Psalm 103A - Bless the Lord (Part 1)
The Superscription ascribes this psalm to David.
of David. (Superscription to Psalm 103. The NASB adds “A Psalm” in italics, but the Hebrew text simply says, “of David.")
The Call to Blessing (v. 1)
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name. (Psalm 103: 1, NASB)
The editors have added the verb “bless” in the second line for clarity, but it is not in the Hebrew text.
This opening line is a call to us to be aware of God.
Why? Because we are often, even usually, unaware.
We take for granted all that the Lord is and does.
The call is for us to pause and to acknowledge Him.
Why?
Because we are sinful.
Because we need to recognize what God has done in the past; what He continually does in the present; what He will do in the future.
Because it is God’s nature to be different than what we are.
What is the Hebrew verb, “to bless”?
“barach = to bless - here 2nd person = barki," “you bless," speaking to his soul “naphash, with 1 p possessive pronoun, my”
.לְדָוִד: בָּרְכִי נַפְשִׁי, אֶת-יְהוָה
Yahweh - to, my soul bless (2nd p): to David
only used once in verse one, although the NASB has it twice.
וְכָל-קְרָבַי, אֶת-שֵׁם קָדְשׁוֹ
-and all
his holy name (object marker), within+1 p pronoun = me
To bless the Lord is to remember who the Lord is. Blessing the Lord does not add value to God. It is not for His benefit. It is for our benefit. When we bless the Lord we are remembering who He is and what He has done for us. The activity of “blessing the Lord” is acknowledging that He is the King of the Universe, of the seen and of the unseen.
A kingdom on earth is defined as the domain of the king - the land over which the king rules. The domain of the the Kingdom of God is all of creation. We often think of this only in terms of our planet earth, but His kingdom includes all of the planets in all of the billions of solar systems in our galaxy, times all of the billions of galaxies throughout the universe. That works out to some sextillion planets. The earth is to the universe as one grain of sand is to all of the beaches in the world. This is the size and extent of the Kingdom of God.
This is only the seen part of the Kingdom of God. There is also the unseen part of the Kingdom of God where heavenly beings exist. There is heaven, where Jesus has promised to go and to prepare a place for us as we heard in John 14 a few minutes ago.
When we bless God we are remembering how much greater He is than us. There is no comparison. We are His handiwork, the work of His fingers, as Psalm 8 reminds us.
As we bless God, we once again see who He is and we bow as we recognize how unbelievably great He is, especially as compared to us.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;”
The Call to Remember His Benefits (vs. 2-5)
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle. (Psalm 103: 2-5, NASB)
Note: In the NIV translation, the editors translate each of the benefits with the English, “my," rather than “your." However, their footnote says, “Hebrew your (referring to my soul); also in verses 3b-5," meaning that they know what the Hebrew text says, but have purposefully changed the text because they feel that David intended to personalize these truths.
David calls us to be aware of the benefits of being connected with God by faith. We are not to forget all of His benefits. Specifically, to what benefits is David referring?
PHRECS! (An acronym to help us remember the five benefits listed in this section of the psalm.)
P pardons
H heals
Re redeems
C crowns
S satisfies
Let's examine each of these benefits of being connected with God.
1) He pardons all of our iniquities.
All? All. How is that possible? It is possible only in and through the cross. Jesus' death was the "once for all" payment for all sin for those who choose to accept it. God offers to all, but it is efficacious only to those who accept the payment in their behalf. Such is the nature of choice, and such is the nature of faith.
2) He heals all of our diseases.
He does not miraculously intervene every time we are sick. As the one who constructed all life, even plants and animals as well as humans, he designed internal systems which generate healing.
Does your car heal itself? No, not in the slightest. Even with the most modern technology, all you get are warning lights that something is wrong. If you get a nail in your tire, you might get a lit icon on your dashboard that says there is a problem with the tire - perhaps that the pressure is low. The car does not fix the tire. You may have to pull the compressor out of the garage, put air into the tire, and then drive it to the tire dealership to have the tire repaired. The tire will not heal itself.
When you are sick and go to the doctor, the doctor often prescribes medication. The medication promotes the healing in your body that naturally occurs. The medicine should fight the infection with antibiotics, but the immune system within your body is doing the primary work.
If you sprain an ankle, your body takes care of repairing the problem all on its own. It will take time, sometimes a lot of time, depending on the severity of the sprain. So God has created living systems with the ability to repair themselves. That is amazing.
There are times when God might miraculously intervene to bring healing. Divine healing authenticated Jesus as the Messiah in fulfillment of the prophets.
How does the body know what to heal, and in what order? How does the body prioritize healing? There are limitations to how much healing can occur at any particular time. How does it know when it has the resources it needs to heal? How does it divide up those resources and send them to the appropriate place at the proper time? The immune systems use chemical signals with RNA and receptor cells - what a fantastic system! We bless the Lord for His incredible design. He has created living things in such a way that they repair themselves.
3) He redeems our lives from the pit.
Have you ever done anything wrong and been punished for it? Have you ever made a mistake in your career and been crushed because of it? Have you ever made a mistake in your meaningful relationships and felt ruined? How bad can it be? Read the psalm immediately before this one, Psalm 102. The author speaks of national pain, but here he personalizes it as though he is the one experiencing it, and perhaps he was.
God can reconstruct lives. God gives second and even third chances. How many times must we forgive our brothers and sisters? 70 x 7? How many times does God forgive us? He can turn our lives around if we let Him.
4) He crowns us with lovingkindness and compassion.
To crown is to show honor and to acknowledge station. In Ephesians 2, Paul tells us that we are joint-heirs with Christ. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus. We share in the inheritance reserved for us in heaven for eternity, and which is also available to us now on earth. We love our life partners, and we love our kids. We would do just about anything for them. When they hurt, we hurt. That is compassion: the desire to do good things for others. God demonstrates lovingkindness toward each of us.
5) He satisfies our years with good things …
If you are older, perhaps you have had a conversation with a younger person regarding what it was like to be their age. For instance, if they are 24, what was it like when we were 24. How is it different now from what we thought it would be like when we were that age? What a great question.
If you are old enough to remember the space race in the ’60s and ’70s, you might also remember how the movie “2001, A Space Odyssey” described where we thought we would be by the turn of the millennium. In the film, we would be traveling to the moons of Jupiter by 2001. We would have established colonies on the moon and Mars. None of that happened. We are moving so slowly into space. Why? Because it is still complicated to do, and there is no immediate financial payoff yet. There was a sense when we were 24 that we were moving toward clear goals - the turn of the millennium and the exploration of the solar system. But that time has come and gone. At least now, we are beginning to see some success as the private sector becomes more involved.
If our lives depend upon the fulfillment of goals by others, we have a good chance of being disappointed. Our satisfaction in life more often comes from the purposes of our own lives. We can be so blessed by our life partners, and by our children and grandchildren. We can have satisfaction in years of good work, and perhaps opportunities to travel to exotic places. These are good things. There is a similar satisfaction in looking back upon the ministry's memories into which the Lord has led us.
Perhaps life has had disappointments for some of us. Things haven’t worked out as we had dreamed. But even so, the Lord provides blessings in so many ways. We are unwise to ignore those or be so caught up with the disappointments that we fail to see His benefits.
… and our youth is renewed like the eagle.
Result: renewed youth, or strength. The Hebrew for “youth” is a word which means literally “early life” and is used in that sense in most of the passages in the OT. BDB lists this usage in Psalm 103 as a figurative usage, which they translate as “youthful vigor."
In what sense is it like an eagle? Keil and Delitzsch in Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 5, Psalms, p. 121, states,
The comparison is, as in Micah 1:16 (cf. Isaiah 40:31), to be referred to the annual mounting of the eagle. Its renewing of its plumage is an emblem of the renovation of his youth by grace.
Aging can be difficult to accept. Perhaps we wake up with pain in our lower back. Our knees are not as trustworthy as they once were. We may not seem to remember everything as quickly as we used to. Our skin starts to look different. It is strange to see these things in ourselves, and we probably don’t like it. We can’t run as fast as we used to, even just a few years ago.
We would love to have our youth renewed like the eagle. Years ago, the film "Cocoon" described an alien who, in coming to earth, was able to bring youth back to elderly people. It was only temporary, but it made them deliriously happy. This kind of youth is not meant in this passage. Even though we won’t be as athletic as 24, perhaps we are renewed with a career change or even retirement. So maybe that is having our youth renewed.
But there is a very literal sense in which our youth will be new. When we transition through death to life, we will be changed. Our mortal bodies will become immortal. What will that be like? It is hard to know, definitively, from the Scriptures, exactly what to expect. But we will be changed, and there is a literal sense that we will transform into something spectacularly better than what we are today.
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15: 50-57, NASB)
Review: To not forget all of His benefits. What benefits?
PHRECS!
P pardons
H heals
Re redeems
C crowns
S satisfies
PHRECS is very similar to how we often describe conversion and salvation. So here is faith described in OT terms, where faith is the verb by which all of this happens. By faith, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6, NASB)
So as we reflect on what God has done for us, we bless Him.
What other things has God done for us? We will examine more in part 2.