Psalms 115:7 · Clearspring

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Other translations

WEBBE

They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat.

BSB

they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats.

KJV

They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

ASV

They have hands, but they handle not; Feet have they, but they walk not; Neither speak they through their throat.

BBE

They have hands without feeling, and feet without power of walking; and no sound comes from their throat.

Original Hebrew

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יְדֵיהֶם ye·dei·hem hands their H3027 וְלֹא ve·lo' and not H3808 יְמִישׁוּן ye·mi·shun they feel H4184 רַגְלֵיהֶם rag·lei·hem feet their H7272 וְלֹא ve·lo' and not H3808 יְהַלֵּכוּ ye·ha·le·khu they walk H1980 לֹא־ lo'- not H3808 יֶהְגּוּ yeh·gu they make a sound H1897 בִּגְרוֹנָם big·ro·nam with throat their H1627

The early church

"For they have mouths, and speak not: eyes have they, and see not" (ver. 5). "They have ears, and hear not: noses have they, and smell not" (ver. 6). "They have hands, and handle not; feet have they, and walk not; neither cry they through their throat" (ver. 7). Even their artist therefore surpasseth them, since he had the faculty of moulding them by the motion and functions of his limbs: though thou wouldest be ashamed to worship that artist. Even thou surpassest them, though thou hast not made these things, since thou doest what they cannot do. Even a beast doth excel them; for unto this it is added, "neither cry they through their throat." For after he had said above, "they have mouths, and speak not;" what need was there, after he had enumerated the limbs from head to feet, to repeat what he had said of their crying through their throat; unless, I suppose, because we perceive that what he mentioned of the other members, was common to men and beasts? For they see, and hear, and smell, and walk, and some, apes for instance, handle with hands. But what he had said of the mouth, is peculiar to men: since beasts do not speak. But that no one might refer what hath been said to the works of human members alone, and prefer men only to the gods of the heathen; after all this he added these words, "neither cry they through their throat:" which again is common to men and cattle. ...How much better then do mice and serpents, and other animals of like sort, judge of the idols of the heathen, so to speak, for they regard not the human figure in them when they see not the human life. For this reason they usually build nests in them, and unless they are deterred by human movements, they seek for themselves no safer habitations. A man then moveth himself, that he may frighten away a living beast from his own god; and yet worshippeth that god who cannot move himself, as if he were powerful, from whom he drove away one better than the object of his worship. ...Even the dead surpasseth a deity who neither liveth nor hath lived. ...

Augustine of Hippo · d. 430Expositions on the Psalms

Commentary

Matthew Henry · Verses 1–8

Let no opinion of our own merits have any place in our prayers or in our praises. 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 he must have all the praise. Are we in pursuit of any mercy, and wrestling with God for it, we must take encouragement in prayer from God only. Lord, do so for us; not that we may have the credit and comfort of it, but that they mercy and truth may have the glory of it. The heathen gods are senseless things. They are the works of men's hands: the painter, the carver, the statuary, can put no life into them, therefore no sense. The psalmist hence shows the folly of the worshippers of idols.

Read Matthew Henry on Psalm 115 →

Spurgeon · Verse 7

They have hands, but they handle not. Looking lower down upon the images, the Psalmist says, "They have hands, but they handle not, "they cannot receive that which is handed to them, they cannot grasp the sceptre of power or the sword of vengeance, they can neither distribute benefits nor dispense judgments, and the most trifling act they are utterly unable to perform. An infant's hand excels them in power. Feet have they, but they walk not. They must be lifted into their places or they would never reach their shrines; they must be fastened in their shrines or they would fall; they must be carried or they could never move; they cannot come to the rescue of their friends, nor escape the iconoclasm of their foes. The meanest insect has more power of locomotion than the greatest heathen god. Neither speak they through their throats. They cannot even reach so far as the guttural noise of the lowest order of beasts; neither a grunt, nor a growl, nor a groan, nor so much as a mutter, can come from them. Their priests asserted that the images of the gods upon special occasions uttered hollow sounds, but it was a mere pretence, or a crafty artifice: images of gold or silver are incapable of living sounds. Thus has the Psalmist surveyed the idol from head to foot, looked in its face, and sounded its throat, and he writes it down as utterly contemptible.

Read Spurgeon on Psalm 115 →

Cross-references

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