Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
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Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
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Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
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Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Psalms 115:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 4:28 There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
- Isaiah 46:6-7 Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship. They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.
- Jeremiah 10:3-5 For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”
- Isaiah 40:19-20 A workman has cast an image, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks a skillful workman to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved.
- Habakkuk 2:18-20 “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”
- Isaiah 44:10 Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?
- Isaiah 46:1-2 Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary. They stoop and they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but they have gone into captivity.
- Psalms 135:15-18 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they can’t speak. They have eyes, but they can’t see. They have ears, but they can’t hear, neither is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.
- Isaiah 37:19 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.
- Acts 19:26 You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.
- Psalms 97:7 Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!
- Hosea 8:6 For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
- Acts 19:35 When the town clerk had quieted the multitude, he said, “You men of Ephesus, what man is there who doesn’t know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great goddess Artemis, and of the image which fell down from Zeus?
- 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.
- 2 Kings 19:18 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.
- Isaiah 42:17 “Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.
- Isaiah 44:20 He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 4 Their idols This contrast is introduced for the…
4 Their idols This contrast is introduced for the purpose of confirming the faith of the godly, by which they repose upon God alone; because, excepting him, all that the minds of men imagine of divinity is the invention of folly and delusion. To know the error and the madness of the world certainly contributes in no small degree to the confirmation of true godliness; while, on the other hand, a God is presented to us, whom we know assuredly to be the maker of heaven and earth, and whom we are to worship, not without reason or at random. The more effectually to silence the arrogance of the ungodly, who proudly presume to set at nought God and his chosen people, he contemptuously ridicules their false gods, first calling them idols, that is to say, things of nought, and, next, showing from their being formed of inanimate materials, that they are destitute of life and feeling. For can there be anything more absurd than to expect assistance from them, since neither the materials of which they are formed, nor the form which is given to them by the hand of men, possess the smallest portion of divinity so as to command respect for them? At the same time, the prophet tacitly indicates that the value of the material does not invest the idols with more excellence so that they deserve to be more highly esteemed. Hence the passage may be translated adversatively, thus, Though they are of gold and silver, yet they are not gods, because they are the work of men’s hands. Had it been his intention merely to depreciate the substance of which they were composed, he would rather have called them wood and stone, but at present he speaks only of gold and silver. In the meantime, the prophet reminds us that nothing is more unbecoming than for men to say that they can impart either essence, or form, or honor to a god, since they themselves are dependent upon another for that life which will soon disappear. From this it follows, that the heathen vainly boast of receiving help from gods of their own devising. Whence does idolatry take its origin but from the imaginations of men? Having abundance of materials supplied to their hand, they can make of their gold or silver, not only a goblet or some other kind of vessel, but also vessels for meaner purposes, but they prefer making a god. And what can be more absurd than to convert a lifeless mass into some new deity? Besides, the prophet satirically adds, that while the heathen fashion members for their idols, they cannot enable them to move or use them. It is on this account that the faithful experience their privilege to be the more valuable, in that the only true God is on their side, and because they are well assured that all the heathen vainly boast of the aid which they expect from their idols, which are nothing but shadows.
This is a doctrine, however, which ought to receive a greater latitude of meaning; for from it we learn, generally, that it is foolish to seek God under outward images, which have no resemblance or relation to his celestial glory. To this principle we must still adhere, otherwise it would be easy for the heathen to complain that they were unjustly condemned, because, though they make for themselves idols upon earth, they yet were persuaded that God is in heaven. They did not imagine that Jupiter was either composed of stone, or of gold, or of earth, but that he was merely represented under these similitudes. Whence originated this form of address common among the ancient Romans, “To make supplication before the gods,” but because they believed the images to be, as it were, the representations of the gods? The Sicilians, says Cicero, have no gods before whom they can present their supplications. He would not have spoken in this barbarous style, had the notion not been prevalent, that the figures of the heavenly deities were represented to them in brass, or silver, or in marble; and cherishing the notion, that in approaching these images the gods were nearer to them, the prophet justly exposes this ridiculous fancy, that they would enclose the Deity within corruptible representations, since nothing is more foreign to the nature of God than to dwell under stone, or a piece of marble, or wood, and stock of a tree, or brass, or silver. For this reason, the prophet Habakkuk designates that gross mode of worshipping God, the school of falsehood. (Habakkuk 2:18.) Moreover, the scornful manner in which he speaks of their gods deserves to be noticed, they have a mouth, but they do not speak; for why do we betake ourselves to God, but from the conviction that we are dependent upon him for life; that our safety is in him, and that the abundance of good, and the power to help us, are with him? As these images are senseless and motionless, what can be more absurd than to ask from them that of which they themselves are destitute?
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Seeing that neither the matter nor the form can…
Seeing that neither the matter nor the form can commend their idols, it followeth that there is nothing why they should be esteemed.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 115:4 Their idols [are] silver and gold, the…
Psa 115:4 Their idols [are] silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold] Take them at the best, they are no better; and what is silver and gold but the guts and garbage of the earth? But some of them might say, as Priapus in Horace,
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Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum.
Herodotus telleth us, that Amasis had a large laver of gold, wherein both he and his guests used to wash their feet. This vessel he brake and made a god of it; which the Egyptians devoutly worshipped. And the like idolomany is at this day found among Papists; what distinction soever the world would fain make between an idol and an image, which indeed (as they use them) are all one.
The work of men’s hands] And therefore they must needs be goodly gods, when made by bunglers especially, as was the cross of Cockram; which, if it were not good enough to make a god, would make an excellent devil, as the mayor of Doncaster merrily told the complainants (Acts and Mon. fol. 1340).
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Thus glorious and powerful is our God, O ye…
Thus glorious and powerful is our God, O ye heathens, of whom you so boldly ask who and where he is; but as for your gods or idols, they have no power nor worth in them but what is taken from their materials. As their matter is wholly from the earth, so their form or figure they have from the art of man; and therefore they should rather, if it were possible, worship man, as their creator and lord, than be worshipped by him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Their idols are silver and gold,.... The idols of…
Their idols are silver and gold,.... The idols of the Gentiles; so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions. The gods they serve and worship are not in the heavens; but the matter of which they are made is dug out of the earth: and this is the greatest excellency and value that there is in them; and such as are made of these are of the greatest worth, and yet only for the matter of them, otherwise useless and inanimate statues; such are the idols of the Papists, Rev 9:20.
The work of men's hands; the matter of them is gold and silver, which they owe to the earth as their original; the form of them they owe to men, and therefore can not be God, Hos 8:6. If it is idolatry to worship what God has made, the sun, moon, and stars, it must be gross idolatry, and great stupidity, to worship what man has made: if it is sinful to worship the creature besides the Creator, or more than him, it must be still more so to worship the creature of a creature.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 4. Their idols are silver, c.] They are…
Verse 4. Their idols are silver, c.] They are metal, stone, and wood. They are generally made in the form of man, but can neither see, hear, smell, feel, walk, nor speak. How brutish to trust in such! And next to these, in stupidity and inanity, must they be who form them, with the expectation of deriving any good from them. So obviously vain was the whole system of idolatry, that the more serious heathens ridiculed it, and it was a butt for the jests of their freethinkers and buffoons. How keen are those words of Juvenal!
----------------------Audis
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Jupiter, haec? nec labra moves, cum mittere vocem.
Debueras, vel marmoreus vel aheneus? aut cur
In carbone tuo charta pia thura soluta
Ponimus, et sectum vituli jecur, albaque porci
Omenta? ut video, nullum discrimen habendum est.
Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli.
SAT. xiii., ver. 113.
"Dost thou hear, O Jupiter, these things? nor move thy lips when thou oughtest to speak out, whether thou art of marble or of bronze? Or, why do we put the sacred incense on thy altar from the opened paper, and the extracted liver of a calf, and the white caul of a hog? As far as I can discern there is no difference between thy statue and that of Bathyllus."
This irony will appear the keener, when it is known that Bathyllus was a fiddler and player, whose image by the order of Polycrates, was erected in the temple of Juno at Samos. See Isa 41:1. c. Isa 46:7; Jer 10:4-5, c. and Ps 135:15; Ps 135:16.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 115:4-7. Their idols — The objects of their…
Psa 115:4-7. Their idols — The objects of their idolatrous worship, are silver and gold — That is, images made of silver and gold, dug out of the earth. Their gods are so far from being the makers of all things, or of any thing, that they themselves are the work of those that adore them. As the matter of them is wholly from the earth, so they have their form and figure from the art of man; and therefore they ought rather, if it were possible, to worship man, as their Creator and Lord, than be worshipped by him. They have mouths, &c. — The painter, the carver, the statuary performed their parts: they gave them the figure and appearance of mouths and eyes, ears and noses, hands and feet. But they could not put life into them, nor therefore any sense. They speak not in answer to those that consult them. They see not the prostrations of their worshippers before them, much less their distresses or wants. They hear not their prayers, how loud soever; they smell not their incense, however strong or sweet; they handle not the gifts presented to them, much less have they any gifts to bestow on their worshippers, or are able to stretch out their hands to the needy. They walk not; nor can they stir a step for the relief of those that apply to them for help. Nay, they do not so much as breathe through their throat, nor have they the least sign or symptom of life or motion: but are things as perfectly dead after the priest has pretended to consecrate them, and call a deity into them, as they were before. Here then we have a most striking and “beautiful contrast between the God of Israel and the heathen idols. He made every thing, they are themselves made by men; he is in heaven, they are upon earth; he doth whatsoever he pleaseth, they can do nothing; he seeth the distresses, heareth and answereth the prayers, accepteth the offerings, cometh to the assistance, and effecteth the salvation of his servants; they are blind, deaf, and dumb, senseless, motionless, and impotent.” And observe well, reader, “equally slow to hear, equally impotent to save, in time of greatest need, will every worldly idol prove, on which men have set their affections, and to which they, in effect, say, Thou art my God.” — Horne.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Their idols - Their gods - the gods which…
Their idols - Their gods - the gods which they worship, as contrasted with the God whom we adore. The design of this description Psa 115:4-8 is to show the utter vanity of trusting in such gods, and to lead the people of Israel to put their trust in the true God - in Yahweh.
Are silver and gold - Made of silver and gold, and they must have, therefore, the properties of silver and gold. They can be of value only as silver and gold. They cannot do the work of mind; they cannot do the work of God. The psalmist was not disposed to depreciate the real value of these idols, or to throw contempt on them which they did not deserve. He was disposed to treat them fairly. They were silver and gold; they had an intrinsic value as such; they showed in the value of the material how much the pagan were disposed to honor their objects of worship; and they were not held up to contempt as shapeless blocks of wood or stone. The psalmist might have said that most of them were made of wood or stone, and were mere shapeless blocks; but it is always best to do justice to an adversary, and not to attempt to underrate what he values. The argument of an infidel on the subject of religion may be utterly worthless as an argument for infidelity, but it may evince ability, learning, subtilty, clearness of reasoning, and even candor; and it is best to admit this, if it is so, and to give to it all the credit which it deserves as a specimen of reasoning, or as stating a real difficulty which ought to be solved by somebody - to call it “silver and gold” if it is so, and not to characterize it as worthless, weak, stupid - the result of ignorance and folly. He has great advantage in an argument who owns the real force of what an opponent says; he gains nothing who charges it as the offspring of stupidity, ignorance, and folly - unless he can show that it is so.
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The work of men’s hands - Shaped and fashioned by people’s hands. They cannot, therefore, be superior to those who made them; they cannot answer the purpose of a God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Their idols are silver and gold—The contrast still…
4. Their idols are silver and gold—The contrast still appears between “our God” and “their idols.” The idols of the heathen are pretended images or representations of deities, who, upon the consecration of the images, are supposed to take up their dwelling in them, and to act through them. The image itself was considered as a help to the mind, through the senses, to ascend to the divinities. But the vulgar mind has always omitted this distinction, and paid sacred honours to the image. The Romish Church has borrowed its system of image worship from the heathen, defending it upon the same principle, but has succeeded no better than they in rescuing the mind from depraved and depraving conceptions of God and his worship.
The description of idols in Psa_115:4-8 is given in the sarcastic style of Isa_44:9-20, and developed from the fundamental passage, (Deu_4:28,) later on copied by the returned exiles.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 4. Their idols] i.e. the idols of the nations,…
4. Their idols] i.e. the idols of the nations, as Psa_135:15, and the LXX and Jerome here, read.
4–8. Do the heathen taunt us with the impotence of our God? What are their own gods? Nothing but their own handiwork, destitute of ordinary human senses, though represented with organs of sense. For similar sarcastic descriptions of idols and the contrast between them and the living God, see Isa_44:9-20; Jer_10:1-16 Deu_4:28; Isa_2:20; Hab_2:18-19; Wis_15:15. The passage recurs in Psa_135:15-18. Observe how completely the Psalmist identifies the god with the image: it has no separate existence.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (4-8) This passage cannot compare with the magnificent irony…
(4-8) This passage cannot compare with the magnificent irony of Isa_44:9-20, but there is still a noticeable vein of sarcasm running through it, visible even more in the original than in the English. (Comp. Psa_135:15-18.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 4-8. The scorn of the heathen is retaliated.…
Vers. 4-8. The scorn of the heathen is retaliated. They scoff at the God of Israel. What, then, are their own gods? Silver and gold indeed (ver. 4), but the work of human hands. Fashioned into a human shape, as if they were sentient being but absolutely devoid of all sense and intelligence. The satire is somewhat roughly worked out (vers. 5-7), but idolatry provokes rough speaking; and the tone here adopted is imitated in Psa_135:15-18, and echoed in Isa_44:9-20. The inspired writers seem to have felt, that, when idolatry came under consideration, the criticism should be brief and trenchant.
Their idols are silver and gold. At the best often mere wood and stone; (Deu_4:28) but the idols of the Babylonians were mostly of the more precious materials. (Herod., 1:183 Dan_3:1 Jer_1:4, Jer_1:11, etc.) The work of men"s hands. (Psa_135:15 Isa_44:12-17) To avoid this reproach, some images were said to have fallen down from heaven. (Act_19:35)
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The inefficiency of idolatry.
"The work of men"s hands." Denunciation of the idolatry of the heathen is characteristic of the psalms of the restoration. With this passage may be compared such passages as Isa_44:9-20. In treating of idols it should be borne in mind that they are differently regarded by their intelligent and unintelligent worshippers. The mystical Hindu will tell us that his idols are to him nothing more than are to us the pictures of absent or dead friends. They are helps to memory and imagination. But to the great mass of heathen the idol-figure is the actual god worshipped, the embodiment of the god, the shrine of the god. So Scripture is justified in its scorn of the idol-deities. The point presented here is the helplessness of idols, in that they have organs of sense, but no sensibility. There is an argument in the simple statement that they are "the work of men"s hands.
I MAN"S HANDIWORK IS INFERIOR TO HIS BEST THOUGHT. No man ever yet reached with his hands what he had conceived in his mind. The artist"s idea is better than his picture. It is inferior to the artist himself. The sculptor"s figure is better than the model he produces. The literary man never writes as good a book as he intends to write. It is the universal fact that a man is always greater than anything he creates, or anything he accomplishes. And this must be true when a man attempts to mould with his hands the figure of his thought of God. He cannot imprison in gold, or silver, or clay, or wood, his whole thought. And he himself remains a nobler being than the god he creates; and so the god should worship him, and not he the god.
II MAN"S BEST THOUGHT MUST BE INFERIOR TO DEITY. This is true of the best man"s best thought. But what guarantee can we have that the idol-maker is a best man, and that best man at his best? Grant that the primary creations of Baal or Vishnu were the best conceptions of best men, still we face the fact, that, necessarily, the conception was short of the reality. No man by searching can find out God; and no man by imagining can find him out so as to represent him. Then this follows: God himself must give to men the earth-pattern of himself. He has done it. But the earth-pattern is no thing, no likeness of any thing in heaven and earth and sea. It is the living Being, the "Man Christ Jesus," "express Image of his Person. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere…
Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere dead inert matter; at the best only made of precious metal, but that metal quite as powerless as the commonest wood or clay. The value of the idol shows the folly of the maker in wasting his substance, but certainly does not increase the power of the image, since there is no more life in silver and gold than in brass or iron.
The work of men's hands. Inasmuch as the maker is always greater than the thing that he has made, these idols are less to be honoured than the artificers, who fashioned them. How irrational that men should adore that which is less than themselves! How strange that a man should think that he can make a god! Can madness go further? Our God is a spirit, and his hands made the heavens and the earth: well may we worship him, and we need not be disturbed at the sneering question of those who are so insane as to refuse to adore the living God, and yet bow their knees before images of their own carving. We may make an application of all this to the times in which we are now living. The god of modern thought is the creation of the thinker himself, evolved out of his own consciousness, or fashioned according to his own notion of what a god should be. Now, it is evident that such a being is no God. It is impossible that there should be a God at all except the God of revelation. A god who can be fashioned by our own thoughts is no more a God than the image manufactured or produced by our own hands. The true God must of necessity be his own revealer. It is clearly impossible that a being who can be excogitated and comprehended by the reason of man should be the infinite and incomprehensible God. Their idols are blinded reason and diseased thought, the product of men's muddled brains, and they will come to nought.
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Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold. Can there be anything more absurd than to expect assistance from them, since neither the materials of which they are formed, nor the forms which are given them by the hand of men possess the smallest portion of divinity so as to command respect for them? At the same time, the prophet tacitly indicates that the value of the material does not invest the idols with more excellence, so that they deserve to be more highly esteemed. Hence the passage may be translated adversatively, thus, Though they are of gold and silver, yet they are not gods, because they are the work of men's hands. John Calvin.
Ver. 4. Their idols are silver, etc. They are metal, stone, and wood. They are generally made in the form of man, but can neither see, hear, smell, feel, walk, nor speak. How brutish to trust in such! and next to them, in stupidity and inanity, must they be who form them, with the expectation of deriving any good from them. So obviously vain was the whole system of idolatry that the more serious heathens ridiculed it, and it was a butt for the jests of their freethinkers and buffoons. How keen are these words of Juvenal!
Audis,
Jupiter, haec? nec labra moves, cum mittere vocem
Debueras, vel marmoreus vel aheneus? aut cur
In carbone tuo charta pia thura soluta
Ponimus, et sectum vituli jecur, albaque porci
Omenta? ut video, nullum discrimen habendum est
Effigies inter vestras, statuamque Bathylli. Sat. 13, ver. 113.
"Dost thou hear, O Jupiter, these things? nor move thy lips when thou oughtest to speak out, whether thou art of marble or of bronze? Or, why do we put the sacred incense on thy altar from the opened paper, and the extracted liver of a calf, and the white caul of a hog? As far as I can discern, there is no difference between thy statue and that of Bathyllus."
This irony will appear the keener, when it is known that Bathyllus was a fiddler and player, whose image, by the order of Polycrates, was erected in the temple of Juno at Samos. Adam Clarke.
Ver. 4. Idols. Idolaters plead in behalf of their idols, that they are only intended to represent their gods, and to maintain a more abiding sense of their presence. The Spirit, however, does not allow this idea, and treats their images as the very gods they worship. The gods they profess to represent do not really exist, and therefore their worship is altogether vain and foolish. Must not the same lie said of the pretended worship of many in the present day, who would encumber their worship with representative rites and ceremonies, or expressive symbols, or frame to themselves in their imaginations a god other than the God of revelation? W. Wilson.
Ver. 4. Silver and gold proper things to make money of, but not to make gods of. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 4. The work of men's hands. The following advertisement is copied from a Chinese newspaper: "Archen Tea Chinchin, sculptor, respectfully acquaints masters of ships, trading from Canton to India, that they may be furnished with figure heads of any size, according to order, at one fourth of the price charged in Europe. He also recommends for private venture, the following idols, brass, gold, and silver: the hawk of Vishnoo, which has reliefs of his incarnation in a fish, boar, lion, and turtle. An Egyptian apis, a golden calf and bull, as worshipped by the pious followers of Zoroaster. Two silver mammosits, with golden earrings; an aprimanes, for Persian worship; a ram, an alligator, a crab, a laughing hyena, with a variety of household gods on a small scale, calculated for family worship. Eighteen months' credit will be given, or a discount of fifteen percent for prompt payment of the sum affixed to each article. Direct. China street, Canton, under the marble Rhinoceros and Gilt Hydra." Arvine's Anecdotes.
Ver. 4. The work of men's hands. Works, and not the makers of works. Adam Clarke.
Ver. 4. The work of men's hands. And therefore they must needs be goodly gods, when made by bunglers especially, as was the rood of Cockram;which if it were not good enough to make a god would make an excellent devil, as the Mayor of Doncaster merrily told the complainants. John Trapp.
Ver. 4-7. A beautiful contrast is formed between the God of Israel and the heathen idols. He made everything, they are themselves made by men; he is in heaven, they are upon earth; he doeth whatsoever he pleaseth, they can do nothing; he seeth the distresses, heareth and answereth the prayers, accepteth the offerings, cometh to the assistance, and affecteth the salvation of his servants; they are blind, deaf, and dumb, senseless, motionless, and impotent. Equally slow to hear, equally impotent to save, in time of greatest need, will every worldly idol prove, on which men have set their affections, and to which they have, in effect, said, "Thou art my God." George Horne.
Ver. 4-7. In Alexandria there was a most famous building called the Sarapion, a temple of Serapis, who presided over the inundations of the Nile, and the fertility of Egypt. It was a vast structure of masonry, crowning a hill in the centre of the city, and was ascended by a hundred steps. It was well fortified and very handsome. The statue of the god was a colossal image, which touched with outstretched hands both sides of the building, while the head reached the lofty roof. It was adorned with rich metals and jewels.
The Emperor Theodosius, having commanded the demolition of the heathen temple, Theophilus, the bishop, attended by the soldiers, hastened to ascend the steps and enter the fane. The sight of the image, for a moment, made even the Christian destruction pause. The bishop ordered a soldier to strike without delay. With a hatchet he smote the statue on the knee. All waited in some emotion, but there was neither sound nor sign of divine anger. The soldiers next climbed to the head and struck it off. It rolled on the ground. A large family of rats, disturbed in their tranquil abode within the sacred image, poured out from the trembling statue and raced over the temple floor. The people now began to laugh, and to destroy with increased zeal. They dragged the fragments of the statue through the streets. Even the Pagans were disgusted with gods who did not defend themselves. The huge edifice was slowly destroyed, and a Christian church was built in its place. There was still some fear among the people that the Nile would show displeasure by refusing its usual inundation. But as the river rose with more than usual fulness and bounty, every anxiety was dispelled. Andrew Reed, in "The Story of Christianity, "1877.
Ver. 4-8. Theodoret tells us of S. Publia, the aged abbess of a company of nuns at Antioch, who used to chant, as Julian went by in idolatrous procession, the Psalm, "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands... They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them"; and he narrates how the angry Emperor caused his soldiers to buffet her till she bled, unable as he was to endure the sting of the old Hebrew song. Neale and Littledale.
Ver. 4-8.
1. The character of idol gods. Whether our gods are natural objects or riches or worldly pleasures, they have no eye to pity, no ear to hear petitions, no tongue to counsel, no hand to help.
2. The character of the true God. He is all eye, all ear, all tongue, all hand, all feet, all mind, all heart.
3. The character of the idol worshippers. All become naturally assimilated to the objects of their worship.
Psalms 115:5*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Their idols are silver and gold, the work of…
Psa_115:4-8
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of mens hands.
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Babylonian idolatry
Babylon was a land in which life was overshadowed by a vast idolatry. What this idolatry was, we may see, in part, by a visit to the British Museum. There are to be seen at this hour figures and inscriptions which might well have been gazed on by the writers of this very psalm, and which show how the Baal worship which, in its different forms, prevailed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean, was the most striking feature of the life of the Imperial race that had conquered Palestine. To this hour, the ruins of what was the great Temple of Belus within the city, and of the Temple of Nimrod without the city, show how powerfully this idolatry must have addressed itself to the senses of the people. And the same conclusion is warranted by the anxious warnings of Isaiah in anticipation of the captivity, and by the language of the later psalmists who wrote in Babylon. Isaiah describes with a fine and indignant irony how in Babylon, too, the smith with the tongs, and the carpenter with his rule, would combine to make an idol according to the beauty of a man, and how worship would be paid to what was, in reality, only the stock of a tree. And the psalmist of the later epoch was, we can hardly doubt, inspired to write at the sight of the splendid images in the Babylonian temples, and notably, perhaps, by that of the golden image of Belus. Their idols are silver and gold, etc. (Psa_115:4-8). It was this idolatry which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resisted at the risk of their lives, and at which Daniel struck a deadly blow when, according to the Alexandrian account--till lately read in our churches, and undoubtedly embodying a germ of substantial history--he exposed on a great scale the fraud of the priest of Baal and destroyed his image. (Canon Liddon.)
Eyes have they, but they see not.--
The eye of the spirit
The rich and varied gifts, the pure exalted pleasures, which the eyes of the body are intended to minister to man, are marred by want of sympathetic observation even more than by want of knowledge. Two boys went out one summers day, each alone, to spend a holiday in the fields. I have forgotten every detail of the story, but whatever the story was, it is easy to imagine what it might have been. The one boy came back in discontent. He had seen nothing, done nothing. He was tired; he had wasted the holiday. The other came back full of delight. He had watched the cattle and the fishes and the birds. He had noted the flowers and the hedgerows and the corn. They had spoken to him with voices which--though he knew it not--his spirit heard. They had told him--though he felt it only, understood it not--they had told him of the marvels of their nature, of their fitness for their appointed place, of the ever fresh beauties which man could see in them, if he would but enable the eyes of his body with the spirit of thankfulness and love. You have this contrast, thus drawn, set before you every day in many ways. I suppose that no one here would wish to live a merely material--animal--life, a life of the body only; to spend his time in securing the largest amount of pleasure--harmless pleasure if you will--for the delight or solace of his bodily senses; to feel more and more sad, as the years run on past middle life, that one sense and another is become less keen, is capable of less pleasure; to watch the sands of life running out apace, with no sense of compensation, no quiet conviction that as one transient pleasure after another becomes less bright or passes away, the place of each is taken--is taken and more than filled--by consolations of no transient kind, by blessings that make their abiding home with him. We must, if we would avoid a growing discontent, we must live the inner--the Spiritual--life too. The eye of the spirit must be an eye that sees. The life of the spirit must be a real life. Not a life apart from that of the body, but a life spiritualizing and etherealizing the bodily life. To teach the eye of the body to see in the higher sense, to observe, to interpret, to enjoy, to minister to the intellectual capacity of man, and be in turn quickened and brightened by mans intellect, we educate the man; working in faith and hope; not discouraged by the many discouragements; sure that it cannot but be right that man should learn to know. How shall we treat the eye of the spirit? how shall we help it to see? how give it insight? I speak not now of what our holy religion may do; for the moment I am not referring to the realms of grace. That which the spirit of man most needs, for its full play and development, is just that which in this hurrying age is ever more and more difficult to obtain,--rest and quiet, time and place for contemplation. This is no idea specially of the Christian revelation; it is common to all ages and all peoples; it is the natural demand of the spirit of man. We have all of us probably seen and noted the highest oriental ideal of spiritual isolation from things and thoughts of the world,--a seated figure with inscrutable face, the eyes for ever cast down, gazing endlessly into the palm of the hand. This was one of the ideas connected with the prophet of old times. He sat apart in rapt contemplation; the things of the world and of the flesh shut out from his sight; his eyes fixed steadily on some unmoving thing; the spiritual element ever growing in relative importance, and at last overpowering the material and dominating the whole man. And then there welled up within him, from some spiritual source, some inspiration, the thoughts and the words that were to frame and to form his prophetic utterance; and he poured forth dark sayings, or declared, as one inspired, the will of God. But need I really go further than the experience of each one of you, to find evidence of the power of contemplation on the spirit, the need of it, if we would have a spiritual sense, a spiritual insight? You know of what extreme importance it is, if you have any serious matter in hand, to put yourself in the right frame of mind to consider it duly and make a wise resolve. How often it happens that you cannot shut out the disturbing presence of other things. You know that for this special purpose you ought to isolate yourself, to be clear of confusing voices, confusing thoughts. And what you have to make your resolve about is coming on so rapidly; a resolve will be forced upon you so soon; there is such a sense of rush and hurry; you cannot properly decide the matter without previous quiet thought and communing, and quiet thought you cannot get. You feel this in matters of business; you feel it in difficult moral questions; you feel it in many a decision, which circumstances force upon you, in your relations with those who are of your bone and of your flesh. You feel it whenever you think of yourself in your higher relations, as a spiritual existence, as having duties beyond the realms of sense, as being under some conscious obligation to be guided in your walk through life by aims which shall of themselves ennoble your endeavours, by principles which are of eternal truth and justice. (Bishop Browne.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 115:4-11 This entire section is repeated in 135:15-20. •…
115:4-11 This entire section is repeated in 135:15-20. • Unlike the Lord (95:3-5), idols cannot do anything; they are good for nothing.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.