Today’s Passage: Psalm 145
I will exalt You, my God and King. Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. What one mouth vows in the first verse, the last line hands on to every creature, forever and ever. From beginning to end the psalm keeps widening, and it never lets the praise stay private for long.
As you read, hold this: Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.
Context A Psalm of praise. Of David.
That is the heading, and no other psalm in the whole book labels itself quite this way. The lines are built letter by letter through the Hebrew alphabet, an acrostic, one line for each letter in its order. In the standard Hebrew tradition one of those lines, the nun-line, has gone missing, though the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek, and the Syriac all keep it. This translation includes it and says so in its footnote at verse 13, where it reads that the LORD is faithful in all His words and kind in all His actions. It is a well-documented gap in a single line, not a crack in the book.
Psalm 145:1-3 (BSB)
A Psalm of praise. Of David.
¹ I will exalt You, my God and King; I will bless Your name forever and ever. ² Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. ³ Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised; His greatness is unsearchable.
Word study "I will exalt You" — rum (Psalm 145:1)
Hebrew: אֲרוֹמִמְךָ (aromimcha), from רוּם (rum), pronounced ROOM. Strong’s H7311. It means to rise, to be high.
This is not simply saying that God is high. It is a decision to lift Him high. The very first word of the psalm is already turned toward God, an act aimed straight at Him rather than a description offered from a distance. Then verse 3 tells us why one word could never be enough: His greatness cannot be searched out.
Psalm 145:4-7 (BSB)
⁴ One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts— ⁵ the glorious splendor of Your majesty. And I will meditate on Your wondrous works. ⁶ They will proclaim the power of Your awesome deeds, and I will declare Your greatness. ⁷ They will extol the fame of Your abundant goodness and sing joyfully of Your righteousness.
David’s vow was never meant to end with him. One generation commends the works to the next, and the psalm moves back and forth between them and me, the telling handed along and then taken up again. Each generation receives the story already in motion, and each is expected to pass it on.
Psalm 145:8-9 (BSB)
⁸ The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion. ⁹ The LORD is good to all; His compassion rests on all He has made.
Study notes Good to all — not everyone saved
He is good to all, and His compassion rests on all He has made. That is common grace: sun and rain, breath and food, given because He made the world and not because the world has earned it. But it is not a claim that every creature ends up saved. Verse 10 will narrow the view, telling us that all He has made will give Him thanks, and that His saints will bless Him. Verse 20 will draw the line the other way, that the LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy. There is providence for everything He made, and a particular nearness for those who are His. Both of these stand together, and we must not confuse the one with the other.
Psalm 145:10-13 (BSB)
¹⁰ All You have made will give You thanks, O LORD, and Your saints will bless You. ¹¹ They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your might, ¹² to make known to men Your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom. ¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is faithful in all His words and kind in all His actions.
Here is a kingdom that does not end, a King faithful in every word and kind in every action. He is coming, and He judges, and that much is settled and sure. The exact timetable of the end is simply not this psalm’s concern.
Psalm 145:14 (BSB)
¹⁴ The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The King whose kingdom is everlasting is never too vast to notice someone who has fallen. He upholds them, and He lifts them up, and He is doing it now, in the present tense, all the while.
Psalm 145:15-16 (BSB)
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in season. ¹⁶ You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
This reaches past humanity to every living thing, and it pictures an open hand. Every creature that has ever eaten in its season has been fed out of that hand, whether it knew enough to notice or not.
Psalm 145:17-20 (BSB)
¹⁷ The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. ¹⁸ The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth. ¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him; He hears their cry and saves them. ²⁰ The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.
He is near, not a distant King at all, but near enough to hear a cry, so long as the one who cries calls out in truth. And verse 20 will not soften into the notion that everyone is saved in the end. Compassion for all creation and justice for the unrepentant sit side by side in the same psalm.
Psalm 145:21 (BSB)
²¹ My mouth will declare the praise of the LORD; let every creature bless His holy name forever and ever.
"And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!”" Revelation 5:13 (BSB)
One mouth begins the psalm, and every creature closes it. What David could only invite, John hears already being said aloud.
Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised.