Bible Strands
Psalms 96:5
For all the gods of the nations are idols, but it is the LORD who made the heavens.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the nations and all peoples, contrasting their fabricated deities with the Creator God in a call to exclusive worship.
The words — אֱלִילִים (elilim) translates literally to "worthless idols" or "nothingness," and עָשָׂה (asah) means "he made."
The thread — The Creator contrast appears in Psalms 115:15 and Isaiah 42:5, both identifying God as the Maker of heaven and earth. Paul echoes the exclusion of foreign deities in 1 Corinthians 8:4 by stating idols are nothing and only one God exists.
Why it lands — The text demands a clear distinction between fabricated objects and the sole Creator, requiring readers to abandon polytheistic assumptions and acknowledge Yahweh as the only legitimate object of worship.
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
For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens.
Cross-references
- Psalms 115:15 May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
- Isaiah 42:5 This is what God the LORD says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and life to those who walk in it:
- 1 Corinthians 8:4 So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.
- Psalms 135:18 Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
- 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.
- Jeremiah 10:11 Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.”
- Jeremiah 10:14 Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.
- Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
- Psalms 115:3 Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.
- Psalms 135:15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.