Today’s Passage: Psalm 115
This psalm opens with a plea that turns the eyes away from us and onto God: not to us, O LORD, but to Your name be the glory. The nations around Israel are taunting them, asking where their God is, as though He could not be found. The answer comes back plainly. Our God is in heaven, and He does whatever He pleases. Then the psalm turns to look at the idols those nations trust, gods of silver and gold with mouths that cannot speak and eyes that cannot see, and it warns that those who make them grow to be just like them. Against all of that stands the living God, the help and shield of everyone who trusts Him.
As you read, hold this: Our God is in heaven. He does as He pleases.
Context Still the Hallel
These are still the songs of the Passover, the great Hallel that Israel sang at the feast, and some of the old copies joined this psalm to the one just before it. That earlier psalm had told of an earth that trembled and a sea that fled at the coming of the LORD, and this one takes up the same breath. Where is their God, the nations ask? He is in heaven, and the glory belongs to His name and not to ours.
Psalm 115:1-3 (BSB)
¹ Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your name be the glory, because of Your loving devotion, because of Your faithfulness. ² Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” ³ Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.
Twice the psalm says it, not to us, not to us, as though it wanted to be sure we heard. When the nations sneer and ask where our God has gone, the reply is quiet and certain. Our God is in heaven, and He does as He pleases. He is not missing. He is simply not at our command.
Psalm 115:4-8 (BSB)
⁴ Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. ⁵ They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see; ⁶ they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell; ⁷ they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats. ⁸ Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
Their gods are only silver and gold, shaped by human hands. They have mouths, but no word ever comes out of them; they have eyes, but they have never once seen a thing. The psalm goes down the whole body, mouth and eyes and ears and nose and hands and feet, and it grants these images no second life at all. And then it turns solemn: those who make them become like them, as empty and as deaf as the things they have bowed down to.
Word study "Made by the hands of men" (Psalm 115:4)
Hebrew: עֲצַבֵּיהֶם (atsab), pronounced ah-TSAV. Strong’s H6091. The word means shaped things, things fashioned by hand.
The root of it is labor. Human hands worked and sweated over these gods, and then the work is asked to speak, and it cannot. There is no new voice here, nothing that could ever stand equal to His.
Study notes The same warning twice
The collection of the psalms says this same line once more, later on.
"Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them." Psalm 135:18 (BSB)
It was worth repeating then, and it is worth repeating now, for what you trust is what you slowly become. Our God is in heaven, and He does as He pleases.
Psalm 115:9-13 (BSB)
⁹ O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield. ¹⁰ O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield. ¹¹ You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield. ¹² The LORD is mindful of us; He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron; ¹³ He will bless those who fear the LORD—small and great alike.
Three times over the call goes out to trust in the LORD, who is help and shield: first to Israel, then to the house of Aaron the priests, then to everyone who fears Him. He is mindful of us and He will bless us, and the blessing leaves no one out, small and great alike.
Psalm 115:14-18 (BSB)
¹⁴ May the LORD give you increase, both you and your children. ¹⁵ May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. ¹⁶ The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth He has given to mankind. ¹⁷ It is not the dead who praise the LORD, nor any who descend into silence. ¹⁸ But it is we who will bless the LORD, both now and forevermore. Hallelujah!
The blessing comes from the Maker of heaven and earth Himself, who keeps the highest heavens and has given the earth to us to live on. The dead do not praise Him, the psalm says, and neither do those who have gone down into silence; that work of praise belongs to the living. So it falls to us, now and forevermore. Our God is in heaven, and He does as He pleases.