Psalm 146: Hallelujah—Trust God

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. —Psalm 146:3, 4

Psalm 146 is the first of five “Hallelujah” psalms—the last songs in the book of Psalms. These five, together with Psalm 145, are also known as “triumphant hymns.” In ten short verses, David extols the benefits of having the Lord as our helper.

He warns against putting faith or trust in any human, no matter how powerful that individual might appear (Psalm 146:3).

God is our only refuge. While the psalmist lived, he lived to praise the Lord (v. 2).

“This mortal life is of short duration, but all its days should be spent in blessing and extolling the name of God. ‘Praise’ is the theme of the anthems to God that are sung by the inhabitants of heaven. ‘Let us learn the song of the angels now, that we may sing it when we join their shining ranks.’. . . The songs of heaven will bring joy and strength to lighten the burdens of this life [v. 2].” When humans die, consciousness ceases (v. 4).

“The Bible lends no support to the popular doctrine of a conscious state between death and the resurrection and furthermore emphatically refutes such a teaching (see Ps. 115:17; Eccl. 9:5). A common metaphor for death is ‘sleep’ (Deut. 31:16; 2 Sam. 7:12; 1 Kings 11:43; Job 14:12; Dan. 12:2; John 11:11, 12; 1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thess. 4:13–17; etc.).

That such a ‘sleep’ is not a conscious fellowship with the Lord on the part of the righteous is clearly implied in the statement of Jesus, who comforted His disciples with the thought that at the second advent, not at death, the disciples would be united with their Lord (John 14:1–3). Paul similarly pointed to the second advent as the time when all the righteous, those living at the time of the advent, and the dead who will be raised at that moment, will together be united with Christ, with no precedence on the part of the living (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).

Only God has the power to save.

Put your trust in Him! “I’ve found a Friend; oh, such a Friend! / He loved me ere I knew Him; / He drew me with the cords of love, / And thus He bound me to Him.”