Ps 145 Psalm and Commentary
Commentary written and recorded by Dr Noel Donnelly
Psalm setting (c) Noel Donnelly
Psalm recorded by Grace Buckley
Graphic (c) Netta Ewing
video: Ps 145 4A Commentary – Small
audio:
Psalm 145 Commentary 4rthA.
On the fourth Sunday of Year A the liturgy selects the last five verses of Psalm 145 for our congregational worship. It is another acrostic song in which each line begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a technique that may act as a memory aid to the singer. Our responsorial practice has a long tradition: in the Dead Sea Scrolls the congregation is given a sung response after each verse: “Blessed be God for ever! Blest be God’s holy name!”
In the Bible this psalm begins with the word “Alleluia!” a word meaning “Praise the Lord!” That is the way each of the following psalms starts as the book of psalms reaches its climax in Psalm one hundred and fifty. Together they form a Halleluia Chorus to round off the Bible’s praise of God in a great resounding 5-movement musical applause.
Our psalm encourages us to count our blessings: “God keeps faith for ever!” says verse 7; God is unswervingly loyal. See how God gives justice to the oppressed, food for the hungry, freedom for prisoner and sight for the blind. In this way our psalm reaches forward to counting the blessings of The Beatitudes in the Gospel.
January, as we know, is named after the Roman gate way god Janus with its two faces, one which looked back to the past year and the other looking forwards to the new one. In the overall context of the Bible our psalm today sits back after 144 psalms and leads forward to the final 5 of the Israel’s great hymn book, intoning the final great Halleluia Chorus of praise for God’s many blessings. Let’s count our January blessings, in the past and out there among us, singing “Alleluia! Praise the Lord!”
