Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 146

Praise ye the Lord - “ Ye” - all people. Margin, Hallelujah. See [Psalms 104:35]; [Psalms 106:1].

Praise the Lord, O my soul - See [Psalms 103:1], note; [Psalms 104:1], note.

While I live will I praise the Lord ... - See the notes at Psalms 104:33, where the same language occurs substantially as in this verse: I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. The idea is not merely that he would praise Him during this life—short and fleeting as it is—but that as long as he had an existence, in the future world, forever he would praise Him.

Through every period of my life
Your goodness I’ll pursue;
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
Through all eternity to You
A joyful song I’ll raise;
But, oh! eternity’s too short
To utter all Your praise.”

- Addison

Put not your trust in princes - Rely on God rather than on man, however exalted he may be. There is a work of protection and salvation which no man, however exalted he may be, can perform for you; a work which God alone, who is the Maker of all things, and who never dies, can accomplish. See the notes at (Psalms 118:8–9). Compare also the notes at (Isaiah 2:22): Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?

Nor in the son of man - Any son of man; any human being, no matter what his rank or power. The phrase is often used to denote man. See the notes at (Psalms 8:4).

The appellation “Son of man” was often applied by the Savior to himself to express emphatically the idea that he was a man - that he had a human nature; that he was identified with the race; that he was a brother, a fellow-sufferer, a friend of man: that he was not a cold and abstract being so exalted that he could not feel or weep over the sins and woes of a fallen and suffering world. The language here, however, it is scarcely necessary to say, does not refer to him. It is right to put our trust in him; we have no other trust.

In whom there is no help - Margin, salvation. So the Hebrew. The idea is, that man cannot save us. He cannot save himself; he cannot save others.

His breath goes forth - He dies like other people, no matter how exalted he is. See the notes at (Isaiah 2:22).

He returns to his earth - See the notes at (Psalms 90:3). The earth - the dust - is “his”:

1. It is his, as that from which he was made: he turns back to what he was (Genesis 3:19): dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
2. The earth - the dust - the grave is his, as it is his home - the place where he will abide.
3. It is his, as it is the only property that will ultimately be his. All that a man - a prince, a nobleman, a monarch, a millionaire - will soon have will be his grave - his few feet of earth. That will be his by right of possession, by the fact that, for the time being, he will occupy it, and not another man. But that, too, may soon become another man’s grave, so that even there he is a tenant only for a time; he has no permanent possession even of a grave. How poor is the richest man!

In that very day - The very day - the moment - that he dies.

His thoughts perish - His purposes; his schemes; his plans; his purposes of conquest and ambition; his schemes for becoming rich or great; his plans of building a house, and laying out his grounds, and enjoying life; his design of making a book, or taking a journey, or giving himself to ease and pleasure (Luke 12:19–20): and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry; but God said unto him, Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of time. Such are all the purposes of men!

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help - Who may rely for protection on the God who defended Jacob in his travels and dangers. Or, perhaps the word Jacob is used here collectively to denote Israel—the Jewish people: the God whom they adore and worship, rather than the gods of the pagan. Compare Psalms 144:15, note; Psalms 54:4, note.

Whose hope is in the Lord his God - In Yahweh, worshipped as his God. That is, who truly worships Yahweh, or makes Yahweh his God.