Psalm 103

Of David.
 ¹Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
 ²Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits —
 ³who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
 ⁴who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
 ⁵who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
 ⁶The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.
 ⁷He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
 ⁸The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
 ⁹He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.
 ¹⁰He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
 ¹¹For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
 ¹²as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.
 ¹³As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.
 ¹⁴For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
 ¹⁵As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
 ¹⁶for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
 ¹⁷But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
 ¹⁸to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
 ¹⁹The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
 ²⁰Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word.
 ²¹Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.
 ²²Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul.

This poem of blessing and praise attempts to capture the fulness of God’s steadfast love and compassion from the experience of the individual, the community of the faithful, and all of creation. This psalm is not an acrostic[1] but like an acrostic poem it is twenty-two lines long and it is likely that the author is using form to denote a whole or complete treatment of the steadfast love and compassion of God. In twenty-two lines the poet covers a remarkable breath of issues. Rolf A. Jacobson can state,

Psalm 103 is a wide-reaching hymn of praise that reaches out and touches most of the great theological issues of life and faith—sin and forgiveness, sickness and health, oppression and vindication, God’s election of Israel and the gift of the law, God’s transcendence and God’s mercy, human mortality and divine immortality, and the reign of God. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 759)

This psalmist joins its voice with the hosts of heaven and the works of God’s creation in lifting their humble blessing on the God of steadfast love and compassion.

This is a psalm where a little knowledge of Hebrew can bring a lot of richness to one’s reading because translations restrict the meaning of some key Hebrew ideas. “Bless,” Hebrew barak, originally meant to bow in homage to one’s king or lord and it does not have the connotation of providing a gift or benefit that the English bless/blessing has. This poem or praise or worship is framed by “bless” and the imperative to “bless” begins with the psalmist and then extends to the heavens and earth joined by the psalmist’s “soul.” “Soul” in Hebrew thought, Hebrew nephesh, is not the Greek idea of a soul which is different from the body but instead is the essence of life and the totality of oneself. It is not only the spiritual Greek “soul” which is to praise God but the center of one’s life and everything else that is a part of the psalmist joined in the action of praising God’s name.

Martin Luther’s contemporary Philip Melanchthon once stated memorably in his Loci Communes, “that to know Christ is to know his benefits.” (Melanchthon, 2014, p. 24) Now this psalm attributed to David[2] reflects on several of the primary characteristics of God and their benefits for the psalmist and all of creation. The thirteen attributes articulated in Exodus 34: 6-7 provide the language for much of reflection on God’s characteristics throughout the scriptures. In the aftermath of the golden calf, God has chosen not to destroy the people of Israel and declares to Moses:

The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed,

“The LORD, the LORD,

a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,

 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

yet by no means clearing the guilty,

but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children

and the children’s children,

to the third and the fourth generation.”

The psalmist begins with the LORD’s action of forgiving iniquity which is linked to the healing of diseases. The word for diseases can refer to illness, weakness, or pains that come from hunger, famine, disease, or old age (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 763) and the cause of  ‘disease’ is often a punishment for iniquity in Hebrew thought.[3] Yet, it is the forgiveness of the LORD which brings about the rescue from death for this poet. The rescue from the Pit may be a time when their life was at death’s door or it may be a metaphor for God’s rescue from a time of urgency, but regardless the psalmist has benefited from the forgiving nature of the LORD for the LORD’s servant and the poet understands the benefits they have received from their God.

Instead of crowning the psalmist with gold or silver they are crowned with steadfast love and mercy. Steadfast love and mercy are traits associated with God and God has reached into the divine character to place these traits upon the servant of the LORD. Steadfast love, Hebrew hesed, is the central feature attributed to God and hesed is the root of the New Testament concept of the grace of God. Hesed is a relational love and within this psalm God’s hesed is for those who fear him. Hebrew thought is covenantal in nature and the steadfast love of God is tied to the fear, honor, and respect of God’s people. Transgressions can be removed but the mercy of God is only known in relationship with the LORD. Frequently in the psalms hesed is paired with faithfulness, but in this psalm and other psalms relating to human sin and divine anger resolved by faithfulness it may instead be paired with compassion/mercy. [4](Mays, 1994, p. 328) The psalmist trusts that God’s hesed and mercy/compassion will prevail over any anger at the transgressions of either the psalmist or the people.

The dimensions of the “steadfast love”/hesed of God and the forgiveness of God are measured by the vastness of the heavens. The vertical distance between the heavens and the earth are used metaphorically to speak of the unmeasurable hesed of God. Yet, although English translations obscure this, the length of the heavens is used to envision God’s forgiveness of transgressions. The Hebrew behind “as far as the east is from the west,” is literally rendered as distant as the sunrise (rising) is from the sunset (setting). The compassion/mercy of the LORD is compared to the compassion of a father for their child. God’s steadfast love and forgiveness are as vast as can be comprehended and yet God’s compassion is as tender and intimate as what one hopes to experience within the family.

The immeasurability of the steadfast love of God and the forgiveness of God is contrasted by the impermanence of God’s human servants. The psalm picks up the play on words of Genesis 3:18 “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”[5] The impermanence of humanity is poetically rendered by the metaphors of dust and grass, flowers and wind. In contrast to the impermanence of humanity is the permanence of the hesed of God which lasts from everlasting to everlasting to those who live in faithfulness to the covenant and obedience to the commandments. The steadfast love of God in Hebrew is a relational concept and the gracious, eternal, and forgiving love of God is tied to the fear, respect, obedience, and faithfulness of the servant.

The psalm ends where it begins, in ‘blessing’ the LORD. The blessings begin with the angels and the hosts and ministers of the LORD and then extends to all the works of God’s hands (the creation of God) and finally resides in the voice of this poet praising God in harmony with all creation. The psalmist has seen the way God has crowned their life with the attributes of God, and they have come to celebrate the benefits of living in a relational covenant of steadfast love and compassion/mercy with their God. Martin Luther would later echo the sentiment of the psalmist in reflecting on God’s act of creation when he stated, “For all this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.” (Luther, 1978, p. 25) Like the psalmist we can reflect upon the benefits of this life lived in blessing and praise of God, we can marvel at the immeasurable depth of God’s steadfast love and forgiveness, and we can strive to live in faithful obedience to the God whose love and compassion shape our lives.

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[1] In an acrostic poem each line begins with a successive letter in the alphabet. In Hebrew there are twenty-two letters and a multiple of twenty-two is often a clue that a psalm or other Hebrew poetry is acrostic. Acrostic poetry tends to denote dealing with a topic in a complete manner.

[2] Some scholars attribute this psalm to a post-monarchical period and point to the reference to Moses instead of a king as evidence of this reaching back to a pre-Davidic period for a foundation for their faith. Although this historical reconstruction is possible, it is also possible that a psalm written by David, particularly before he is king, would refer back to the last common leader of the people of Israel and the creator of the law.

[3] Although this is not absolute. Within Deuteronomic thought suffering and illness is linked to iniquity, but there are significant counter voices like Job which challenge this linkage.

[4] Psalm 51:1; 77: 7-10.

[5] The name Adam in Genesis 3 is taken from the Hebrew word for soil/ground adamah. In both the psalm and Genesis 3 the word for dust is aphar, but even though the Hebrew utilizes two words in the wordplay the connection between the two words is clear in Genesis 3.