NOTES for Psa 146

The psalm's concision expresses humanity's most intimate knowledge of God. It has been given through centuries of experience in the relationship between Creator and creation. It is difficult to accept and impossible to reject. We must accept that the horse's strength is not what matters, nor merits and achievements, nor the swiftness of legs. The one thing that matters is our hope in the One who can help us survive. The Creator of every living thing, who laid immutable laws at the world's foundation and teaches us to respect the world given to us for life—only in Him can we place our hope, and only from Him can we ask help and protection. For just as in His mercy He helps the raven's young, so He will not leave a human being without help and protection.

When reading the Psalms, one constantly comes up against an apparently unfair fact: God chooses some people and not others. This fact provokes an angry, childish reaction even in adults. Why is something given to one person but not to another? Why does someone else have a piece of candy while I do not?

Candy really is not so simple. But election and blessing, as the Psalm teaches us, are not a lollipop. They are responsibility, duty, and an awareness of the weight of one’s calling—which, for every believer, consists in praising, thanking, and singing to God despite all the apparent injustice of the world.

Before us is a song praising the greatness of God, who wisely created the universe. Everything in the universe is in His hand, from distant stars to small birds. Yet the list of His works begins by mentioning the building of Jerusalem and recounting the blessings He has bestowed upon people. This is no accident, for the Lord revealed in the Bible is not the “God of philosophers and scholars,” but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is not an abstract ruler of soulless space, but the living God, who created human beings in His image and likeness and entered into a close relationship with them.

When the psalmist calls people to sing to God in turn, we first remember those appointed to serve and sing in shifts in the Temple. But we may also think that all the faithful, not only singers set apart for special ministry, are called to sing praise, that is, to prayerful union with the Lord. For He knocks at everyone’s door.

The song of thanksgiving comes not only from the heart of one particular Psalmist; it reflects the feelings of the whole people and expresses their gratitude to the Creator for everything He has done for the people He chose. But He also sends wind and snow, the possibility of peaceful life, abundant harvests, and many other gifts to other peoples. These gifts cannot be called small; often they are more abundant than those given to Abraham's descendants.

But to the children of Abraham He gave His word and His statutes. Someone accustomed to measuring everything by the standards of material well-being may not immediately recognize the value of this gift, yet it is precisely this gift, unobtrusive against the background of evident gifts of nature, that proves to be the most important.

The one specially favored by God is not the person who makes extensive use of the fruits He created, but the one with whom He remains in communion.