Bible Commentaries

Call to the God of Israel, the Living God, to Rescue the Honour of His Name

This Psalm, which has scarcely anything in common with the precedingPsalm except that the expression “house of Jacob,” Psalm 114:1, is herebroken up into its several members in Psalm 115:12., is found joined with it,making one Psalm, in the lxx, Syriac, Arabic and Aethiopic versions, justas on the other hand Ps 116 is split up into two. This arbitraryarrangement condemns itself. Nevertheless Kimchi favours it, and it hasfound admission into not a few Hebrew manuscripts.

It is a prayer of Israel for God's aid, probably in the presence of anexpedition against heathen enemies. The two middle strophes of the fourare of the same compass. Ewald's conjecture, that whilst the Psalm wasbeing sung the sacrifice was proceeded with, and that in Psalm 115:12 the voice ofa priest proclaims the gracious acceptance of the sacrifice, is pleasing. Butthe change of voices begins even with Psalm 115:9, as Olshausen also supposes.

It has to do not so much with the honour of Israel, which is notworthy of the honour (Ezekiel 36:22.) and has to recognise in its reproach awell-merited chastisement, as with the honour of Him who cannot sufferthe reproaching of His holy name to continue long. He willeth that His name should be sanctified. In the consciousness of his oneness with this will, the poet bases his petition, in so far as it is at the same time a petition on behalf of Israel, upon God's cha'ris and alee'theia as upon two columns. The second על, according to an express note of the Masora, has no Waw before it, although the lxx and Targum insert one. The thought in Psalm 115:2 is moulded after Psalm 79:10, or after Joel 2:17, cf. Psalm 42:4; Micah 7:10. איּה־נא is the same style as נגדּה־נּא in Psalm 116:18, cf. in the older language אל־נא, אם־נא, and the like.

The poet, with “And our God,” in the name of Israel opposes the scornfulquestion of the heathen by the believingly joyous confession of theexaltation of Jahve above the false gods. Israel's God is in the heavens, andis therefore supramundane in nature and life, and the absolutely unlimitedOne, who is able to do all things with a freedom that is conditioned onlyby Himself: quod vultvalet(Psalm 115:3 = Psalm 135:6, Wisd. 12:18, andfrequently). The carved gods (עצב, from עצב, cogn. חצב, קצב) of the heathen, on the contrary, are dead images,which are devoid of all life, even of the sensuous life the outward organs ofwhich are imagined upon them. It cannot be proved with Ecclesiastes 5:16 thatידיהם and רגליחם are equivalent to ידים להם, רגלים. They are either subjects which the Waw apodosiscf. Genesis 22:24; Proverbs 23:24; Habakkuk 2:5) renders prominent, or casus absoluti (Ges. §145, 2), since both verbs have the idols themselves as their subjectsless on account of their gender (יד and רגל are feminine, but theHebrew usage of genders is very free and not carried out uniformly) as inrespect of Psalm 115:7 : with reference to their hands, etc. ימישׁוּן isthe energetic future form, which goes over from משׁשׁ intoמוּשׁ, for ימשּׁוּ. It is said once again in Psalm 115:7 that speechis wanting to them; for the other negations only deny life to them, this atthe same time denies all personality. The author might know from his ownexperience how little was the distinction made by the heathen worship between the symbol and the thing symbolized. Accordingly the worship of idols seems to him, as to the later prophets, to be the extreme of self-stupefaction and of the destruction of human consciousness; and the final destiny of the worshippers of false gods, as he says in Psalm 115:8, is, that they become like to their idols, that is to say, being deprived of their consciousness, life, and existence, they come to nothing, like those their nothingnesses (Isaiah 44:9). This whole section of the Psalm is repeated in Ps 135 (Psalm 115:6, Psalm 115:15).

After this confession of Israel there now arises a voice that addresses itselfto Israel. The threefold division into Israel, the house of Aaron, and thosewho fear Jahve is the same as in Psalm 118:2-4. In Ps 135 the “house of Levi”is further added to the house of Aaron. Those who fear Jahve, who alsostand in the last passage, are probably the proselytes (in the Acts of theApostles óåâïôïÈåïor merely óåâï)

(Note: The appellation φοβούμενοι does not however occur, if we do not bring Acts 10:2 in here; but in Latin inscriptions in Orelli-Hentzen No. 2523, and in Auer in the Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 1852, S. 80, the proselyte (religionis Judaicae) is called metuens.))

at any rate these are included even if Israel in Psalm 115:9 is meant to signify the laity, for the notion of “those who fear Jahve” extends beyond Israel. The fact that the threefold refrain of the summons does not run, as in Psalm 33:20, our help and shield is He, is to be explained from its being an antiphonal song. In so far, however, as the Psalm supplicates God's protection and help in acampaign the declaration of confident hope, their help and shield is He,may, with Hitzig, be referred to the army that is gone or is going forth. Itis the same voice which bids Israel to be of good courage and announces tothe people the well-pleased acceptance of the sacrifice with the words“Jahve hath been mindful of us” (זכרנוּ ה, cf. עתּה ידעתּי, Psalm 20:7), perhaps simultaneously with the presentation of the memorial portion (אזכרה) of the meat-offering (Psalm 38:1). The יברך placed at the head is particularized threefold, corresponding to the threefold summons. The special promise of blessing which is added in Psalm 115:14 is an echo of Deuteronomy 1:11, as in 2 Samuel 24:3. The contracted future יסף we take in a consolatory sense; for as an optative it would be too isolated here. In spite of all oppression on the part of the heathen, God will make His people ever more numerous, more capable of offering resistance, and more awe-inspiring.

The voice of consolation is continued in Psalm 115:15, but it becomes the voice ofhope by being blended with the newly strengthened believing tone of thecongregation. Jahve is here called the Creator of heaven and earth becausethe worth and magnitude of His blessing are measured thereby. He hasreserved the heavens to Himself, but given the earth to men. Thisseparation of heaven and earth is a fundamental characteristic of the post-diluvian history. The throne of God is in the heavens, and the promise,which is given to the patriarchs on behalf of all mankind, does not refer toheaven, but to the possession of the earth (Psalm 37:22). The promise is asyet limited to this present world, whereas in the New Testament thislimitation is removed and the êëçñïíïìéembraces heaven andearth. This Old Testament limitedness finds further expression in Psalm 115:17,where דּוּמה, as in Psalm 94:17, signifies the silent land of Hades. TheOld Testament knows nothing of a heavenly ecclesia that praises Godwithout intermission, consisting not merely of angels, but also of thespirits of all men who die in the faith. Nevertheless there are not wantinghints that point upwards which were even better understood by the post-exilic than by the pre-exilic church. The New Testament morn began todawn even upon the post-exilic church. We must not therefore beastonished to find the tone of Psalm 6:6; Psalm 30:10; Psalm 88:11-13, struck up here,although the echo of those earlier Psalms here is only the dark foil of theconfession which the church makes in Psalm 115:18 concerning its immortality. The church of Jahve as such does not die. That it also does not remainamong the dead, in whatever degree it may die off in its existing members,the psalmist might know from Isaiah 26:19; Isaiah 25:8. But the close of the Psalm shows that such predictions which light up the life beyond only gradually became elements of the church's consciousness, and, so to speak, dogmas.