Psalms 115:2

Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
heathen	הַגּוֹיִ֑ם ha.go.Yim	H1471	a foreign nation · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
say	יֹאמְר֣וּ yo.me.Ru	H559	to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
God	אֱלֹהֵיהֶֽם 'e.lo.hei.Hem	H430	gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Psalms 42:3 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
Psalms 79:10 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy s…
Psalms 42:10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
Exodus 32:12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from t…
Numbers 14:15-16 Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,
Deuteronomy 32:26-27 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
Joel 2:17 Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not t…
2 Kings 19:10-19 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be de…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:1-8

Sufficient care is here taken to answer both the pretensions of self and the reproaches of idolaters. I. Boasting is here for ever excluded, Psa 115:1. Let no opinion of our own merits have any room either in our prayers or in our praises, but let both centre in God's glory. 1. Have we received any mercy, gone through any service, or gained any success? We must not assume the glory of it to ourselves, but ascribe it wholly to God. We must not imagine that we do any thing for God by our own strength, or deserve any thing from God by our own righteousness; but all the good we do is done by the power of his grace, and all the good we have is the gift of his mere mercy, and therefore he must hav…

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John Gill on Psalms 115:2

Wherefore should the Heathen say,.... The nations about Israel, the nations of the world; the Gentiles in any age; the Papists in ours, sometimes called the Heathen, Psalm 10:16. The church expostulates with the Lord why those should be suffered to say, in a reproachful, insulting, manner, and by way of triumph, where is now their God? that they have boasted of would help them; in whom they have put their trust and confidence; why does not he help them, as he has promised, and they expect? Thus the church suggests, that if the Lord did not appear for them, his own glory lay at stake. Such language is generally used by their enemies, when the people of God were in any distress; see Psalm 42:…

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John Calvin on Psalms 115:1-3

Psalm 115:1-3 1. Not unto us, O Jehovah! not unto us, but unto thy name give the glory, on account of thy mercy, on account of thy truth. 2. Why should the heathen say, Where is now their God? 3. Surely our God is in heaven: he hath done whatsoever pleased him. 1 Not unto us, O Jehovah! It is not certain by whom, or at what time, this psalm was composed. [365] We learn from the first part of it, that the faithful betake themselves to God, in circumstances of extreme distress. They do not make known their desires in plain words, but indirectly hint at the nature of their request. They openly disclaim all merit, and all hope of obtaining deliverance otherwise than God's doing it from a sole…

The Church Fathers

"For Your loving mercy, and for Your truth's sake" [Psalm 115:2]. Observe how often these two qualities, loving mercy and truth, are joined together in the holy Scriptures. For in His loving mercy He called sinners, and in His truth He judges those who when called refused to come. "That the heathen may not say, Where is now their God?" For at the last, His loving mercy and truth will shine forth, when "the sign of the Son of man shall appear in heaven, and then shall all tribes of the earth cry woe;" [Matthew 24:30] nor shall they then say, "Where is their God?" when He is no longer preached unto them to be believed in, but displayed before them to be trembled at.
— Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 115

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Passover — The name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first…
Zeal, Religious · EXEMPLIFIE — EXEMPLIFIE

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Psalms 115:2

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:1-8

John Gill on Psalms 115:2

John Calvin on Psalms 115:1-3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Psalms 115:2

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:1-8

John Gill on Psalms 115:2

John Calvin on Psalms 115:1-3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 115:1-2

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalms 115:2-3

Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 115:2