19. Bless the Lord, O my Soul!

A Meditation of Psalm 103

One of the most beautiful psalms, psalm 103 is the psalm of choice at special thanksgiving occasions. God blesses us, so we need to bless God: this is the summary of the psalm.

The word bless is used with several different meanings. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bless

…To make holy by religious rite; sanctify
…To make the sign of the cross over so as to sanctify
…To invoke divine favor upon
…To honor as holy; glorify: Bless the Lord
…To confer well-being or prosperity on
…To endow, as with talent

When we say, God blesses us, we mean the fifth one – God gives us prosperity or well-being. When we say we bless God, we mean, the fourth one – we honor or glorify God.

Bless in its fifth meaning may be considered the opposite of “curse”. To bless someone means to wish for his/her well-being. To curse someone means to wish for his/her misfortune.

It is possible to bless God or curse God. Job’s wife advised her husband to curse God and die (Job 2:9) in the midst of excruciating afflictions. Her reasoning was this: God has cursed us, so let us also curse God in return. But Job refused to accept her reasoning. He said:

Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked I shall return there
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD (Job1:21)

Instead of cursing God, he blessed God. He believed that whatever he had really belonged to God. God took only what belonged to God, not what belonged to Job. Here curse means accuse for wrongdoing, and bless means vindicate or justify. Job’s wife believed that God was wrong, so she blamed God, and cursed God. Job believed that God was right, so he justified God, and blessed God.  It is not uncommon for us in our day to day life to be like Job’s wife, and curse God.

In psalm 103, the psalmist lists a number of reasons to justify God, and tries his best to clear any misunderstanding we may have about God. It takes very strong faith to justify God, and to bless God in the midst of afflictions. Only God knows what He does, and why He does so. “Where was God when the Tsunami hit?” people ask. We ask such questions from our expectations of God as Job’s wife had. Who are we to tell God what to do and what not to?

The psalmist affirms that God is like a father to us. God is kind to us, and He forgives all our iniquities. At times He gets angry, but he does not stay like that long. There is a reason for God to treat us this way. God knows us in and out. God knows that we are just like dust or like flowers. We are not God’s match for God to hate us or treat us as enemies.

At the beginning of the psalm (vs. 1-5) the psalmist tells himself to bless the Lord. Then (vs.6-18), he tells all the people in the world to bless the Lord. Finally (vs. 19-22), he tells all the angels and everything else that exist everywhere else to bless the Lord.   

Back to Contents