to be clear (orig. of sound · verb, piel infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
LORD
יְהוָ֣הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
praises
אֲזַמְּרָ֖ה'a.za.me.Rah
H2167
play upon it · verb, piel infinitive construct, 1st person common singular
God
לֵֽאלֹהַ֣יle.lo.Hai
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
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 63:4 Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.
Psalms 104:33 I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
Psalms 145:1-2 I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.
Psalms 71:14-15 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.
Revelation 7:9-17 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood bef…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 146:1-4
David is supposed to have penned this psalm; and he was himself a prince, a mighty prince; as such, it might be thought, 1. That he should be exempted from the service of praising God, that it was enough for him to see that his priests and people did it, but that he needed not to do it himself in his own person. Michal thought it a disparagement to him to dance before the ark; but he was so far from being of this mind that he would himself be first and foremost in the work, Psa 146:1, Psa 146:2. He considered his dignity as so far from excusing him from it that it rather obliged him to lead in it, and he thought it so far from lessening him that it really magnified him; therefore he stirred…
While I live will I praise the Lord,.... As he had good reason to do, since he had his life from him, and was upheld in it by him; who also favoured him with the mercies and comforts of life; and that every day, being renewed to him every morning, and continued all the days of his life; which determined him throughout the whole of it to praise the Lord: nay, he had his spiritual life from him, with all the blessings of it; which are lasting, everlasting ones, and had hope of eternal life with him;
I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being; or "while I am" (l); not only in this world, but in the world to come; for men have a being or existence after death, and the saints have a…
Psalm 146:1-5
1. Praise Jehovah, O my soul! 2. I will praise Jehovah in my life; I will sing psalms to my God so long as I shall have being. 3. Trust not in princes; in the son of man in whom there is not safety. 4. His breath shall go forth; he shall return to his earth, in that day his thoughts [285] shall perish. 5. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Jehovah, his God.
1. Praise Jehovah. The five last Psalms close with the same word with which they begin. [286] But having in general called upon all to praise God, he addresses himself, or, which is the same thing, his soul, only that under the name of soul he addresses his inward self more emphatically. We may…
The Church Fathers
I will praise the Lord in my life. See what it says: it exhorts itself, and it itself answers. What does it say? It says to me, Praise the Lord, O my soul: I myself answer, I will praise the Lord in my life. At present I cannot praise, I am weighed down by sins. As often as I open my lips in the praises of God, so often does the consciousness of my sins glue them shut. I will praise the Lord in my life. Beautifully he said, I will praise, not I praise. When I shall have been with my Lord, then I will praise my Lord in my life. Now I am in death, I cannot praise. I will praise in my life. Our life is Christ: let us praise the Lord in life. I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. See what it says. When we do something righteously, we are: but when we sin, we cease to be. There are many things that might be said, but the discourse hastens to its end.
From the words of this psalm, which we have just sung, may the Lord grant that we might be able to speak to you. For we have said: I will praise the Lord in my life; I will sing psalms to my God as long as I live. With these words, let us first remind your Charity that when you hear or say as long as I live, I will sing psalms to my God, do not think that when this life ends, the praise of God will end for us. For we will praise Him even more then, when we live without end. For if we praise in the pilgrimage from which we depart, how much more will we praise in the house from which we will never depart? As is said and read and sung in another psalm: Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they will praise you forever and ever. Where you hear: forever and ever, there is no end. And to live a blessed life, where God is undoubtedly seen, is to be loved without offense, to be praised without end; this will indeed be our life, to see God, to love Him, to praise Him. If therefore we praise when we believe, how will we praise when we see? How will sight praise, if faith praises so? For the Apostle says: As long as we are in the body, we are pilgrims from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. Now therefore by faith, then by sight. Now we believe what we do not see, then we will see what we believed. The one who believes is not ashamed, because it is true what he will see. But our Lord first built faith in us, where, if the reward of faith is given, it should not be sought prematurely.
But who saith it, and to whom saith he it? What shall we say, brethren? Is it the flesh that saith, "Praise thou the Lord, O my soul"? And can the flesh suggest good counsel to the soul? However much the flesh be conquered, and subjected as a servant to us through strength which the Lord imparteth, that it serve us entirely as a bond slave, enough for us that it hinder us not. ...For the body, inasmuch as it is the body, is even beneath the soul; and every soul, however vile, is found more excellent than the most excellent body. And let not this seem to you to be wonderful, that even any vile and sinful soul is better than any great and most surpassing body. It is better, not in deserts, but in nature. The soul indeed is sinful, is stained with certain defilements of lusts; yet gold, though rusted, is better than the most polished lead. Let your mind then run over every part of creation, and ye will see that what we are saying is not incredible, that a soul, however blameable, is yet more praiseworthy than a praiseworthy body. There are two things, a soul and a body. The soul I chide, the body I praise: the soul I chide, because it is sinful; the body I praise, because it is sound. Yet it is in its own kind that I praise the soul, and in its own kind that I blame the soul: and so in its own kind I praise the body, or blame it. If you ask me which is better, what I have blamed or what I have praised, wondrous is the answer thou wilt receive. ...So you speak of the best horse and the worst man: yet thou preferrest the man thou findest fault with to the horse thou praisest. The nature of the soul is more excellent than the nature of the body: it surpasseth it by far, it is a thing spiritual, incorporeal, akin to the substance of God. It is somewhat invisible, it ruleth the body, moveth the limbs, guideth the senses, prepareth thoughts, putteth forth actions, taketh in images of countless things; who is there, in short, beloved brethren, who may suffice for the praises of the soul? And yet such is the grace given to it, that this man saith, "Praise the Lord, O my soul." ...It is not the flesh that saith it. Let the body be angel-like, still it is inferior to the soul, it cannot give advice to its superior. The flesh when duly obedient is the handmaid of the soul: the soul rules, the body obeys; the soul commands, the body performs; how then can the flesh give…
Instead of "bless," as in Psa 103:1; Psa 104:1, the poet of this Psalm says "praise." When he attunes his sole to the praise of God, he puts himself personally into this mood of mind, and therefore goes on to say "I will praise." He will, however, not only praise God in the song which he is beginning, but כּחיּי (vid., on Psa 63:5), fillling up his life with it, or בּעודי (prop. "in my yet-being," with the suffix of the noun, whereas עודנּי with the verbal suffix is "I still am"), so that his continued life is also a constant continued praising, viz., (and this is in the mind of the poet here, even at the commencment of the Psalm) of the God and Kings who, as being the Almighty, Eternal, and…
Pss 146–150 The Psalter ends with five hallelujah psalms, so named because each begins and ends with Praise the Lord! (Hebrew haleluyah).
Ps 146 The call to praise (146:1-2) leads into a warning against folly and false confidence (146:3-4). The psalm concludes with a blessing for all who place their hope in the Lord (146:5-7).
146:1 This verse is reminiscent of 103:1, 2, 22; 104:1, 35.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 146:2
While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.
While I live will I praise the Lord. I shall not live here for ever. This mortal life will find a finis in death; but while it lasts I will laud the Lord my God. I cannot tell how long or short my life may be; but every hour of it shall be given to the praises of my God. While I live I'll love; and while I breathe I'll bless. It is but for a while, and I will not while that time away in idleness, but consecrate it to that same service which shall occupy eternity. As our life is the gift of God's mercy, it should be used for his glory. I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. When I am…
