Psalm 103:1-5 — Sermon Prep & Expository Preaching Guide

June 28, 2026

Scripture

Psalm 103:1-5

Historical Background · Verse-by-Verse Commentary · Reception History

What is the historical and cultural background of Psalm 103:1-5?

The Setting of Psalm 103: An Individual Song of Thanksgiving

Psalm 103 is identified in its superscription as "a psalm of David." Within the Psalter, this song belongs to the genre of the "individual song of thanksgiving" (a kind of psalm in which one person gives thanks in song for the blessings he has received), as he counts the grace God has shown him. Psalms of the same kind include Psalms 116 and 30, and such songs typically begin by recalling concretely "what I have received." Psalm 103 goes a step further, opening with the distinctive form in which the singer commands not the congregation but his own "soul" to praise. Remembering that the Psalter was originally a collection of songs sung in Israel's worship, this private soliloquy is also a device that leads the congregation to follow along, each giving the same command to their own soul. One scholar who has studied the work of setting the Psalms to song stresses that the Psalms were originally "sung texts" clothed in meter and melody;^[bg1] the repeated call to "bless" in Psalm 103 likewise draws its power precisely from this character as song.

"To Bless" (barak) as Worship Language

The key verb that opens and closes the passage, "barak" (barakə, to bless), originally meant "to kneel." From the posture of a person kneeling before God grew the worship term "to worship, to bless." In ancient Israel, to "bless" someone was not merely to offer kind words; it was a formal act of worship that acknowledged the worthiness of the object and humbled oneself before it. To "bless" God was the most basic gesture of worship—acknowledging the blessings he had given and returning glory to him. The repeated appearance of this verb in verses 1 and 2 shows that praise does not end with a single surge of feeling but is a deliberate act of will by which one must rouse oneself again and again.

The Kinsman-Redeemer and the Crown—Two Customs in the Text

Verse 4 weaves two institutions of ancient Israelite society into its imagery. The first is "to redeem" (gaʾal). This word originally comes from the institution of the "kinsman-redeemer," referring to the custom by which a close relative would pay the price to buy back a family member sold into slavery for debt, or land that had been lost. The scene in Ruth where Boaz redeems the land of Ruth and Naomi is the classic example. The passage likens God to precisely this "near kinsman who pays the price to buy back," singing that he rescues our life from the pit of death. The second is "to crown" (ʿatar). This is the act of placing a crown on a king, creating the glorious image that God surrounds an ordinary person—rescued from sin and death—with steadfast love and mercy as with a royal crown. The passage thus paints, in the language of the social institutions of its day, the grace of God who lifts the sinner from slave to free citizen, and on to crowned royalty.

The Eagle's Molting

The closing simile of verse 5, "like the eagle," comes from the picture of a bird that molts its feathers and soars powerfully once more. In the ancient Near East the eagle was regarded as a symbol of the power to fly high and see far, and of long-lived vitality. The notion that an old eagle sheds its worn feathers, takes on new ones, and soars again was an image of recovery that the ancients observed in nature. The passage borrows this familiar picture to sing that when God fills with good things, even the strength of one who has reached old age can rise up renewed.

References

Wendland, E. R., "Poeticizing the Psalter in an African Language," *Open Theology* 2 (2016). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2016-0013

What does each verse of Psalm 103:1-5 mean?

> This section groups the passage into sense units and expounds the original-language and grammatical core of each unit along with its exegetical points.

103:1-2 — O My Soul, Bless: The Call to Praise and the Command to Remember

Text: בָּרֲכִ֣י נַ֭פְשִׁי אֶת־יְהוָ֑ה ... וְאַל־תִּ֝שְׁכְּחִ֗י כָּל־גְּמוּלָֽיו Literal: O my soul, bless the LORD ... and do not forget all his benefits.

Original Language and Grammar: - "barak" (barakiy, bless): a Piel imperative, the verb of "blessing and worship" grown from "to kneel." The decisive point is that the object of the command is the speaker's own soul. - "nephesh" (napshiy, my soul): not a spirit separate from the body but "the whole breathing self, the living me." - "kol qerabay" (kal qərabay, all that is within me): the plural of the word for "inward parts, core," paired with the soul to stress "even to the deepest place of one's being, leaving nothing out." - "ʾal tishkəḥiy" (ʾal tishkəḥiy, do not forget): a negative command from "to forget" (shakhach), defining praise as "an act of remembering."

Commentary: Before crying out to the congregation, David first commands himself. This sets the tone of the whole passage. Praise is not a feeling that wells up only when the heart spontaneously overflows; it is an act of raising a dull soul by the will. The placing of "O my soul" alongside "all that is within me" means a call to whole-person praise in which not the lips alone but the will, the emotions, and the memory are all engaged together. Verse 2 defines the content of that praise in a single phrase—"forget none of his benefits." That is, true praise comes not from a vague rush of feeling but from concretely counting and remembering the grace received. Forgetting is not a matter of mere memory but a crisis of faith. Israel's repeated stumbling in the wilderness, too, came from forgetting the grace they had received. One study that stresses the song-character of the Psalter notes that the Psalms were originally texts to be sung repeatedly and engraved on the heart;^[v1] the repeated "bless" of verses 1-2 is precisely this device of "remembering again and again."

Homiletical Implication: Even at dawn, an hour when body and mind are heavy, one can open the day with the self-command "O my soul, bless him"—praise begins with counting and remembering the grace received once more.

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103:3 — The One Who Forgives All Sin and Heals All Disease

Text: הַסֹּלֵ֣חַ לְכָל־עֲוֺנֵ֑כִי הָ֝רֹפֵ֗א לְכָל־תַּחֲלֻאָֽיְכִי Literal: The One who forgives all your iniquity, the One who heals all your diseases.

Original Language and Grammar: - "hasoleaḥ" (hasoleḥa, the One who forgives): the active participle of "to forgive" (salaḥ), a special verb that in Scripture takes only God as its subject. - "haropeʾ" (haropeʾ, the One who heals): the active participle of "to heal" (rapaʾ), encompassing both physical and spiritual restoration. - "kol" (kal, all): placed before each of the two benefits to stress that there is no exception to forgiveness and healing.

Commentary: From verse 3 the passage begins its procession of participles directed at God. The first two benefits are forgiveness and healing. That "to forgive" (salaḥ) is never used with a human subject but is ascribed to God alone testifies by the grammar itself that pardoning sin at its root is beyond human power and is God's own unique act. Strikingly, forgiveness is placed before healing. This shows the passage's theological order: only when the problem of sin is resolved does true restoration become possible. To heal "disease" (taḥaluʾim) means not only bodily illness but the wide-ranging restoration of the soul and the whole life that sin has ruined. Some studies point out that behind the word for forgiveness lies a legal custom of canceling debt;^[v2] this illumines how God's forgiveness is not a mere looking-the-other-way but a decisive act of settling on our behalf a debt we could never repay.