Psalms 135:15
in Psalms 135The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
The idols of the nations are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands.
KJV
The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
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This verse in Psalms 135
Commentary
9 notes on this verse"I am the Lord your God. You shall not make for yourselves idols fashioned by the hand, neither set up a graven image. Nor shall you set up a remarkable stone in your land [to worship it]: I am the Lord your God." These words indeed were first spoken by the Lord by the lips of Moses, being applicable certainly to whomsoever the Lord God of Israel may lead forth in like manner from the Egypt of a most superstitious world and from the place of human slavery.
This site's exposition
The idols of the nations
on Psalms 135:15-18
Spurgeon called the idols dead metal, silver and gold shaped by the hands that worship them. This list stops at the ears and adds that there is no breath, where Psalm 115:6 and 7 go to noses, hands, feet and throats. Breath here is ruach, the wind of verse 7.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
Lastly, after all that arrangement and dispensation, the Spirit of God turns itself to reproaching and ridiculing those idols, which are now ridiculed by their very worshippers. "The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold" [Psalm 135:15]. As God made all these things, who made whatever He would in heaven and earth, what can anything that man makes be, but an object of ridicule, not adoration? Was He perchance about to speak of "the idols of the Gentiles," that we might despise them all? Was He about to speak of the idols of the heathen, stones and wood, plaster and pottery? I say not these, they are mean materials. I speak of that which they specially love, that which they specially honour. "The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the work of men's hands." Surely it is gold, surely it is silver: because silver glitters, and gold glitters, have they therefore eyes, or do they see?
Therefore, who would not blush, if they had any humanity, to close the day without a number of psalms, when the birds themselves prance about in the sweetness of a psalter as their way of giving thanks? Who would not blush to fail to make …
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
The idols of the Heathen are silver and gold,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Their essential material is dead metal, their attributes are but the qualities of senseless substances, and what of form and fashion they exhibit they derive from the skill and labour of those who worship them. It is the height of insanity to worship metallic manufactures. Though silver and gold are useful to us when we rightly employ them, there is nothing about them which can entitle them to reverence and worship.
The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Their essential material is dead metal, their attributes are but the qualities of senseless substances, and what of form and fashion they exhibit they derive from the skill and labour of those who worship them. It is the height of insanity to worship metallic manufactures. Though silver and gold are useful to us when we rightly employ them, there is nothing about them which can entitle them to reverence and worship. If we did not know the sorrowful fact to be indisputable, it would seem to be impossible that intelligent beings could bow down before substances which they must themselves refine from the ore, and fashion into form. One would think it less absurd to worship one's own hands than to adore that which those hands have made. What great works can these mock deities perform for man when they are themselves the works of man? Idols are fitter to be played with, like dolls by babes, than to be adored by grown up men. Hands are better used in breaking than in making objects which can be put to such an idiotic use. Yet the heathen love their abominable deities better than silver and gold: it were well if we could say that some professed believers in the Lord had as much love for him.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
The idols of the heathen - This verse and the following, to the end of the 18th, are almost word for word the same as Psa 115:4-8 (note), where see the notes.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
The idols of the heathen are silver and gold ... - To show more fully the propriety of praising God, and him alone as God, the psalmist instituted a comparison between him and idols, showing that the gods worshipped by the pagan lacked every ground of claim to divine worship and homage. They were, after all that could be done to fashion, to decorate, and to adorn them, nothing but silver and gold, and could have no better claim to worship than silver and gold as such. They had, indeed, mouths, eyes, ears, but they could neither speak, see, hear, nor breathe. The passage here is substantially the same as in Psa 115:4-8; and the one was evidently copied from the other, though in the latter the description is in some respects amplified; but which was the original it is impossible to determine. See the notes at that passage.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
For the Lord will judge His people He will judge their judgment from their enemies.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 6 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| עֲצַבֵּ֣י | ʾatzabei | [the] idols of | H6091 → | 17 times |
| הַ֭גּוֹיִם | hagoyim | the nations | H1471 → | 561 times |
| כֶּ֣סֶף | kesef | [are] silver | H3701 → | 403 times |
| וְזָהָ֑ב | vezahav | and gold | H2091 → | 389 times |
| מַ֝עֲשֵׂ֗ה | maaseh | [the] work of | H4639 → | 236 times |
| יְדֵ֣י | yedei | [the] hands of | H3027 → | 1618 times |
| אָדָֽם׃ | ʾadam | humankind | H120 → | 551 times |
עֲצַבֵּ֣י[the] idols of
ʾatzabeiH6091 →17 times
הַ֭גּוֹיִםthe nations
hagoyimH1471 →561 times
כֶּ֣סֶף[are] silver
kesefH3701 →403 times
וְזָהָ֑בand gold
vezahavH2091 →389 times
מַ֝עֲשֵׂ֗ה[the] work of
maasehH4639 →236 times
יְדֵ֣י[the] hands of
yedeiH3027 →1618 times
אָדָֽם׃humankind
ʾadamH120 →551 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Acts 17:29Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.
it leads to
- Psalms 115:4–8
Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Isaiah 40:25
“To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.
- Exodus 20:4
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.
- Isaiah 46:5–6
To whom will you liken Me or count Me equal? To whom will you compare Me, that we should be alike?
- Habakkuk 2:19–20
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”
- Psalms 115:4–8
Through
Isaiah 37:19They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 10:11
Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.”
- 2 Samuel 5:21
There the Philistines abandoned their idols, and David and his men carried them away.
- Isaiah 26:14
The dead will not live; the departed spirits will not rise. Therefore You have punished and destroyed them; You have wiped out all memory of them.
- Jeremiah 10:11
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Psalms
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 135; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 7; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Maximus of Turin, SERMON 73:5 and Tertullian, SCORPIACE 2.