PSALM 103

Bless Yahweh, O my soul

1 Bless [1] Yahweh, O my soul,	And all that is within me,		[bless] His holy name.
2 Bless Yahweh, O my soul,		And forget not all of His benefits; [2]
3 Who pardons [3] all your iniquities,		Who heals all your diseases;
4 Who redeems your life from the pit,		Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
5 Who satisfies your years with good things,		So that your youth is renewed like the eagle. [4]

6 Yahweh performs righteous deeds	And judgments for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known His ways [5] to Moses,	His acts to the sons of Israel.
8 Yahweh is compassionate and gracious,	Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. [6]
9 He will not always strive with us,	Nor will He keep His anger forever.[7]
10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins,	Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,	So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west,	So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 Just as a father has compassion on his children,	So Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him.
14 For He Himself knows our frame;	He is mindful that we are but dust.

15 As for man, his days are like grass;		As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,		And its place acknowledges it no longer.
17 But the lovingkindness of Yahweh is from everlasting to everlasting	on those who fear Him,		And His righteousness to children’s children,
18 To those who keep His covenant		And remember His precepts to do them.
19 Yahweh has established His throne in the heavens,		And His sovereignty rules over all.

20 Bless Yahweh, you His angels,	Mighty in strength, who perform His word,	Obeying the voice of His word!
21 Bless Yahweh, all you His hosts,	You who serve Him,	doing His will.[8]
22 Bless Yahweh, all you works of His,	In all [9] places of His dominion;	Bless Yahweh, O my soul! [10] [11]

[1] Blessing is a combination of praise and giving thanks and the Hebrew baruch should not be translated in this context by “praise” (NIV; CEV; NLT; GNT). J.P. Fokkelman notes that a hymn of praise lauds God’s excellence, often in the enumeration of His qualities (cf. Psalms 95-100; 113; 145-150). A song of thanksgiving gives thanks for something: a concrete action that God has performed in favor of the speaker or the community,

Thus, a song of thanksgiving looks at history, or a concrete period in the poet’s own life, and indicates what turn for the better has taken place. For instance, God has delivered the poet or the poet’s friends from enemies, illness, or calumny. This kind of intervention usually illustrates the unique or incidental aspect that is characteristic of a historical event. A hymn of praise, on the other hand, is more concerned with the permanent and sometimes even timeless qualities of God (Reading Biblical Poetry, 160).

[2] Psalm 103:1-2 are the middle verses of the King James Version of the Bible.

[3] God is always the subject of this verb (pardon/סַלָּח) and its derivatives. The verb occurs only 2x in the Psalms (25:11; 103:3; cf. 86:5 [adjective]) and 45x in the rest of the Old Testament. The noun occurs only once in the Psalms, “But there is forgiveness (סְלִיחָה) with You, That You may be feared” (Psalm 130:4) and only two other times in the Old Testament (Nehemiah 9:17; Daniel 9:9).

Forgiveness is not something that sinners earn but depends on God’s lovingkindness (vv.4,8,11,17), mercy, and compassion (vv.4,8,13) (NIDOTTE 3:260). God’s forgiveness of sin is at the heart of the New Covenant,

“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

That God is always the subject of “pardon” (סַלָּח) may have led to the axiom that only God could forgive sin (cf. Hebrews 10:4). This helps explain the background of Jesus forgiving sins,

And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts,
“Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, “Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?
“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’?
“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic,
“I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.”
And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.” (Mark 2:5-12)

[4] In Psalm 102 the believer likens himself to an owl. Now the believer is likened to an eagle.

[5] Moses prayed that Yahweh would show His ways, “Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight...” (Exodus 33:13).

[6] Cf. Num.14:18; Neh.9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 116:5; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah.1:3; 2 Chron.30:9.

Psalm 103 reflects upon the graciousness of the Mosaic Covenant which is evidenced here in verse 8 which is a quotation of Exodus 34:6, “Then Yahweh passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.” Psalm 103:9-18 also echo Exodus 34:7, “who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

A similar connection between the Name of Yahweh, His covenant, compassion and grace is found in Psalm 111:4-5,9.

[7] Psalm 102 reflects upon God’s indignation and wrath and how one’s life is like grass. Psalm 103 reminds us that God is well aware of our frame and that He is mindful that we are but dust (v.14). Verse 9 reminds us that Yahweh will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever.

[8] Q.16 of the Westminster Larger Catechism

How did God create angels?

God created all the angels (Col. 1:16) spirits, (Ps. 104:4) immortal, (Matt. 22:30) holy, (Matt. 25:31) excelling in knowledge, (2 Sam. 14:17, Matt. 24:36) mighty in power, (2 Thess. 1:7) to execute his commandments, and to praise his name, (Ps. 103:20–21) yet subject to change (2 Pet. 2:4).

[9] “The repetition of “all”…reinforces the sense of completeness” (Schaefer, 254).

[10] Psalm 104 also begins and ends “Bless Yahweh, O my soul!” (104:1,35).

[11] To hear Psalm 103 sung listen to Sons of Korah and/or New Song.