Original Meaning
Petition to the God of Heaven (115:1–3)
THE OPENING STROPHE OF PSALM 115 presents the theological crisis that confronted the people of God (v. 2). In response, the psalmist offers a short confession in verse 3. This confession functions like a thesis statement by presenting the community’s primary response to the crisis articulated in verse 2. The remainder of the psalm explores the meaning and implications of their confession.2
Not to us, LORD, not to us. No other psalm opens with a similar phrase. The uniqueness of the opening line indicates that the emphasis is thrown fully upon Yahweh, but in a manner distinct from other psalms. The crisis concerns the glory of God’s name, or his reputation, and leads the congregation to pray that Yahweh will restore glory and honor (kabod) to his name.
The language used in the opening verse recalls the book of Ezekiel. There the prophet reminds the people that, because of their sinfulness and the exile which followed, God’s name has been “profaned in the eyes of the nations” (Ezek 20:9). According to Ezekiel, Yahweh must act for his name’s sake (Ezek 20:9; 36:22). The current plight of Israel—the apparent “Godforsakeness” suggested by the mocking cry of the nations in Psalm 115:2—suggests that God’s glory has faltered. The psalmist calls for God to act—not so that Israel might be justified or increase her stature in the land but so that the name of God might receive the glory due it. Despite all appearances, the psalmist knows that God’s name deserves glory because Yahweh had kept hesed (“steadfast love”) with his people and remained faithful. Current circumstances do not dissuade the psalmist from acknowledging who God is and what he has been to the people of God.
Where is their God? Throughout its pages the Old Testament calls the people to be firmly aniconic—to refrain from having images of deities. In this way, Israel does not resemble her ancient Near Eastern neighbors and their proclivity toward idols and idol worship. According to verse 2b, the foreign nations (goyim) mock Israel by asking, “Where is their God?” The question drips with irony. Since Israel is aniconic, there is no chance that God can be seen or visualized through an idol. By asking “where,” the nations mock the very form of Israel’s concept of God, or, more properly, its formlessness—there is no idol or god to be seen, so perhaps there is no god at all. The attention to idols in verses 4–8 extends the discourse on them.3
While they may function as the meaning at one level, the question cuts much deeper.
With the exile and the apparent Godforsakenness signified by that event, the question concerning the presumed absence of God becomes much more acute. Questions concerning the presumed absence of God can be found in other poetic texts (Pss 42:3; 79:10; Joel 2:17; Mic 7:10). These kinds of taunting questions are often found within the context of war and conflict, with one nation challenging the efficacy of the other nation’s god. For example, in Isaiah 36:13–20 the Rabshekeh, an Assyrian high official, calls out to those in the walled-up city of Jerusalem, “Who of all the gods of these countries have been able to save their lands from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” The assumption is that the other nations have fallen because their gods were no match for the gods of Assyria.
Following the exile, the period of restoration provided little visible evidence to counter the claims of the nations. Although the Jewish community had been returned to Yehud by the Persian king Cyrus, little else signaled a return to a thriving community under the blessing of God. The mocking question once posed by the nations may in fact have become a lingering question in the minds of those living under Persian imperial rule.4
He does whatever pleases him. The community provides two responses to the question posed by the nations. In response to the question of where God is (given that Israel has no idols), the community confesses that their God is in heaven. (On the significance of God as the God of heaven, see the comments on Psalm 113, “Original Meaning.”)
The community also responds to the taunting claim that Israel’s God has no power by contending that their God “does whatever pleases him.” Variations of this claim appear in Psalm 135:6, Isaiah 46:10, Jonah 1:14, and in reference to a human king in Ecclesiastes 8:3. At first blush this claim appears to refer to God’s omnipotence—God’s power to do whatever he wants to do. Upon closer investigation, however, the meaning is more nuanced and, frankly, more theologically profound.
The Hebrew text reads kol’asher-hapets‘asah, literally, “everything which he desires, he does.” Avi Hurvitz understood the meaning of this phrase in the light of an Aramaic legal formula, which held that the owner or heir of a specific item (e.g., slave, land) could do with that item whatever he chose to do.5
For Hurvitz, the phrase in Psalm 115 signaled God’s unlimited power. Klaus Seybold differed from Hurvitz in suggesting that the phrase highlights the freedom of God to act as he pleases. This freedom would also include God’s right not to act, thus perhaps explaining the perceived absence of God.6
More recently, Judith Krawelitzski has provided another reading of the phrase.7
She notes that the verb hapats, “to desire,” appears fifty times in the Old Testament with God as the subject. Krawelitzski notes that, within those fifty usages, some texts mention objects or values in which God takes delight (i.e., right sacrifices). Other texts mention that there are certain people in which God does or does not take delight, and still others refer to certain actions (i.e., “justice”) in which God takes delight. Beyond these three categories, she notes a number of texts that refer more broadly to what God desires, and these texts are found generally in Isaiah 40–55 and the psalms. According to Krawelitzski, the phrase in Psalm 115:3b falls in latter category, and she argues that the meaning is not so much about the attributes of God (i.e., almighty, omnipotence), or even an abstract notion of power; rather, as she explains,
Even though the first part of the sentence explicitly states that God can do everything (kol), the relative clause, “that he pleases,” immediately provides a firm reference point qualifying the meaning of “everything”—not as a limitation on God’s power, but rather as a specification of how God chooses to act . . . kol, “everything,” has to be understood as God’s acting in favor of his people. . . . They are the beneficiaries and recipients of God’s redeeming power.8
With this foundational idea present, verses 9–11 call upon the people to “trust in the LORD,” and verse 14 reminds the community that God will cause them to flourish. God can do whatever he pleases to redeem his people. The question posed by the nations, “Where is their God?” is answered in their confession that they serve a God who acts mightily to redeem his people. The two preceding psalms in the Egyptian Hallel testify to the same confession.
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
Original Meaning
The Impotence of Other Gods (115:4–8)
IN THE SECOND STROPHE THE PSALMIST invites a comparison between “our God” (v. 3) and “their idols” (v. 4). The Septuagint (LXX) further defines the “idols” by adding tōn ethnōn, “of the nations.” Thus the comparison is with more than just idols; the idols function as representatives of the gods of other nations. The juxtaposition of the living God, who acts in behalf of his people, with the other nations’ impotent idols/gods, which are incapable of action, reinforces Israel’s monotheistic claim. Israel’s God is not better than the gods of the other nations; Israel’s God is the only God. Hossfeld and Zenger suggest that these kinds of invectives against idols are about the “de-divinization” of the gods of the nations.9
Their gods are not gods. In this strophe the psalmist makes three claims about the impotence of the foreign idols/gods.
Made by human hands. Despite the attention given to the construction of idols and the inclusion of idols in ancient Near Eastern religions, the psalmist reduces idols to their most basic terms. The idol is constructed of silver and gold, metals used by other ancient Near Eastern religions to represent the heavenly realm.10
In the prohibition against Israel’s making of idols, however, silver and gold are mentioned as explicitly forbidden (cf. Exod 20:23; 32:2–3; Isa 2:7). Israel’s confession is clear: Earthly matter, even precious metals, cannot capture the image of the God of heaven.
The mockery of the idols intensifies in the second half of Psalm 115:4. The verb ‘asah (“to make” or “to do”), which appeared in the first strophe, reappears in verse 4b, thus highlighting the difference between Israel’s God and the gods of the nations. In verse 3b the psalmist affirmed that God can “do” or “make” whatever he pleases, but in verse 4b the poet explains that these images were “made [‘asah] by human hands.” Thus the psalmist implicitly poses the question, “What kind of power can an idol/god made by human hands and comprised of earthly material actually have?”
They have mouths, but cannot speak. The idols mentioned in verse 4 are described in verses 5–7 with anthropomorphic characteristics. In rapid-fire succession, the psalmist lists seven faculties of the idols/gods. Use of these faculties would suggest that such gods should be fully interactive in the world, even as humans are, yet after listing each faculty the psalmist replies welo’, “but not.” For example, verse 5 reads literally, “they have mouths, but not can they speak.” The activity of the god is listed first and then immediately negated by the psalmist.
The final reference, in verse 7c, mentions the idol’s inability to speak. In constructing idols in Mesopotamia, the final step in the process included a two-day ritual called the mis pi, or “mouth washing” ritual. In this ceremony the idol was purified of all associations with the human world with a final, symbolic “opening of the mouth.” With the idol purified and its mouth open, the image was ready to speak, eat, hear, see, and smell.11
But as the psalmist notes, idols can do none of these things because they are lifeless creations made by human hands. While the foreign nations can see their idols/gods, the idols fail to act in any way. The nations’ experience with respect to their gods contrasts with Israel’s; while Israel cannot see their God, they confess that he sits enthroned in the heavens with the power to act decisively in behalf of his people.
Those who make them will be like them. The final statement in this strophe functions as a malediction with its roots in older curses or judgments.12
The Septuagint shifts the verbal form (jussive) so that it expresses a strong desire and functions as a wishful prayer: “May those who make them become like them.” The NIV, however, reflects the reading of the Hebrew text and should be retained. The psalmist is making a declarative statement: those who make idols are indeed like them.
The root ‘sh (“to do,” “to make”) appears for the third time in this psalm. In verse 3b God does (‘asah) whatever he desires; in verse 4b idols are the works (me‘aseh) of human hands; and in verse 8 the term appears in reference to those who make them (‘osehem). The repetition of the term creates an implied comparison between the work of God and the works of human hands. The first use suggests divine power, the second, the lack thereof. All those who trust (batah) in such lifeless images will become like them. The use of batah (“trust”) serves as a linking word to the third strophe.
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
Original Meaning
Call to Trust in Israel’s God (115:9–11)
THE THIRD STROPHE APPEARS as a litany with a threefold call for each group to trust in the Lord and to acknowledge that he is their help and shield. The use of “trust” (batah) in these verses connects this strophe to the previous strophe (v. 8b). Those who trust in lifeless idols have no hope, but those who trust in Yahweh have a deliverer and a protector.13
The first and second groups represent the people and the priesthood, respectively, but opinions concerning the identity of the third group (“those who fear God”) differ. Hossfeld and Zenger have proposed that the label “those who fear God,” or the “God fearers,” likely represents proselytes, or converts from foreign nations.14
Though intriguing, this suggestion must be rejected for several reasons. While other texts in the Hebrew Bible assume that foreigners can join themselves to Israel (e.g., Isa 56), they are never referred to as “God fearers.” Second, the term “God fearers” does in fact appear in subsequent Second Temple literature, but always in reference to the piety of a Jewish individual, not a foreign convert.15
Were “God fearers” a recognizable term for proselytes in the early Second Temple period, some mention of this group in the subsequent literature would be expected. The use of the term elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, however, refers to those who trust in Yahweh (Pss 40:3; 115:11; 2 Chr 19:9) or are obedient to the commands of Yahweh (Deut 10:12; 13:4; 31:12; Pss 112:1; 119:73–74), thus suggesting that the use of the term in Psalm 115 likely refers to devout and pious Israelites (similarly to its use in later Second Temple literature), not to converts from among the nations.
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
Original Meaning
Communal Assurance of Blessing (115:12–13)
THE THREEFOLD CALL TO TRUST in the Lord in verses 9–11 is met with a communal response, “The LORD remembers us.” As the opening strophe suggests, those praying this psalm find themselves in a situation in which the honor of God’s name needs to be restored. The circumstances are such that the nations are questioning the presence of Israel’s God. Some might interpret the opening line in this strophe as a reminder that God has not forgotten his people. While that reminder is certainly present, the act of divine remembering in the Old Testament invokes a much more powerful image. The act of remembering is always accompanied by an act of deliverance. For example, in Genesis 8 God remembered Noah and sent a wind to dry up the waters. In Genesis 30 God remembered Rachel and opened her womb. God tells Moses in Exodus 6 that he has remembered his covenant with his people and will bring them out of Egypt. The assertion that God has remembered his people signals that deliverance is on the way.
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
Original Meaning
The Power of Israel’s God (115:14–15)
AGAIN, THE SPEAKER CHANGES in this strophe. In Psalm 115:9–11 the speaker (priest) calls the people to trust in the Lord. In next strophe (vv. 12–13) the people reply with a communal confession affirming that God has remembered them and will bring blessings upon them. In verses 14–15 the speaker (priest) replies to the communal confession by issuing a prayer for the people.
This speaker requests that the Lord “add to you” or “increase you.” The NIV’s translation of verse 14a as “May the LORD cause you to flourish” quite possibly carries additional connotations that may not actually be intended in the present context. During the Persian period the population of Yehud was small, and survival remained a challenge. The exilic and postexilic prophets recognized this threat and promised that God would increase his people (cf. Isa 54:1; Zech 10:10). The prayer here is not for abundance or “prosperity,” as is often construed in our own culture; rather, the prayer focuses on a much simpler request, namely, that God would increase his people and that the present generation and those to follow would be the beneficiaries.
In Psalm 115:15 the speaker refers to Yahweh as the “Maker of heaven and earth,” the one who will issue forth blessings. The language of blessing and creation recalls the Priestly writer’s theology in Genesis 1 and, in particular, the claim that God stands sovereign over all creation. As the outline above suggests, verses 14–15 are a response to the statements made in verses 4–8. There the psalmist reports that the idols are works (meʿaseh) of human hands (cf. v. 8a, “make” [ʿoseh]), so they are impotent to act. They have no power to speak, see, hear, or smell, much less act in behalf of those who created them. Verse 15, however, claims that Israel’s God is the one who has made (ʿoseh) the heavens and earth. While this God does not look like the idols of foreign nations, he does not act like them either. The prayer of blessing (vv. 14a–15a) is guaranteed by the power of this God, the one labeled “maker of heaven and earth.”
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
Original Meaning
Vow of Praise to the God of Heaven (115:16–18)
HAVING ACKNOWLEDGED THE FUTILITY of the foreign gods and the power of Israel’s God, in the final strophe the community makes a vow to praise God. The twofold confession returns to the theme of God as the creator to whom belongs all creation while also introducing a new theme, that of the vocation of praise.
Highest heavens belong to the LORD. The previous strophe concluded with the affirmation that Yahweh is the maker of heaven and earth. The language of heaven and earth in verses 15b and 16 refers back to the claim made in verse 3 that Yahweh is in heaven and “does whatever pleases him.” While all three verses highlight the cosmic rule of Israel’s God over creation, they also signal his power to act in that creation.
The psalmist notes that, while the highest heavens belong to the Lord, he has given the earth to humanity. While subtle, the language of verse 16 alludes to Genesis 1. In both Psalm 115 and Genesis 1 God is said to have given (nathan) the earth to humans (Gen 1:28–29; Ps 115:16b). Although God rules on high and the “highest heavens” belong to him, he has entrusted the earth to humans so that they might carry out their vocation as his “vicegerents.” While Genesis 1 stresses humanity’s responsibility to exercise dominion over the earth, Psalm 115 suggests humanity’s role includes the responsibility to praise. The community acknowledges that their vocation includes unfettered praise of the maker of heaven and earth. The earth is the place where humans are meant to live out that vocation of praise and, in so doing, enjoy the blessings of God.
It is not the dead who praise the LORD. Verse 17 stands in antithesis to verse 16. Those who are dead cannot praise the Lord. In referring to the dismal plight of the dead and their inability to praise God, the community seeks to create another comparison: to be alive is to praise God, to be dead is to be silent. Compared to the silence of the dead in verse 17, the community confesses in verse 18 that they will praise the Lord both now and forevermore. As Hossfeld and Zenger suggest, “praise simply becomes the most elementary characteristic of one who is alive.”16
To reinforce this point, the Septuagint adds a participial phrase to modify “we” in verse 18. The text reads, “but we who are alive will bless the Lord.” In this final strophe the writer of the Septuagint wanted to ensure that the reader understood the inherent comparison being made between the vocation of the living and the silence of the dead. So long as there is life, the community should “Praise the LORD” (v. 18c).
Bridging Contexts
ALTHOUGH THE DECALOGUE linked the prohibition of idols with the prohibition concerning the worship of foreign gods (Exod 20:2–4), later texts collapsed the two ideas in some ways to suggest that the gods of foreign nations were in fact nothing more than mere idols and constructions of human hands. By making this move, the biblical writers stripped both foreign gods and idols of any perceived power. As most scholars contend, participants in ancient Near Eastern religions would not have claimed that an idol “housed” its god anymore than an Israelite would have said that the temple “housed” Yahweh. Yet the point of Israel’s rhetoric was not to provide an objective report on religious practices in the ancient Near East; it was to make a theological confession concerning the nature of their own God. Richard Clifford correctly observes that the “relationship between the nations and their idols acts as a foil between Yahweh and Israel.”17
The power and efficacy of the God of the heavens is compared to the power and efficacy of handmade objects, and the latter are found wanting.
The events of the exile could have prompted Israel to rethink their confession. The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the sacking of the temple could have prompted Israel to reconsider the power of their God in the face of the Babylonians’ gods. Yet rather than retreating from their theological convictions, Israel pressed them further by celebrating the reality of their God and the illusory nature of all other so-called gods. In making this move, Israel intensified its rhetoric concerning the reality of foreign gods and the efficacy of the nations’ idols. In Psalm 96:5 the psalmist explicitly announces, “For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.” The gods of the nations are nothing. The spatial dimensions in this declaration are central to its theological claim. The Lord stands over the heavens as its creator, while the gods of the nations are nothing more than idols upon the earth—the former as Creator, the latter as creation. Psalm 96 is one of several texts labeled “the LORD reigns” psalms or Yahweh malak psalms (Pss 93 and 96–99). Each of these psalms proclaims the kingship of Yahweh
despite the events of the exile; Yahweh and Yahweh alone is the divine king who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1).
Four texts in Isaiah 40–55 also lampoon the creation of idols and their efficacy for delivering their worshipers.18
The mocking tone of these prophetic texts is unmistakable. In Isaiah 41:22–24 God challenges the idols,
Tell us, you idols,
what is going to happen. . . .
tell us what the future holds
so we may know that you are gods.
Do something, whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.
The prophet implores, “tell us, you idols . . . so we may know that you are gods.” The silence of the idols presumes the powerlessness of the gods. Such idols are “less than nothing.” Beyond the explicit challenge issued to the idols in Isaiah 41, other texts address the impotence of the idols in differing ways. For example, Isaiah 44 provides an extended reflection on the detailed craftsmanship involved in creating an idol, yet the fact that the idol is the result of human hands is precisely the point. What kind of god is made by human hands? Does such a god deserve worship, or is it mere folly to bow down to worship it (Isa 44:17)? The prophet concludes that these works of human hands are “gods that cannot save” (Isa 45:20; 46:17).
In Psalm 115:2 the nations disparage Israel by asking, “Where is your God?” But similarly to Paul, Israel claims that we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:6–7). The idols and their gods have no power, but the God of Israel, whose name deserves glory, is the one to whom belong the highest heavens, the one who “does whatever pleases him” (Ps 115:3).
Contemporary Significance
DISAPPOINTMENT, DISASTER, and crisis can lead a person, or an entire community, to ideas that appear expedient or justifiable but in the end reveal a failure of understanding. How does a person respond when life unfolds in ways perhaps not fully anticipated? To whom does one turn in the face of brokenness and uncertainty? All of us likely have stories, both great and small, of moments when our own lives have felt “undone.” The exile created a true existential and theological crisis for the people of God, and much of the postexilic literature reflects an ongoing struggle to make sense of their reality.
Although Psalm 115 quotes the question posed by the nations, “Where is your God?” this question was likely raised in the minds of those who had returned from exile and were now living in the land. They too likely wondered, “Where is our God—now?” Psalm 115 was not actually written to respond to the nations—to those who did not believe; it was meant to address those in Yehud who had believed but now wondered in the light of their own disappointment.
Such situations, however, are not reserved only for those who survived the Babylonian exile. There are moments of existential and theological crisis in all our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. One response may be to ask “Why?”—the question of theodicy. Another question may be simply to ask, “What next?” How does one respond when such questions echo in our own heads and cause our hearts to ache, and like our forbearers in ancient Yehud we wonder about the presence and the promise of our God. In such moments we may be inclined to strike out on our own, to forge the next steps, and in so doing to secure a good future.
Psalm 115 reminds us, however, that our way forward is through God and with God. To find hope in other places is to fall short. Augustine referred to these kinds of pursuits as “disordered love”—and for him it was sin in its most base form. He explains in On Christian Doctrine, “But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved.”19
In the face of disappointment and disaster the temptation is to “love what is not to be loved” and not to love what should be loved. In the apparent absence of God, Israel’s temptation was to succumb to the question posed by the nations and, in so doing, turn to those idols that are more readily at hand. Stories of idol making and idol worship fill the pages of Scripture—and our own lives—and we should not be surprised. John Calvin reminds us that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols,” and he explains further that in creating idols we
substitute vanity and an empty phantom in the place of God. To these evils another is added. The god whom man has thus conceived inwardly he attempts to embody outwardly. The mind, in this way, conceives the idol, and the hand gives it birth. That idolatry has as its origin in the idea which men have, that God is not present with them unless the presence is carnally exhibited. . . . In consequence of this blind passion men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes.20
In answer to this need for a visible depiction of God the psalmist calls us to “trust in the LORD.” We are to trust in him because he is not the absentee God, but the God enthroned in the heavens (v. 3). We need no idols when the God of the heavens has agreed to be our help and shield. His “apparent” absence in our world must be countered by our continual confession that “The LORD remembers us.” And he will answer our needs (v. 14).
So how do we move forward when facing the existential and theological crises that will no doubt come our way? Strikingly, in the opening verse of Psalm 115 the psalmist gives us the proper starting ground for our reflection on such matters: lo’ lanu—“not to us.” Our reflection begins not on us but on God, the one whose name deserves glory. And as we move through our reflections and are reminded of God’s faithfulness, we discover that our next step begins as we fully embody our vocation of praise (vv. 16–18).
