Psalms · 18 verses
Psalms 115
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
The idols fail at the final indignity: after mouths, eyes, ears, noses, hands, and feet, they cannot even clear their throats.
A catalogue of divine incapacityvv. 1–8
The song begins by refusing glory for its singers and giving it to the LORD, whose whereabouts prompt the nations’ question. The answer is brisk: God is in heaven and does as He pleases. Then comes the splendidly methodical inventory of idols—silver and gold, handmade, equipped with every obvious bodily feature and useful for none of them. Their makers fare no better, becoming like the mute things they made; the workshop has evidently produced a rather alarming resemblance.
Three calls to trustvv. 9–16
The address turns from the idols to three groups: Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the LORD. Each is told to trust in the LORD, who is called their help and shield. Blessing then spreads outward—to Israel, to Aaron’s house, and to the small and great alike—before reaching children and the whole earth, while the highest heavens remain the LORD’s.
Praise belongs to the livingvv. 17–18
The final turn is oddly practical. The dead and those descending into silence are not the singers here; praise belongs to the living, now and forevermore. The song ends with a hallelujah, having left the matter in the hands—and voices—of those still present.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Ps 115:1Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your name be the glory, because of Your loving devotion, because of Your faithfulness.
Ps 115:2Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Ps 115:3Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.
Ps 115:4Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Ps 115:5They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;
Ps 115:6they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell;
Ps 115:7they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats.
Ps 115:8Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
Ps 115:9O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield.
Ps 115:10O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield.
Ps 115:11You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD! He is their help and shield.
Ps 115:12The LORD is mindful of us; He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron;
Ps 115:13He will bless those who fear the LORD—small and great alike.
Ps 115:14May the LORD give you increase, both you and your children.
Ps 115:15May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Ps 115:16The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth He has given to mankind.
Ps 115:17It is not the dead who praise the LORD, nor any who descend into silence.
Ps 115:18But it is we who will bless the LORD, both now and forevermore. Hallelujah!
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 166 passages were voted onto 16 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 3Psalms 135:6The LORD does all that pleases Him in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and in all their depths.
- 16Psalms 8:6You made him ruler of the works of Your hands; You have placed everything under his feet:
- 3Daniel 4:35All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”
- 3Isaiah 46:10I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’
- 16Psalms 89:11The heavens are Yours, and also the earth. The earth and its fullness You founded.
- 16Genesis 1:28–30God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
- 16Jeremiah 27:5–6By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.
- 3Ephesians 1:11In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,
- 1Psalms 79:9–10Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; deliver us and atone for our sins, for the sake of Your name.
- 1Isaiah 48:11For My own sake, My very own sake, I will act; for how can I let Myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another.
- 3Psalms 103:19The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.
- 14Deuteronomy 1:11May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times over and bless you as He has promised.
- 12Psalms 136:23He remembered us in our low estate His loving devotion endures forever.
- 12Ephesians 1:3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.
- 17Psalms 6:5For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?
- 4Deuteronomy 4:28And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
Onward