Psalms 145 - Introduction

CXLV.

This alphabetical psalm recalls in many expressions and phrases the thoughts and feelings of older songs. It has been identified with the “New Song” promised in Psalms 144:9. Possibly some thought of the kind may have led to its following it. The song, though abounding in familiar psalm expressions, deserves the claim of originality from the insistance of its conviction of the Divine love and pity and care for all the world and all creatures.

The acrostic arrangement is incomplete (see Note, Psalms 145:13), thus supplying only twenty-one instead of twenty-two stanzas. The parallelism is well sustained.

Title. — This is the only psalm inscribed tehillah, though the whole collection is, in Hebrew, called Tehillîm, or Tillîm. (See General Introduction.) It is possibly from Psalms 145:21; or perhaps this distinction is due to the early rise of the custom of repeating it daily at the noonday repast. So it would be called “Praise,” just as we speak of “the grace” before and after meat.