John Calvin Commentary Psalms 115

Not unto us, O Jehovah! It is not certain by whom, or at what time, this psalm was composed. We learn from the first part of it that the faithful turn to God in circumstances of extreme distress. They do not make known their desires in plain words but indirectly hint at the nature of their request.

They openly disclaim all merit and all hope of obtaining deliverance other than God acting from a sole regard to his own glory, for these things are inseparably connected. Deserving, therefore, to meet with rejection, they yet beseech God not to expose his name to the derision of the heathen.

In their distress they desire to obtain consolation and support. However, finding nothing in themselves meritorious of God’s favor, they call upon him to grant their requests so that his glory may be maintained.

We should carefully consider this point: even though we are altogether unworthy of God’s regard, we may still cherish the hope of being saved by him. This hope arises because he respects the glory of his own name and because he adopted us on the condition that he would never forsake us.

It should also be noted that their humility and modesty prevent them from openly complaining about their distresses. They do not begin with a request for their own deliverance, but for the glory of God.

Suffused with shame because of their calamity—which in itself amounts to a kind of rejection—they dared not openly seek from God what they wished. Instead, they appealed indirectly, so that from a regard for his own glory, he would prove to be a father to sinners who had no claim upon him whatsoever.

And, as this pattern of prayer has been delivered to the Church, let us also, in all our approaches to God, remember to lay aside all self-righteousness and to place our hopes entirely on his free favor. Moreover, when we pray for help, we should have the glory of God in view in the deliverance we obtain.

It is most likely they adopted this form of prayer, being led to do so by the promise. For, during the captivity, God had said, “Not for your sake, but for mine own sake will I do this,” (Isaiah 48:11).

When all other hopes fail, they acknowledge this to be their only refuge. The repetition of it is an evidence of how conscious they were of their own demerit, so that, if their prayers were to be rejected a hundred times, they could not, in their own name, bring any charge against him.

Why should the heathen say, Where is now their God? They here express how God would maintain His glory in the preservation of the Church. If He permitted the Church to be destroyed, His name would be exposed to the wicked taunts of unbelievers, who would blaspheme the God of Israel as being powerless, because He abandoned His servants in their time of need.

This is not done from the conviction that God requires any such argument, but rather so that the faithful may direct their thoughts back to that holy zeal contained in the words to which we have previously referred: The railings of those that railed against thee have fallen upon me (Psalms 69:10).

And this is the reason for not resorting to rhetorical flourishes to persuade Him to exert His power to preserve the Church; they simply declare that their anxiety for their own safety does not prevent them from valuing the glory of God, as indeed it deserves to be valued more highly.

They go on to show how God’s glory was connected with their deliverance. They declare that He was the Author of the covenant, which the ungodly had boasted was abolished and annulled; and these same individuals had consequently declared that God’s grace was thwarted and His promises were empty.

This is the basis on which they remind Him of His favor and faithfulness, both of which would be subject to malicious slanders if He were to disappoint the hopes of His people. He was bound to them by an everlasting covenant and, in the exercise of His free mercy, had bestowed upon them the privilege of adoption.

And since God, by making us also sharers in His Gospel, has condescended to graft us into the body of His Son, we ought to publicly acknowledge this.

Surely our God is in heaven. The faithful, with holy boldness, encourage themselves all the more to prayer. We know our prayers are worthless when we are agitated with doubts. If that blasphemy had penetrated their hearts, it would have inflicted a mortal wound. And for this reason, they very opportunely guard against it by discontinuing their stream of supplications.

Later on, we will consider the second clause of this verse in its proper place, where they scoff at the idols and profane superstitions of the heathen. But for now, every word in this clause demands our careful inspection. When they place God in heaven, they do not confine Him to a certain locality, nor set limits to His infinite essence; but they deny the limitation of His power, its being restricted to human agency alone, or its being subject to fate or fortune.

In short, they put the universe under His control; and, being superior to every obstruction, He freely does everything that may seem good to Him. This truth is still more plainly asserted in the subsequent clause: He hath done whatsoever pleased him. God, then, may be said to dwell in heaven, as the world is subject to His will, and nothing can prevent Him from accomplishing His purpose.

That God can do whatever He pleases is a doctrine of great importance, provided it is truly and legitimately applied. This caution is necessary because inquisitive and presumptuous persons, as is usual with them, take the liberty of abusing a sound doctrine by using it in defense of their frantic reveries.

And in this matter, we daily witness too much of the wildness of human ingenuity. This mystery, which ought to command our admiration and awe, is by many shamelessly and irreverently made a topic of idle talk. If we are to derive benefit from this doctrine, we must pay attention to the meaning of God’s doing whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth.

And, first, God has all power for the preservation of His Church and for providing for her welfare; secondly, all creatures are under His control, and therefore nothing can prevent Him from accomplishing all His purposes.

Therefore, however much the faithful may find themselves cut off from all means of subsistence and safety, they ought nevertheless to take courage from the fact that God is not only superior to all impediments, but that He can also make them serve the advancement of His own designs.

This, too, must also be kept in mind: that all events are the result of God’s appointment alone, and that nothing happens by chance.

It was appropriate to state these preliminary points regarding the use of this doctrine, so that we may be prevented from forming unworthy conceptions of the glory of God, as those with wild imaginations are accustomed to do.

Adopting this principle, we ought not to be ashamed to frankly acknowledge that God, by His eternal counsel, manages all things in such a way that nothing can be done except by His will and appointment.

From this passage, Augustine very properly and ingeniously shows that those events which appear to us unreasonable occur not merely by the permission of God, but also by His will and decree. For if our God does whatever pleases Him, why should He permit that to be done which He does not wish?

Why does He not restrain the devil and all the wicked who set themselves in opposition to Him? If He is regarded as occupying an intermediate position between acting and allowing, so as to tolerate what He does not wish, then, according to the fancy of the Epicureans, He will remain unconcerned in the heavens.

But if we admit that God is invested with prescience, that He superintends and governs the world which He has made, and that He does not overlook any part of it, it must follow that everything that takes place is done according to His will. Those who speak as if this would render God the author of evil are perverse disputants.

Filthy dogs though they are, yet they will not, by their barking, be able to substantiate a charge of lying against the prophet, or to take the government of the world out of God’s hand. If nothing occurs except by the counsel and determination of God, He apparently does not disallow sin; He has, however, secret and to us unknown reasons why He permits what perverse men do, and yet this is not done because He approves of their wicked inclinations.

It was the will of God that Jerusalem should be destroyed; the Chaldeans also wished the same thing, but in a different manner. And though He frequently calls the Babylonians His paid soldiers and says that they were stirred up by Him (Isaiah 5:26), and further, that they were the sword of His own hand, yet we would not therefore call them His allies, since their objective was very different.

In the destruction of Jerusalem, God’s justice would be displayed, while the Chaldeans would be justly censured for their lust, covetousness, and cruelty. Therefore, whatever takes place in the world is according to the will of God, and yet it is not His will that any evil should be done.

For however incomprehensible His counsel may be to us, it is still always based upon the best of reasons. When we are satisfied with His will alone, and fully persuaded that, notwithstanding the great depth of His judgments (Psalms 36:6), they are characterized by the most perfect righteousness, this very ignorance on our part will be far more learned than all the acumen of those who presume to make their own capacity the standard by which to measure His works.

On the other hand, it should be noted that if God does whatever He pleases, then it is not His pleasure to do what is not done. The knowledge of this truth is of great importance, because it frequently happens, when God seems to overlook and remain silent during the afflictions of the Church, that we ask why He permits her to languish, since it is in His power to give her assistance.

Avarice, fraud, perfidy, cruelty, ambition, pride, sensuality, drunkenness, and, in short, every species of corruption in these times is rampant in the world, all of which would instantly cease if it seemed good to God to apply the remedy. Therefore, if He at any time appears to us to be asleep, or seems not to have the means of helping us, let this lead us to wait patiently and teach us that it is not His pleasure to act so speedily as our deliverer, because He knows that delay and postponement are profitable for us; it being His will to overlook and tolerate for a while what, assuredly, if it were His pleasure, He could instantly rectify.

Their idols This contrast is introduced to confirm the faith of the godly, by which they rely upon God alone; because, apart from him, all that human minds imagine of divinity is the invention of folly and delusion. To know the error and the madness of the world certainly contributes significantly to the confirmation of true godliness; at the same time, a God is presented to us whom we know assuredly to be the maker of heaven and earth, and whom we are to worship, not without reason or at random.

To more effectively silence the arrogance of the ungodly, who proudly presume to treat God and his chosen people as nothing, he contemptuously ridicules their false gods. First, he calls them idols—that is to say, things of nothing—and next, by showing from their being formed of inanimate materials, he demonstrates that they are lacking life and feeling.

For can there be anything more absurd than to expect assistance from them, since neither the materials from which they are formed, nor the form given to them by human hands, possess the smallest amount of divinity that would command respect for them? At the same time, the prophet implies that the value of the material does not give the idols more excellence, making them deserve to be more highly esteemed.

Hence, the passage may be translated adversatively, as follows: Though they are of gold and silver, yet they are not gods, because they are the work of human hands. If his intention had been merely to devalue the substance of which they were composed, he would rather have called them wood and stone; but in this instance, he speaks only of gold and silver.

Meanwhile, the prophet reminds us that nothing is more unfitting than for humans to claim they can impart essence, form, or honor to a god, since they themselves depend on another for that life which will soon disappear. From this it follows that the pagans boast in vain of receiving help from gods of their own making.

From where does idolatry originate, if not from the imaginations of humans? Having an abundance of materials available, they can make from their gold or silver not only a goblet or some other kind of vessel, but also vessels for more ordinary purposes; yet they prefer making a god.

And what can be more absurd than to convert a lifeless mass into some new deity? Besides, the prophet satirically adds that while the pagans fashion limbs for their idols, they cannot enable them to move or use them. For this reason, the faithful find their privilege all the more valuable, because the only true God is on their side, and because they are well assured that all the pagans boast in vain of the aid they expect from their idols, which are nothing but shadows.

This doctrine, however, should be understood more broadly. From it we learn, generally, that it is foolish to seek God through outward images, which have no resemblance or relation to his celestial glory. We must still adhere to this principle; otherwise, it would be easy for the pagans to complain that they were unjustly condemned because, though they make idols for themselves on earth, they still believed that God is in heaven.

They did not imagine that Jupiter was composed of stone, gold, or earth, but that he was merely represented by these likenesses. What was the origin of this form of address common among the ancient Romans, “To make supplication before the gods,” if not because they believed the images to be, as it were, the representations of the gods?

Cicero says, “The Sicilians have no gods before whom they can present their supplications.” He would not have spoken in this crude style if the notion had not been prevalent that the figures of the heavenly deities were represented to them in brass, silver, or marble.

Holding to the notion that in approaching these images the gods were nearer to them, the prophet justly exposes this ridiculous fancy: that they would enclose the Deity within corruptible representations. Nothing is more foreign to the nature of God than to dwell under stone, a piece of marble, wood, and a tree trunk, or brass, or silver.

For this reason, the prophet Habakkuk designates that crude mode of worshipping God as the school of falsehood (Habakkuk 2:18).

Moreover, the scornful manner in which he speaks of their gods deserves to be noticed: they have a mouth, but they do not speak. For why do we turn to God, if not from the conviction that we depend on him for life, that our safety is in him, and that the abundance of all good things and the power to help us are with him?

Since these images are senseless and motionless, what can be more absurd than to ask from them what they themselves are lacking?

Those who make them shall be like them. Many are of the opinion that this is a curse, and therefore translate the future tense in the optative mood, may they become like them. However, it would be equally appropriate to regard it as the language of ridicule, as if the prophet affirms that the idolaters are as stupid as the stocks and stones themselves.

And he deservedly and severely reprimands people naturally endowed with understanding, because they strip themselves of reason and judgment, and even of common sense. For do not those who ask for life from lifeless things endeavor with all their might to extinguish all the light of reason?

In short, if they possessed even a particle of common sense, they would not attribute the properties of deity to the works of their own hands, to which they could impart no sensation or motion. And surely this consideration alone should suffice to remove the plea of ignorance: that they make false gods for themselves in opposition to the plain dictates of natural reason.

As a legitimate consequence of this, they are willfully blind, envelop themselves in darkness, and become stupid; and this makes them completely inexcusable, so that they cannot pretend that their error is the result of pious zeal. And I have no doubt that it was the prophet’s intention to remove every cause and semblance of ignorance, since humankind spontaneously becomes stupid.

Whoever trusts in them. The reason God holds images in such abhorrence appears very plainly from this: He cannot endure that the worship due to Him should be taken from Him and given to them. That the world should acknowledge Him as the sole author of salvation, and should ask for and expect from Him alone all that is needed, is an honor that uniquely belongs to Him.

And therefore, whenever confidence is placed in any other than in Him, He is deprived of the worship that is due to Him, and His majesty is, as it were, annihilated. The prophet denounces this profanity, just as in many passages the indignation of God is compared to jealousy, when He sees idols and false gods receiving the homage of which He has been deprived (Exodus 34:14; Deuteronomy 5:9). If someone carves an image of marble, wood, or brass, or casts one of gold or silver, this in itself would not be such a detestable thing; but when people attempt to attach God to their inventions, and to make Him, as it were, descend from heaven, then a pure fiction is substituted in His place.

It is very true that God’s glory is instantly counterfeited when it is clothed in a corruptible form (as He exclaims through Isaiah 40:25 and 46:5, To whom have you likened Me? and the Scripture abounds with such texts); nevertheless, He is doubly injured when His truth, grace, and power are imagined to be concentrated in idols.

Making idols and then confiding in them are things that are almost inseparable. Otherwise, why else does the world so strongly desire gods of stone, wood, clay, or any earthly material, if not because they believe that God is far from them, until they hold Him fixed to them by some bond?

Averse to seeking God in a spiritual manner, they therefore pull Him down from His throne and place Him under inanimate things. Thus it happens that they address their prayers to images, because they imagine that in idols God’s ears, as well as His eyes and hands, are near them.

I have observed that these two vices can hardly be separated, namely, that those who, in forging idols, change the truth of God into a lie, must also ascribe some divinity to them. When the prophet says that unbelievers put their trust in idols, his purpose, as I previously noted, was to condemn this as the chief and most detestable act of profanity.