Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Bless the Lord, O my soul - The repetition here denotes the intensity or earnestness of the wish or desire of the psalmist. It is an emphatic calling upon his soul, that is, himself, never to forget the many favors which God was continually conferring upon him.
And forget not all his benefits - Any of his favors. This refers not to those favors in the aggregate, but it is a call to remember them in particular. The word rendered "benefits" - ge mûl - means properly an act, work, doing, whether good or evil, Psalms 137:8; and then, "desert," or what a man deserves "for" his act; "recompence." It is rendered "deserving" in Judges 9:16; benefit, as here, in II Chronicles 32:25; "desert," Psalms 28:4; "reward," Psalms 94:2; Isaiah 3:11; Obadiah 1:15; "recompence," Proverbs 12:14; Isaiah 35:4; Isaiah 59:18; Isaiah 66:6; Jeremiah 51:6; Lamentations 3:64; Joel 3:4, Joel 3:7. The proper reference here is to the divine "dealings," - to what God had done - as a reason for blessing his name. His "dealings" with the psalmist had been such as to call for praise and gratitude. What those "dealings" particularly were he specifies in the following verses. The call here on his soul is not to forget these divine dealings, as laying the foundation for praise. We shall find, when we reach the end of life, that all which God has done, however dark and mysterious it may have appeared at the time, was so connected with our good as to make it a proper subject of praise and thanksgiving.
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