Psalm 146 Part 2

Princes among men often fail, circumstances may seem to be contradicting His promises, but God never disappoints the one who hopes in Him. Our hope is beyond our mortal surroundings.

After 4 verses, the psalmist has abruptly transitioned from negative to positive. His negative teaching, if it stood alone, would be a gospel of despair, the reduction of life to a torturing cheat, but taken as the prelude to the revelation of One whom it is safe to trust, there is nothing sad in it. 
With joy beyond comparison, our ‘hope is in the LORD. ’We never praise God better than by exercising faith in him! Quiet trust is among the sweetest music that reaches the heart of God; and when we put our trust in man, we rob God of his glory; we are giving to others the confidence which belongs alone to him.

In the verses that follow v5, the psalmist does not introduce anything new in this description of the Lord’s mighty acts…but the manner in which he brings the various ways of divine sustenance together is creative, including the conclusion. God can also be trusted because He is a moral, upright God. Yahweh is unchangingly true. He champions ‘justice for the oppressed.’ The God of such creating power would be a tyrant without His abundant passion for ‘truth and justice’. And this is ‘forever’ as opposed to that mortality and mutability of earthly princes. Yahweh is true to His own character, true to the relationships He has established, true to His covenant, true to His word. He is the keeper of all that is true. Our eternal salvation depends on God being true to His promise, that salvation is a free gift to all who take Jesus as their surety of eternal security.

The apparent anomaly of feeding the hungry (v7) is that this world produces enough food for everyone. It is human selfishness, commerce, and greed that keeps the poor hungry. It is us! The western world withholds what God has provided. The triple blessing of this psalm: justice, bread, and liberty, is denied because the evil of sin stands in its way.