happiness · noun, common masculine plural construct
God
שֶׁ֤אֵ֣לshe.'El
H410
strength · relative particle + noun, common masculine singular construct
Jacob
יַעֲקֹ֣בya.'a.Ko
H3290
Jaakob · proper noun, a man's name
help
בְּעֶזְר֑וֹbe.'ez.Ro
H5828
aid · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
hope
שִׂ֝בְר֗וֹSiv.Ro
H7664
expectation · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֥הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
God
אֱלֹהָֽיו'e.lo.Hav
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
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
Jeremiah 17:7-8 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
Psalms 144:15 Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.
Psalms 71:5 For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.
Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
Psalms 46:11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Psalms 84:12 O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
Exodus 3:6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was…
Genesis 32:24-29 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 146:5–end
The psalmist, having cautioned us not to trust in princes (because, if we do, we shall be miserably disappointed), here encourages us to put our confidence in God, because, if we do so, we shall be happily secured: Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, that has an interest in his attributes and promises, and has them engaged for him, and whose hope is in the Lord his God.
I. Let us take a view of the character here given of those whom God will uphold. Those shall have God for their help, 1. Who take him for their God, and serve and worship him accordingly. 2. Who have their hope in him, and live a life of dependence upon him, who have good thoughts of him, and encourage themsel…
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,.... The God of the patriarch Jacob, the Messiah, who is that God that fed him all his life, the Angel that redeemed him from all evil, with whom in the form of a man he wrestled, when he had power over God, and saw him face to face; the God of the posterity of Jacob, the Angel of Jehovah's presence, who went before them by day and night in the wilderness, and saved and carried them all the days of old; the God of spiritual Jacob, or Israel, the church of the chosen, redeemed, and called ones; the God of every Israelite indeed, of every true believer, as he was Thomas's Lord and God: now happy is that man that has him for his help, who help…
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
Hold most firmly and never doubt that the holy Trinity, the only true God, is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible—concerning which it is said in the psalms, "Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them." Concerning this the apostle too says, "For from him and through him and in him are all things. To him be glory forever."
What then must we do, if we are not to hope in sons of men, nor in princes? What must we do? "Blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob" (ver. 5): not this man or that man; not this angel or that angel; but, "blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob:" for to Jacob also so great an Helper was He, that of Jacob He made him Israel. O mighty help! now he is Israel, "seeing God." While then thou art placed here, and a wanderer not yet seeing God, if thou hast the God of Jacob for thy Helper, from Jacob thou wilt become Israel, and wilt be "seeing God," and all toil and all groans shall come to an end, gnawing cares shall cease, happy praises shall succeed. "Blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob;" of this Jacob. Wherefore is he happy? Meanwhile, while yet groaning in this life, "his hope is in the Lord his God."
Indeed God is able, both to give salvation in this life, to remove poverty, and to grant sufficiency to the Christian. And yet, if this were not so, what would you choose? To be that poor man, or to be that rich man? Do not be deceived. Hear the end, and observe the bad choice. For without a doubt, that poor man, because he was pious, placed in temporal troubles, thought someday that life would end, and eternal rest would be attained. Both died, but the thoughts of that poor man did not perish on that day. For it came to pass that the poor man died, and was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. On that day all his thoughts were healed. And since Lazarus is interpreted in Latin as "helped" - in Latin "helped" is said who in Hebrew is Lazarus - the Psalm well reminded: Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob. When his spirit departs, and his flesh returns to his own dust, his thoughts will not perish, because his hope is in the Lord his God. This is learned in the school of Christ the teacher, this is hoped for by the faithful listener's soul, this is the truest reward of the Savior.
Dictionary and topics
Blessing · SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD — SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD
Creation · God to be praised for — God to be praised for
Happiness · OF THE RIGHTEOUS — OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Happiness Of Saints In This Life · Is derived from: Hope in the Lord — Is derived from: Hope in the Lord
Hope · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
Man's help is of no avail; blessed is he (this is the last of the twenty-five אשׁרי of the Psalter), on the contrary, who has the God of Jacob (שׁאל like שׁיהוה in Psa 144:15) as Him in whom is his succour (בּעזרו with Beth essentiae, vid., on Psa 35:2) - he, whose confidence (שׂבר as in Psa 119:116) rests on Jahve, whom he can by faith call his God. Men often are not able to give help although they might be willing to do so: He, however, is the Almighty, the Creator of the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and of all living things that fill these three (cf. Neh 9:6). Men easily change their mind and do not keep their word: He, however, is He who keepeth truth or faithfulness, inasmuch as He…
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 146:5
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God:
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. Heaped up is his happiness. He has happiness indeed: the true and the real delight is with him. The God of Jacob is the God of the covenant, the God of wrestling prayer, the God of the tried believer; he is the only living and true God. The God of Jacob is Jehovah, who appeared unto Moses, and led the tribes of Jacob out of Egypt, and through the wilderness. Those are happy who trust him, for they shall never be ashamed or confounded. The Lord never dies, neither do his thoughts perish: his purpose of mercy, like himself, endures throughout all generat…
