Psalms
Chapter 115
Not To Us, Lord, Not To Us!
Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory; for the sake of your love and faithfulness.
Why should the pagans say, “Where is their God?”
There, in heaven, is our God; whatever he wishes, he does.
Not so, the hand-made idols, crafted in silver and gold.
They have mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see,
ears that cannot hear, noses that cannot smell.
They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk; neither can they make a sound in their throat.
Their makers will be like them; so will all who trust in them.
O Israel, trust in the Lord; he is your help and your shield!
You, family of Aaron, trust in the Lord; he is your help and your shield!
You who fear the Lord, trust in him; he is your help and your shield!
The Lord remembers us and will bless us; he will bless the family of Israel; he will bless the family of Aaron;
he will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great.
May the Lord shower blessings, on you and your children as well.
May you be blessed by the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.
Heaven belongs to the Lord, but the earth he has given to humans.
It is not the dead who praise the Lord, for they have gone down to silence;
but it is we, the living, who praise the Lord, from now on and forever.
Commentaries
115
This is a psalm of trust. The people exiled in Babylon did not have a Temple or sanctuary. Their God does not accept any figure or image, and it is also a defeated God. The powerful Babylonian gods are present. Where is the God of Israel? God must act to honor his Name (v. 1) and for the exiled who have lost faith. The answer is clear: our God is in heaven and created the earth. Your gods are on earth, but they are worthless, as the seven negatives of verses 5-7 explain. God made us in his image and likeness (Gn 1:26).
We must constantly criticize the idols of ordinary people, as well as the idols of those who claim to be free of all bias. Here is a thought from the poet Paul Claudel: “Blessed are you, O my God, who freed me from all the idols and who made me adore you alone, and not Isis or Osiris, or Justice, Progress, Truth, Divinity, Humanity, the Laws of Nature, of Art, or Beauty. And who has not allowed these things to exist, things that are not, or the vacuum left by your absence? I know you are not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Lord, I have found you! The one who finds you no longer tolerates death.”
“I believe in God, though I do not see him,” a Jewish man wrote in the Warsaw ghetto. In times that are hostile to faith, it is good for us to pray with this psalm.