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…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Psalms 115:6
They have ears, but they hear not,.... The makers of them have taken care to place a pair of ears to their heads, but could not convey the faculty of hearing to them; so that though their priests may cry from morning to noon, as Baal's worshippers did, saying, O Baal, hear us; and even tonight, and one day and night after another, nothing is heard, 1 Kings 18:26. Indeed the image of Jupiter at Crete was made without ears; because it was thought unbecoming that he, who was prince and lord of all, should give ear to any (y): but the God of heaven and earth is a God hearing prayer; his ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear; his ears are always open to the cries of his people.
Noses have they,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Psalms 115:4-8
Psalm 115:4-8
4. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. 5. They have a mouth, but they do not speak: they have eyes and see not: 6. They have ears, and do not hear: they have noses, and smell not: 7. They have hands, and feel not: they have feet, and walk not: they do not speak through their throat. [367] 8. Those that make them shall be like unto them; and all those who trust to them.
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…
