Psalm 115:4
◄  Psalm 115:4  ►
New International Version (©2011)
But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.

New Living Translation (©2007)
Their idols are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands.

English Standard Version (©2001)
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.

International Standard Version (©2012)
Their idols are silver and gold, crafted by human hands.

NET Bible (©2006)
Their idols are made of silver and gold--they are man-made.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)
The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of the hands of man.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Their idols are made of silver and gold. They were made by human hands.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

American King James Version
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

American Standard Version
Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men's hands.

Douay-Rheims Bible
The idols of the gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men.

Darby Bible Translation
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands:

English Revised Version
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Webster's Bible Translation
Their idols are silver and gold; the work of men's hands.

World English Bible
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Young's Literal Translation
Their idols are silver and gold, work of man's hands,

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

115:1-8 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.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 4-8. - The scorn of the heathen is retaliated. They scoff at the God of Israel. What, then, are their own gods? Silver and gold indeed (ver. 4), but the work of human hands. Fashioned into a human shape, as if they were sentient being - but absolutely devoid of all sense and intelligence. The satire is somewhat roughly worked out (vers. 5-7), but idolatry provokes rough speaking; and the tone here adopted is imitated in Psalm 135:15-18, and echoed in Isaiah 44:9-20. The inspired writers seem to have felt, that, when idolatry came under consideration, the criticism should be brief and trenchant. Verse 4. - Their idols are silver and gold. At the best - often mere wood and stone (Deuteronomy 4:28); but the idols of the Babylonians were mostly of the more precious materials (Herod., 1:183; Daniel 3:1; Ep. Jeremiah 1:4, 11, etc.). The work of men's hands (Psalm 135:15; Isaiah 44:12-17). To avoid this reproach, some images were said to have fallen down from heaven (Acts 19:35).

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Their idols are silver and gold,.... The idols of the Gentiles; so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions. The gods they serve and worship are not in the heavens; but the matter of which they are made is dug out of the earth: and this is the greatest excellency and value that there is in them; and such as are made of these are of the greatest worth, and yet only for the matter of them, otherwise useless and inanimate statues; such are the idols of the Papists, Revelation 9:20.

The work of men's hands; the matter of them is gold and silver, which they owe to the earth as their original; the form of them they owe to men, and therefore can not be God, Hosea 8:6. If it is idolatry to worship what God has made, the sun, moon, and stars, it must be gross idolatry, and great stupidity, to worship what man has made: if it is sinful to worship the creature besides the Creator, or more than him, it must be still more so to worship the creature of a creature.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4-7. (Compare Isa 40:18-20; 44:9-20).

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To Your Name Give Glory
…3But our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased. 4Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. 5They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: …

Acts 19:26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.
Revelation 9:20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
Leviticus 19:4 "'Do not turn to idols or make metal gods for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 4:28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
1 Kings 16:7 Moreover, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Jehu son of Hanani to Baasha and his house, because of all the evil he had done in the eyes of the LORD, arousing his anger by the things he did, becoming like the house of Jeroboam--and also because he destroyed it.
1 Kings 18:26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
2 Kings 19:18 They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands.
2 Chronicles 32:19 They spoke about the God of Jerusalem as they did about the gods of the other peoples of the world--the work of human hands.
Isaiah 2:8 Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.
Isaiah 37:19 They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands.
Isaiah 40:19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it.
Isaiah 44:10 Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing?