jehovah, O my soul! and forget not any of his benefits: 3. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4. Who redeemeth thy life from the grave; who crowneth [163] thee with mercy and compassions; 5. Who satisfieth [or filleth] thy mouth with good: thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle's. [164]
1. Bless Jehovah, O my soul! The prophet, by stirring up himself to gratitude, gives by his own example a lesson to every man of the duty incumbent upon him. And doubtless our slothfulness in this matter has need of continual incitement. If even the proph…
The Church Fathers
With respect to souls, divine scripture declares them to be circumscribed, and indicates them to be circumscribed by the body itself, as in the passage: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me; thus speaking of the soul as being within
[Daniel 10:16] "O my lord, at the sight of thee my joints are loosed..." Theodotion interprets it this way, in accordance with what we read in the One Hundred and Second Psalm: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name." (Psalm 103:1) For our inward nature must direct its gaze without, before we deserve to behold a vision of God; and when we actually have beheld a vision of God, then our inward nature is converted within us and we become wholly of the number of those concerning whom it is written in another Psalm: "All the glory of the daughter of kings is within, in golden borders" (Psalm 45:13).
In like manner, "these fatty parts of the ram that are around the kidneys and these that cover the interior parts" are commanded to be placed on the altar. So you who hear these things should know you ought to offer on the fire of the altar everything that is more sinful within you and hides your "inner being" so that all your "inner being" may be cleansed and you also may say, as David said, "Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." For unless that sinfulness that touches your "inner being" should be removed, your inner being cannot lay hold of the subtle and spiritual sense and cannot receive the understanding of wisdom; therefore, it cannot praise the Lord.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bless — (1.) God blesses his people when he bestows on them some gift temporal or spiritual (Gen. 1:22; 24:35; Job 42:12; Ps. 45:2; 104:24, 35). (2.) We bless God when we thank him for his mercies (Ps.…
Praise · Is due to God on account of: Pardon of sin — Is due to God on account of: Pardon of sin
Sickness · Saints: Praise God for recovery from — Saints: Praise God for recovery from
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
In the strophe Psa 103:1 the poet calls upon his soul to arise to praiseful gratitude for God's justifying, redeeming, and renewing grace. In such soliloquies it is the Ego that speaks, gathering itself up with the spirit, the stronger, more manly part of man (Psychology, S. 104f.; tr. p. 126), or even, because the soul as the spiritual medium of the spirit and of the body represents the whole person of man (Psychology, S. 203; tr. p. 240), the Ego rendering objective in the soul the whole of its own personality. So here in Psa 103:3 the soul, which is addressed, represents the whole man. The קובים which occurs here is a more choice expression for מעים (מעים): the heart, which is called קרב…
Ps 103 This psalm celebrates the Lord’s perfection, compassion, forgiveness, and goodness.
103:1-6 The psalmist offers praise for the Lord’s goodness.
103:1-2 Let all that I am praise the Lord: Pss 103 and 104 each open and close with this commitment (103:1-2, 22; 104:1, 35; see also 146:1).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 103:1
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord O my soul. Soul music is the very soul of music. The Psalmist strikes the best keymote when he begins with stirring up his inmost self to magnify the Lord. He soliloquizes, holds self-communion and exhorts himself, as though he felt that dulness would all too soon steal over his faculties, as, indeed, it will over us all, unless we are diligently on the watch. Jehovah is worthy to be praised by us in that highest style of adoration which is intended by the term bless —"All thy works praise thee, O God, but thy saints shall bless thee." Our very life and essential self should be engrossed with this deli…
