Psalm 146:3

Psalm 146 is the first of the last five psalms in the book (Psalms 146–150), and each of the five begins and ends with the call “Praise ye the LORD”, the Hebrew Hallelujah. The psalmist opens with his own vow to praise God for as long as he lives (Psalm 146:1–2). Then comes this warning. After it the psalm turns to the LORD himself, the one true helper, and tells of his power, his justice and his compassion (Psalm 146:5–9), and it closes by declaring that he reigns for ever (Psalm 146:10).

So the psalm moves from praise, to a warning about trusting men, to the reasons God can be trusted. The warning gives the praise its ground. We praise the LORD with our whole lives because he is the only one who can carry the weight of our hope.

The Hebrew verb for trust, bâṭach, has at its root the picture of hiding somewhere for refuge, and from that it means to be confident and sure. It is the settled reliance of a person who feels safe. The psalmist’s command is aimed at that deep confidence, and he tells us to keep it from resting on men.

He names princes first. The word nâdîyb properly means willing or generous, and as a noun it means a noble, a great man, a prince. These are the people of rank and influence whom others look to for leadership, protection and provision. Among the nations around Israel, kings were often regarded as close to divine or as the representatives of the gods, and a nation’s safety was credited to the strength of its ruler, its army and its counsellors. Israel felt the same pull. The people asked Samuel for a king “like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5), and many of the kings who followed led them into idolatry and political folly. Isaiah had to rebuke the nation for leaning on an alliance with Egypt (Isaiah 30), and he set the helplessness of idols beside the power of God (Isaiah 44). Trust placed anywhere but in God ends in disappointment, and Scripture says so again and again.

The second phrase widens the warning from rulers to everyone. “The son of man”, ben ‘adam, is the ordinary Hebrew way of speaking about a human being, and it carries with it the frailty that all of us share. Whatever a person’s rank, wisdom or strength, he is still a son of man.

The reason follows: “in whom there is no help.” The word for help, tᵉshûwʻâh, means rescue, and it is used for deliverance, safety, salvation and victory. A prince can do many useful things, but the rescue we most need lies outside his power, as verse 4 goes on to show.

Other parts of Scripture give the same warning. Jeremiah says that the man who trusts in man is cursed, and the man who trusts in the LORD is blessed (Jeremiah 17:5–8). Isaiah tells us to cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils (Isaiah 2:22). And another psalm says that it is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man or in princes (Psalm 118:8–9).

Verse 4 gives the reason that princes cannot be our refuge, and it is simply that they die. The word for breath, rûwach, also means wind and spirit. Here it is the breath of life, and when it “goeth forth” (yâtsâʼ, to go out) the man’s life on earth is over. Scripture often speaks of dying in this way.

Then “he returneth to his earth”. The verb shûwb means to turn back or return, and ʼădâmâh is the ground, the soil. God formed man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), and after the fall he told Adam that he would return to it (Genesis 3:19). The psalm applies that sentence to the prince. The body of the greatest ruler goes back into the soil it came from, the same as the body of the poorest of his subjects.

The last clause says what death does to everything a man intended. His “thoughts”, ʻeshtônâh, are his plans and purposes, the things he was working out and meant to carry through. The verb ʼâbad properly means to wander away or be lost, and so to perish. A dead man’s plans are lost to him. He can no longer carry them out, keep the promises he made, or shape what happens among the living.

It happens “in that very day” (yôwm, day). A ruler’s power to help ends the moment he does. Whoever built his security on that man’s favour, his promises or his policy finds on the day of the funeral that the foundation has gone.

The psalms set God’s purposes against this: “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever” (Psalm 33:11). Isaiah says that all flesh is grass, which withers, while the word of our God stands for ever (Isaiah 40:6–8). James speaks to people who make confident plans for the coming year, reminds them that their life is a vapour, and teaches them to say, “If the Lord will” (James 4:13–16). The plans of men are perishable and the counsel of God endures, and that difference is the whole argument for trusting him.

The psalm says that there is no rescue in the son of man. Jesus took the name Son of Man for himself, and said that he came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). He is the one man of whom the psalm’s verdict is reversed. He truly died and was buried, yet the grave could not hold him, and his purposes were vindicated when he rose. He says of himself that he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Earthly princes reign for a few years and their plans die with them. Of Christ’s kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:33). The rescue that no ruler could give is found in him, and the apostles preached that salvation, soteria in Greek, is in no other name under heaven (Acts 4:12). By his death and resurrection he overcame the very mortality this psalm describes, and he promises a day when death itself will be gone (Revelation 21:4).

These two verses are honest about people, and that honesty is a gift. In anxious times we look for a strong leader, a sound economy, a clever discovery, or our own ability to see us through. All of these can do real good for a while, and all of them are mortal or the work of mortals. The psalm frees us from asking of them what they were never able to give.

It also shows us who God is by contrast. He has no last day, and none of his plans will be left unfinished. Those who hope in him will find at the end that their hope has held. Knowing that our own lives are short can make us humble without making us despair, because the purposes of God that we give ourselves to will outlast us.