Psalms
Psalms 115
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3 commentators · 24 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
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 these verses, I. We are earnestly exhorted, all of us, to repose our confidence in God, and not suffer our confidence in him to be shaken by the heathens' insulting over us upon the account of our present distresses. It is folly to trust in dead images…
John Gill18
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory,.... There is no glory due to men; no, not to the best of men, not to be given them on any account whatever; neither on account of things natural, civil, and temporal, nor on account of things…
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…
But our God is in the heavens,.... His habitation is in the heavens, as the Targum; the Septuagint and Arabic versions add, "and in earth": he is in both, and fills both with his presence; and cannot be contained in either. He is the Maker and Possessor of…
Keil & Delitzsch4
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
It has to do not so much with the honour of Israel, which is not worthy of the honour (Eze 36:22.) and has to recognise in its reproach a well-merited chastisement, as with the honour of Him who cannot suffer the reproaching of His holy name to continue long…
The poet, with "And our God," in the name of Israel opposes the scornful question of the heathen by the believingly joyous confession of the exaltation of Jahve above the false gods. Israel's God is in the heavens, and is therefore supramundane in nature and…
After this confession of Israel there now arises a voice that addresses itself to Israel. The threefold division into Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear Jahve is the same as in Psa 118:2-4. In Ps 135 the "house of Levi" is further added to the…
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