Psalm 103 explained

"Praise the LORD, my soul" (103:1) is the same Hebrew as "Bless the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 104:1): the psalm speaks to its own soul, and every your in 103:3-5 is spoken to it. And its "flower of the field" (103:15) is Isaiah's, where the Hebrew calls the glory of flesh chesed, the psalm's word for the LORD's everlasting loving kindness (103:17).

The title says only "By David" (103:1). Then the psalm gives an order, and gives it to itself: "Praise the LORD, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name!" (103:1). In Hebrew Praise here is barakh, the verb of bless (tap Praise), and it comes once in the verse; the WEB repeats it before his holy name. The order comes again: "Praise the LORD, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits" (103:2). Then the psalm lists them: the LORD "who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s" (103:3-5) (tap forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, renewed). Five times who: in Hebrew each of the five is a verb form with the same small word in front of it, ha-, the Hebrew the. And the psalm's last words are its first order again: "Praise the LORD, my soul!" (103:22).

Psalm 103 opens and closes with "Praise the LORD, my soul" (103:1, 103:22), and Psalm 104 opens and closes with "Bless the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 104:1, 104:35). In Hebrew all four begin with the same two words, barkhi nafshi, bless, my soul, and so does 103:2. The Hebrew Bible has them in no other verse (tap Praise). Psalm 146's "Praise the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 146:1) looks the same in the WEB, but it is another verb.

Psalm 103:1 · Psalm 103:22 · Psalm 104:1 · Psalm 104:35 · Psalm 146:1

Psalms 103:21→leads toMatthew 6:10

Teaching his disciples on the mountain (Matthew 5:1-2), Jesus said, "Pray like this" (Matthew 6:9), and taught them to ask, "Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). Psalm 103 says, "The LORD has established his throne in the heavens" (Psalm 103:19), and calls on those who serve him: "Praise the LORD, you angels of his, who are mighty in strength, who fulfill his word, obeying the voice of his word" (Psalm 103:20), and "Praise the LORD, all you armies of his, you servants of his, who do his pleasure" (Psalm 103:21). In Hebrew his pleasure is retsono, from ratson, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "goodwill, favour, acceptance, will". Jesus doesn't cite Psalm 103, and no link between the Hebrew and the Greek words is claimed, so setting them together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject: God's will done by those who serve him. One reading hears in the prayer's "as it is in heaven" what the psalm pictures beside the LORD's throne in the heavens, his angels and servants doing his word and his will, and hears Jesus teaching his disciples to ask for that on earth. Another keeps each to its own words: the psalm calls on the LORD's servants to praise him, and Jesus teaches his disciples what to ask, without pointing to this psalm. These notes don't choose between them. The psalm also says "His kingdom rules over all" (Psalm 103:19), and the same prayer asks, "Let your Kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10); this line rests only on the petition about his will and doesn't say how those two fit together.

בָּרַךְbarakhsay ba-RAKH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "kneel, bless". Strong's: "to kneel; by implication to bless God (as an act of adoration), and (vice-versa) man (as a benefit)". "Praise the LORD, my soul!" (103:1). The psalm has this verb six times: in 103:1, 103:2, 103:20, 103:21, and twice in 103:22. The next psalm opens and closes with the same Hebrew words, and there the WEB gives them as Bless: "Bless the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 104:1, 104:35). In the Hebrew Bible the two words barkhi nafshi, the command bless, my soul, come only in those five verses (103:1, 103:2, 103:22, 104:1, 104:35). It is the verb of "Blessed be the LORD" (Psalm 41:13). But "Praise the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 146:1) is another verb.

The psalm tells its own soul, "don’t forget all his benefits" (103:2). What helps you remember what God has done for you, and what makes you forget?