Bible Strands
Psalms 115:4
Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses Israel and the surrounding nations, contrasting Yahweh’s sovereign activity in heaven with the inert objects people worship. This declaration occurs within a corporate liturgy that establishes divine authority immediately before detailing the physical limitations of rival deities.
The words — The Hebrew phrase מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵי אָדָם (ma'aseh yedei adam) literally translates to "the work of the hands of humankind." This phrasing explicitly identifies the material composition and human origin of the objects being described.
The thread — The text repeats the pattern of fabricated idols in Deuteronomy 4:28, Isaiah 46:6, and Jeremiah 10:3, where crafted objects are consistently noted for their lack of sensory or functional capacity. The repeated citation of these passages establishes a consistent biblical definition of idolatry as human labor misapplied to divine claims.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to separate the agent who acts from the artifact that receives worship. It demands the recognition that attributing divine power to silver and gold confuses human craftsmanship with sovereign action.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 4:28 And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
- Isaiah 46:6 They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship.
- Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
- Isaiah 40:19 To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains?
- Habakkuk 2:18 What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
- Isaiah 44:10 Who fashions a god or casts an idol which profits him nothing?
- Isaiah 46:1 Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
- Psalms 135:15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
- Isaiah 37:19 They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.
- Acts 19:26 And you can see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in nearly the whole province of Asia, this Paul has persuaded a great number of people to turn away. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all.