1151 Not for our sake, God, no, not for our sake, but for your name's sake, show your glory. Do it on account of your merciful love, do it on account of your faithful ways. 2 Do it so none of the nations can say, "Where now, oh where is their God?" 3 Our God is in heaven doing whatever he wants to do. 4 Their gods are metal and wood, handmade in a basement shop: 5 Carved mouths that can't talk, painted eyes that can't see, 6 Tin ears that can't hear, molded noses that can't smell, 7 Hands that can't grasp, feet that can't walk or run, throats that never utter a sound. 8 Those who make them have become just like them, have become just like the gods they trust.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 115:1-8
Commentary on Psalm 115:1-8
(Read Psalm 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.