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This psalm is a type of intelligent thanksgiving — an expression of sanctified emotion based upon sanctified thought. We see at once how this true emotion is distinguished from mere formal thanksgiving by the words, "all that is within me" — words which appeal to the very deepest feelings of the heart. But we also notice how, as so often in Scripture, a caution is associated with the highest devotional feeling at the point where one in the ardour of holy rapture forgets for the moment that he is a sinful man in a sinful world: "Bless the Lord, O my soul! yet, my soul, thou art weak and fallible, and prone to forget these very mercies which are calling forth thy praise. Forget not all His benefits." It is with blessings much as with troubles: few people, comparatively, have great catastrophes in their life, and few have great, colossal joys. There is only the daily succession of little, commonplace pleasures, and we foolishly get into the way of attaching little importance to anything which is not of the nature of a crisis. Go back over your life and pick up the happy times — the day your little child began to walk; the day your boy graduated with honour; the many evenings you have come home tired and have found rest, and light, and warmth, and pleasant words at home; how many happy hours over a book or in conversation with a friend. These, after all, are the benefits which make up the staple of our life. They seem to be little blessings, perhaps because they are so common, yet if we number all God's benefits we shall find the sum of them very great. The psalmist specifies certain causes for thanksgiving; and the first of these is very significant — the forgiveness of his sins. And rightly, because this is essentially the first fact in all thanksgiving, and is therefore the key not only to this psalm, but to the whole great lesson of Christian thankfulness. Having thus laid this spiritual foundation for a true thanksgiving, the psalmist now passes to mention temporal mercies, yet, possibly, all along with an undertone of spiritual meaning. God healeth all diseases, redeemeth the life from death, ministers to the healthful appetite with good things, makes His child strong and vigorous as the eagle. The association of these benefits directly with God imparts to them a spiritual suggestiveness such as they may well have in this psalm. They are not only pleasant facts, but types of spiritual good. He healeth all thy diseases, but the most deadly disease of all is sin. Thy mouth is satisfied with the kindly fruits of the earth, yet man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Thy youth and vigour are renewed like the eagle's, but thou knowest too what it is to be strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man. And now, through all these things — forgiveness, redeeming, renewing — God is working toward an ulterior purpose. "He crowneth thee." God's work is not finished in the forgiveness of sins. If a prince were to take a beggar out of the street in order to make him the heir to his throne, would his work be done when he had washed and decently clothed him? No. He must be trained for his position. All that kingly power and fatherly love can command must combine to fit him to be a king. The redeemed sing to Him who not only washed them from their sins, but also made them kings and priests. And as we reach the close of the psalm we find its keynote struck again. It is a psalm of thanksgiving, but it tells us that true thanksgiving can be only within the sphere of God's accepted sovereignty, from the standpoint of voluntary allegiance to Him. The foundation of all thanksgiving is that God reigns — the foundation of our individual thanksgiving is that God is our King.

(M. R. Vincent, D.D.)

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KJV: {A Psalm of David.} Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

WEB: Praise Yahweh, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name!