Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 115
The Hundred and Fifteenth Psalm.
The hundred and fifteenth (by the Lxxii. and Syriack and Latine and Arabick and Aethiopick†So also the Jewish Arab, who having begun the former Psalm with [even as, O Lord, thou diddest when Israel went out of Aegypt &c. begins this with foreign even so, O Lord, thou dost not, or do thou not to us what we deserve but to thy name &c. So Kimchi notes it of some copies. annexed to the former, but distinguisht in the Hebrew and Chaldee) is a rendring of all glory to the true and onelyonly God in opposition to all Idol-Deities, and a calling upon all sorts of men to place their whole affiance and trust in him.
1. NOta. unto us, O Lord, not unto us,Tis not with us, O Lord, not with us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truths sake.
O Lord, we sinfull and vile men are most unable in the least degree to glorify thee, we are most unworthy of the least of all thy goodness, abundantly reached out unto us; no strength of ours hath contributed in the least to our felicities, no merit or desert of ours hath brought them down from thee by way of due or challenge: thine holy blessed and most glorious name, that hath wrought all in us and for us, must in all reason have the intire honour and praise of all; there being no other motive or impellent to excite or invite thy mercies but thine own meer grace and favour, and thy fidelity and immutable constancy to thy Covenant and promises freely made to us, which thou wilt never faile to performe.
2. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?
The heathen Idolaters round about us have not sped so well in their machinations or attempts against us, as to have any temptation to reproach us of the God we worship, that he is either unable or unwilling to help us.
3. But our God is in the heavens, he hath done whatsoever he pleased.
Though the God we worship be not here in any visible shape among us, as their Idols are, his court of residence, his palace and throne being in the highest heavens; yet hereby is he not so removed from us, but that he hath been allwayes able to performe whatsoever he hath pleased, as readily and effectually as if he had been allwayes bodily present among us.
4. Theirb. idols are silver and gold, the work of mens hands.
5. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not;
6. They have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not;
7. They have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not, neitherc. ‖breath, or murmure,speak they through their throats.
8. They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them.
Whereas the gods falsly so called, which the heathens worship, and from whom they expect relief and assistance, are nothing but so many liveless images of wood, stone, or metall, conceived by them to be inspirited by the false deities to whose names they are consecrated, but have really not the least degree of sense or life in them: The materials whereof they are made are perfectly inanimate, and the artificers carving on them mouths, and eyes, and ears, and noses, and hands, and feet, and throats, is not at all available to give them the use or first faculty of language, or sight, or any other sense, or so much as of breath. And then they that can carve and work them to this end, specially those that can offer their prayers, repose their confidences in such inanimate statues, are certainly, as to any regular use of their faculties, as senseless, as irrational as any of them, act as contrary to all reasonable or animal rules, as meer images would doe, if they were supposable to doe any thing.
9. O Israel,d. trust thou in the Lord; he is their help and their shield.
Whilst those, the best gods that other nations acknowledge, are thus perfectly impotent, the God of Israel is a God of goodness and of power, as able as willing to relieve them that trust in him. O let all that are admitted to the honour of being own'd as his people, confidently rely and repose their trust in him.
10. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord; he is their help and their shield.
And above all, those especially that draw nigh to him, wait on his altar, officiate in his divine service, are in peculiar manner obliged to offer up their prayers, and repose their affiance in him, who hath promised to be present and assistent to them, as those which are his proxyes and commissioners upon earth, to intercede betwixt God and man in things belonging to God.
11. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; he is their help and their shield.
And the same is the duty, or rather priviledge, of all faithfull servants of God, to repose their whole trust in him, as one that will be sure never to fail them nor forsake them.
12. The Lord hath been mindfull of us, he will bless us; he will blesse the house of Israel, he will blesse the house of Aaron.
Of this we have had many experiences in the several acts of his power and mercy toward us, and each of those is a pawn and ingagement to secure us of the continuance of the like both to our Church and State, Temple and people, whensoever we have need of it.
13. He will blesse them that fear the Lord, †the small with the— foreignboth small and great.
And the same will he not faile to doe to all true servants of his, of what condition soever they are in this world; the greatest Prince shall not have any priviledge herein above the meanest peasant.
14. The Lord shall increase*upon you, upon you, and foreign you more and more, you and your children.
And the same blessings which he bestoweth on such, he will continue and intaile upon their posterity.
15. Ye are the blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth.
This is a prerogative indeed, wherein the pious man infinitely exceeds and surpasses all other men in the world, that he and his family, and all that come from him, are the peculiar province and care of the Creator of all the world; and what blessing is there that they may not confidently expect and depend on by that tenure?
16. ‖heavens of heavens foreignThe heavens, even the heavens are the Lords; but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
The highest heavens hath God provided for his own palace and court of residence; but the other part of the Universe, the inferior globe of earth and aire and sea, hath he given to man, to have the dominion and use of the creatures that are therein.
17. The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that goe down into silence.
18. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore. Praise the Lord.
And to this vast bounty of his what praises and acknowledgments of ours can ever bear any proportion? The most we can doe in discharge of this duty is, to blesse and serve him constantly whilst we live here; and when we are gone off from this scene where this service is performed to him, and our bodies laid in their graves, where there is nothing but silence, no power or opportunities of serving or magnifying God any longer, to leave it as a legacy to our posterity through all successions unto the end of the world, that they may supply our delects, and sing continual Hosanna's and Hallelujahs to him for ever.
Annotations on Psalm CXV.
V. 1. Not unto us] foreign foreignis literally to be rendred not with us, in the notion wherein that is said to be with us which we have, or is in our power: as foreign Psal. Lxxiii. 25. who is with me? or, whom have I in heaven? and Gen. xxxiii. 9. foreign enough with me, or I have enough.
V. 4. Idols] The Hebrew foreign foreignsignifies literally grievances; and 'tis usually observed that the Jews imposed names of ill omen on the heathen Deities: so the feasts dedicated to them in their idiome are proportionably foreign mourning, foreign fear, and foreign contrition. But the word foreign which signifies to be sad and anxious, signifies also by Metonymy, to forme or frame any thing very diligently (applied to Gods framing of us, Job x. 8. and to enemies distorting and depraving others words, Psal. Lvi. 5.) And in that notion of it also may be deduced foreign here, the simulacra, idols or Images of the Gentiles, which being consecrated by their Priests, and thereby thought to be animated by those whose images they are, thenceforth are worshipped as Gods. So when 2 Sam. v. 21. we read that the Philistims left there foreign their images, 1 Chron. xiv. 12. it is foreign their Gods. So S. Augustine De Civit. Dei l. viii. c. 23. tells us of the Theology of the heathens, received from Trismegistus, that the simulachra or statues were the bodies of their Gods, which by some magical ceremonies or foreign were forced to joyne themselves as souls, and so animate and inliven those dead organs, to assume and inhabite them. So saith Minutius, Isli impuri spiritus sub statuis & imaginibus consecratis delitescunt, those impure spirits lie hid under the consecrated statues or images; and again, rapiunt ad se daemonia & omnem spiritum immundum per consecrationis obligamentum, they catch and force to them the devils, and every unclean spirit, by the band of consecration (the spirits are supposed to be annext and bound to them by their magical rites and ceremonies.) So Arnobius cont. Gent. l. vi. Eos ipsos in his (signis) colitis, quos dedicatio infert sacra, & fabrilibus efficit inhabitare simulacris, the heathens in the images worship those which the dedication or consecration brings into them, and causes to dwell in their graven images. And so Proclus de Sacrif. & Mag. mentions it as their common opinion, that the Gods were by their favour and help present in their images. And therefore the Tyrians fearing that Apollo would forsake them, bound his image with golden chains, supposing then the God could not depart from them. The like did the Athenians imagine, when they clipt the wings of the image of Victory; and the Sicilians in Cicero de Divin. who complain that they had no Gods in their Island, because Verres had taken away all their statues: and so we know Laban, when he had lost his Teraphim, tells Jacob Gen. xxxi. 30. that he had stolln foreign his Gods. And so of the Golden calfe, after the feasts of consecration, proclamation is made before it, These be thy Gods, O Israel. But this of the animation and inspiriting of images by their rites of consecration being but a deception and fiction of their Priests, the Psalmist here discovers it, and assures all men, that they are as inanimate and senseless after the consecration as before, bare silver and gold, with images of mouths and ears &c. but without any power to use any of them, and consequently most unable to hear, or help their votaries.
V. 7. Speak they] What foreign foreignhere signifies, will be concluded by the context, which immediately before had mentioned their having mouths and not speaking. Here therefore (as there the proper action of the mouth was speech) the proper action of the throat or larynx seems to be intended, and that is to breath. So when Psal. xc. 9. he saith, we consume our dayes foreign, the Targum reads foreign as a vapour, i. e. breath of the mouth in winter. If it be not this, then sure 'tis an inarticulate sound, contradistinct from speaking. So Kimchi and Aben Ezra state it, and quote Isai. xxxviii. 14. where the word is applied to the murmuring of the dove.
V. 9. Trust thou] For foreign foreignin the imperative, trust thou, the Lxxii. appear to have read foreign in the praeter tense, and so render it foreign hath hoped, and so in v. 9, & 10. And so the Syriack foreign they of the house of Israel trust. And if that were the true reading, the sense would well accord, in opposition to what went before, The idol-worshippers, that hope in their gods, are most senseless persons, lose all their prayers that are poured out to them, receive no aid or relief from them; but the house of Israel trust in the Lord of heaven, make their addresses to him, and they receive the benefit of their trusts and prayers, foreign he is their help and their shield, he actually defends and assists them, when they thus depend on him. But the Hebrew reading is to be adhered to, and the sense is the same either way. The Jewish Arab altering the signification from the imperative, paraphraseth, and as the house of Israel hath trusted in the Lord, because he &c. v. 12. so the Lord will be mindeful of us, and will bless us &c.