Analysis of Psalm 145

Psalm 145 verses 1-8

1. I will extol You, my God, O King;

And 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;

And His greatness is unsearchable.

4. One generation shall praise Your works to another,

And shall declare Your mighty acts.

5. I will meditate on the glorious splendour of Your majesty,

And on Your wondrous works.

6. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts,

And I will declare Your greatness.

7. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness,

And shall sing of Your righteousness.

8. The LORD is gracious and full of compassion,

Slow to anger and great in mercy.

Why this Psalm is beautiful:
This Psalm is wonderful because it is all about God, and it is all about His royal greatness. As a Christian, I like to meditate on the fact that God is so great and powerful; it makes me excited about the God I serve and about my faith, and also excited that I can have a personal relationship with the most powerful Person (in a way, the only powerful Person) in the universe.

The Psalm talks about the majesty of God: “I will extol You, my God, O King”. It acknowledges the royal majesty of God…”O King”. It recognises that God is to be praised everyday, forever: “I will bless Your name forever and ever…Every day I will bless You… I will praise Your name forever and ever”.

Because God is great, our praise to Him should be fittingly excellent – “greatly to be praised”; we are to praise the works of God from generation to generation.
“I will meditate on the glorious splendour of Your majesty” – for me these are powerful words. I like to exercise my imagination on the royal greatness of God, knowing that my most intense imagination will not even come close to fully describing His splendour. I will also meditate on all the wonderful things He has done; the earth He has created, the ways He has intervened in my own life and the lives of people around me. I am an unapologetic creationist (meaning I 100% believe (and promote) the Biblical account of the 6day creation of the world – no evolution here baby! OK, maybe micro-evolution within species…but definitely not between species!). I totally ascribe the beauties of the natural world to the unspeakable creativity and imagination and skill of an awesome God.

v6 Men (or people) talk about how mighty God’s amazing acts are. I will declare (and I do declare!) His greatness. God is not only great in terms of His power, He is also perfectly righteous. I always wonder what life could have been like if God was not righteous – if this were possible – or if He did not love humanity the way He does. Thankfully God is perfectly holy and perfectly pure. Because of this, it is totally fitting that people should talk about (utter) the memory of all the great things He has done, and sing of His holiness and righteousness.

Finally, (for this study) another aspect to worship God for: even though He is majestic in His royal splendour, even though His wonderful creations fill the earth around us, He is still gracious to us, full of compassion despite all the ways we sin against Him. He is great in mercy despite all the ways we invent to disobey Him.
This if nothing else, is enough to bring us in worship and reverence to our knees.
Let all the peoples praise You, O LORD! 😉