Psalms 103:1

The opening self-exhortation 'Bless the Lord, O my soul' employs the unusual rhetorical device of the soul addressing itself, indicating that praise is not an automatic response but a deliberate, willed act of remembrance against the tendency to forget. The intensification 'all that is within me' (v'kol qeravai) insists on the total engagement of the inner self — not compartmentalized religious feeling but an integrated anthropological offering. Psalm 103 proceeds to ground this universal summons to praise in a catalog of divine attributes — forgiveness, healing, redemption, steadfast love — making the imperative arise from theological memory rather than generic piety. The Psalm concludes (v. 22) with the same formula, framing the entire meditation in an inclusio of willed praise, a structure imitated in New Testament doxologies and Christian hymn-writing traditions.