Psalm 115

Speaks with:Jeremiah 10×3 Psalms 79×2 Psalms 42×2 Psalms 135×2 Isaiah 46×2 Genesis 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

'Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy lovingkindness, and for thy truth's sake.' Wherefore should the nations say, Where is now their God? 'Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he pleased.' Their idols have mouths that speak not, eyes that see not: 'they that make them shall be like unto them.' O Israel, trust thou in Jehovah: he is their help and their shield. Jehovah hath been mindful of us; he will bless. 'The heavens are the heavens of Jehovah; but the earth hath he given to the children of men… we will bless Jehovah from this time forth and for evermore.'

Context

Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview

The world behind this chapter

Psalms 115

When

Israel's festival worship — the Hallel resumed after the meal · Author unnamed; sung after the Passover meal, in the second temple period and likely earlier

Where

A congregation surrounded by nations whose gods stood in every town

Who first heard it

Israelites being asked by their neighbors where their God was, since nobody could see him

The history

The taunt in the first lines was a real one. Israel alone among its neighbors had a sanctuary with no statue in it, and to a Babylonian or an Egyptian that looked like having no god at all. The psalm answers by describing the competition in detail.

The description of idols is accurate manufacturing. A cult image was usually a carved wooden core overlaid with hammered sheets of silver or gold, with inlaid eyes and a shaped mouth. In Mesopotamia a newly made statue went through a ceremony to open and wash its mouth so that the god could enter it and eat the offerings. The psalm's mockery — a mouth that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see — is aimed straight at that ritual.

The congregation is addressed in three ranks: the house of Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the LORD. The first is the nation, the second the priests, and the third a recognized group of outsiders who worshiped Israel's God without being born Israelites.

The line that the dead do not praise God reflects how the Old Testament usually speaks of the grave: a silent place where the worship in the temple courts stops. The psalm's answer is not a theory about the afterlife but urgency about now — we will bless the LORD from this time forth.

What it meant to them

Sung after the Passover meal, this was a family standing up from the table and refusing to be embarrassed about an unseen God.

Its warning has a sharp edge: those who make idols become like them. Worship shapes the worshiper, and a person who serves something deaf and blind ends up deaf and blind himself.

Sources cited

Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The Mishnah, tractate Pesahim (Danby translation)

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Psalms 115. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

Study this chapter

Jeremiah 103 verses
- Jeremiah 10:3For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
- Jeremiah 10:5Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, and neither can they do any good.”
- Jeremiah 10:8But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!
- Read Jeremiah 10 →
Psalms 792 verses
- Psalms 79:9Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; deliver us and atone for our sins, for the sake of Your name.
- Psalms 79:10Why should the nations ask, “Where is their God?” Before our eyes, make known among the nations Your vengeance for the bloodshed of Your servants.
- Read Psalms 79 →
Psalms 422 verses
- Psalms 42:3My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Psalms 42:10Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Read Psalms 42 →
Psalms 1352 verses
- Psalms 135:6The LORD does all that pleases Him in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and in all their depths.
- Psalms 135:18Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
- Read Psalms 135 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Isaiah 462 verses
- Isaiah 46:6They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship.
- Isaiah 46:10I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’
- Read Isaiah 46 →
Genesis 12 verses
- Genesis 1:1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
- Genesis 1:28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
- Read Genesis 1 →
Isaiah 481 verse
- Isaiah 48:11For My own sake, My very own sake, I will act; for how can I let Myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another.
- Read Isaiah 48 →
Psalms 961 verse
- Psalms 96:8Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering and enter His courts.
- Read Psalms 96 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.

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