Psalm 146

Who does right to those who suffer wrong

Read/pray the psalm. (Full text at bottom.)

• In this psalm: Hierarchy:

  • The God who made heaven and earth and sea¹

  • Princes (But they are mere mortals! Don’t trust in them!)

  • People at the bottom

    • “those who suffer wrong”

    • the hungry

    • prisoners

    • the blind

    • the fallen

    • strangers in the land

    • the fatherless

    • widows

• Again and again we have seen the psalmists praise God, because of his care for the least.

  • In the ancient pagan world, although we see traces of the mighty caring for the poor, in no case is this because the poor have equal value as human beings.

  • But God humbles even the mighty: They are no more dependable than other mortals!

• Historian Tom Holland’s book Dominion explains the radical change produced by the cross of Jesus Christ. Nothing in previous history compares to such radical love and sacrifice:

  • God becomes man.

  • To die the foulest death.

  • For us!

• And as Holland’s subtitle says, this is “The Making of the Western Mind” that we now take for granted.

So…

• Pray:

I praise you, Lord Jesus Christ, because though you were rich, yet for our sake you became poor, so that we by your poverty might become rich! 
[Based on 2 Corinthians 8:9]

Psalm 146
Lauda, anima mea

1	Praise the Lord, O my soul; *
		while I live I will praise the Lord.
2	Indeed, as long as I have my being, * 
		I will sing praises unto my God.
3	Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man, * 
		for there is no help in them.
4	For when one breathes his last, he shall return again to the earth, *
		and in that day all his thoughts perish.
5	Blessed is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help * 
		and whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6	Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is therein; * 
		who keeps his promise for ever;
7	Who does right to those who suffer wrong; *
		and who feeds the hungry.
8	The Lord sets prisoners free; *
		the Lord gives sight to the blind.
9	The Lord helps those who have fallen; * 
		the Lord loves the righteous.
10	The Lord cares for the strangers in the land; he defends the fatherless and widow; *
		but the way of the ungodly he makes crooked.
11	The Lord shall be King for evermore, *
		even your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Praise the Lord.

New Coverdale Psalter

1. See notes on Psalm 135 about the inclusion of “sea” with “heaven and earth.”