Verse 2. - While I live will I praise the Lord. Nearly identical with Psalm 104:35a. It is our duty towards God to be always praising him, if not with the lips, at any rate with the heart. I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Identical with Psalm 104:33b. 146:1-4 If it is our delight to praise the Lord while we live, we shall certainly praise him to all eternity. With this glorious prospect before us, how low do worldly pursuits seem! There is a Son of man in whom there is help, even him who is also the Son of God, who will not fail those that trust in him. But all other sons of men are like the man from whom they sprung, who, being in honour, did not abide. God has given the earth to the children of men, but there is great striving about it. Yet, after a while, no part of the earth will be their own, except that in which their dead bodies are laid. And when man returns to his earth, in that very day all his plans and designs vanish and are gone: what then comes of expectations from him?While I live will I praise the Lord,.... As he had good reason to do, since he had his life from him, and was upheld in it by him; who also favoured him with the mercies and comforts of life; and that every day, being renewed to him every morning, and continued all the days of his life; which determined him throughout the whole of it to praise the Lord: nay, he had his spiritual life from him, with all the blessings of it; which are lasting, everlasting ones, and had hope of eternal life with him; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being; or "while I am" (l); not only in this world, but in the world to come; for men have a being or existence after death, and the saints have a most comfortable and happy one then; and will be more capable of singing praises to their incarnate God, and which will be their work to all eternity; see Psalm 104:33. (l) "dum fuero", Pagninus; "in adhuc me", Montanus; "quamdiu ero", Cocceius; , Sept. "quamdiu sum", Schmidt, Ethiopic version; so Ainsworth. |