Devotional Short Note to Psalm 115: There are certain techniques used by the psalmist that cluster phrases together. The casting of verses is the same so there is a parking of negative particles or prepositions or words at the same position in phrases following as soon as the linguistic item is used. What I mean by this is that there is a frame visible. Sometimes these phrases are in synonymous parallelism with just one or two items different. The items that are different are selected from a Ancient Near Eastern Thesaurus which is a synonym dictionary. Ever heard Earl Cleveland preach, or Charles Bradford, or Charles Brooks or Benjamin Reeves? Experts in homiletics (which is the art of preaching), they are. What makes listening so attractive with them is their repetition of the same phrase with noun twists in following phrases leading the listener down a corridor of total acceptance of the final principle. Skilled and extremely equipped. This is also the case with this psalmist.

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us” (115:1a).

The pleading is inviting by this repetition. It is not vain repetition. The brain is grabbed and one finds yourself on your knees instead.

Glory shall be given to the Lord, why? “Upon Your mercy, upon Your truth” (115:1c). We thought good preaching started in our times. Good morning.

“Why should the nations say: Where alas, is their God?” (115:2). Revelation is given to Israel by God through the Holy Spirit and written down by humans but the Editor is the Holy Spirit. Mercy is what it is all about since all fall short of the glory of God.

Now the confession of the psalmist follows: “Our God is in heaven, all that pleased Him, He did” (115:3).

In contrast what God did, are the deeds of man and the nations: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of the hands of humanity [adam]” (115:4).

In 115:5-8b the psalmist is describing the satire of the idols, a genre that appears a number of times also in the prophets of Israel. It is the impotence of the idols phrases in synonyms.

1. mouths are to them; and not do they speak (115:5a)

2. eyes are to them; and not do they see (115:5b)

3. ears are to them; and not do they hear (115:6a)

4. noses are to them; and not do they smell (115:6b)

5. their hands, and not do they handle (115:7a)

6. their feet, and not do they walk (115:7b)

7. not speak they in their throat (115:7c)

At this last phrase the psalmist is getting to the end of the cluster so he ended with a wisdom of uselessness making these idols: “like unto them are they who make them, all who trust in them” (115:8). Leonardo da Vinci for example painted his friends and people around him in the faces for the disciples and other biblical characters in the churches. This is how artists work. It is not necessarily that Da Vinci found a good lady and said, ‘because you are so faithful I want you to be Mary’. Sometimes these faces were people of eye-raising characters. And yet people kneel down and pray to them. One may argue that they look past the prostitute and see Mary in their mind. Cannot pray to images, even pictures of the best saints we know. If one visits Ellen White’s grave, there is no shrine over her grave or a church and her grave is in front of the pulpit. There is no difference in Battle Creek between her grave and other graves. Two friends of mine I took to her grave. They wanted to take a picture and removed all heavy things from the shoulder to give me the camera. I took the picture and when we reached Kalamazoo at a restaurant to eat, they realized that they have left their $10 000 belt-money bag on Ellen White’s grave! I drove back in high speed with praying all the way. Just in time we could snatch it from the grave since a busload of kids arrived seconds before us and they were running around the graves not noticing it. We thanked the Lord for that. Years later he became the president of one of the conferences.

“Israel, trust in the Lord, their help and shield is He” (115:9).

“House of Aaron, trust in the Lord, their help and shield is He (115:10).

“The fearing ones of the Lord, trust in the Lord, their help and shield is He (115:11).

This cluster between vv. 9-11 belonged together, no doubt. You end the repetition by also trusting God. It is an homiletical device that works.

We use to say as kids when the pastor preached like this: “He is almost finished”. Not this psalmist.

“The Lord remembers us, He will bless” (115:12a)

“He will bless the house of Israel” (115:12b)

“He will bless the house of Aaron” (115:12c)

“He will bless the fearing ones of the Lord, the small ones with the great ones” (115:13a-b)

This cluster is also rounded off between vv. 12-13b, and is a mirror of the previous cluster, a bonus of blessing if one trusts.

“The Lord increases upon you, upon you and upon your children” (115:14). The blessing is going beyond one generation.

In the following cluster, the words “heaven” and “earth” are important.

“Blessings are you to the Lord Who made heavens and the earth” (115:15).

“The heavens are the heavens to the Lord,

And the earth He gave to the sons of humanity/man [adam]” (115:16).

Then the psalmist wants to indicate the condition of the dead, how they are: “not the dead ones will praise the Lord [yah, an abbreviated form of Yahweh]” (115:17a).

“and not all that will go down silently” (115:17b).

The state of the dead is that they know nothing and say nothing. They sleep which is the biblical view of the dead. The Old Testament concept of the dead is that it is from inside and immortality is from outside. The Ancient Near Eastern religions believed that death is from outside and immortality is from inside.

“And we will bless the Lord [yah, the abbreviated form of Yahweh]”

From this time and unto eternity” (115:18a-b).

There are denominations that insists that one should not say God but Yahweh since that is the name of the Lord. Note here that we find both forms Yahweh and Yah. Is it then a matter of insisting only Yahweh to be correct and what then of Yah? If the form could be changed by three letters shorter, is it then worthwhile to be dogmatic on the four letters in Hebrew pronounced as six letters? It is already a jump away from the original to say Yahweh because the original only read YHWH. No vowels. Originally the Hebrews only wrote consonants not vowels. Vowels were added on since the tenth century AD.