Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 115:14
The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.
14. The Lord shall increase you ] Jehovah increase you, add to your numbers (Deu 1:11), a specially appropriate prayer for the little community of the returned exiles.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
14 18. Prayers for blessing and resolves to employ life in Jehovah’s praise.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord shall increase you more and more – He will increase your numbers and your power. We may suppose that the people were greatly diminished by the captivity, and that on their return to their country their number was comparatively small. This promise of a great increase was in accordance with the cherished wishes of the Hebrew people, and with the repeated promises which God had made to their fathers. Compare Gen 15:5; Gen 22:17; Gen 32:12.
You and your children – The blessing shall be not only on you, but it shall go down to future generations,
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Shall increase you in number, notwithstanding all the attempts of your enemies to diminish and destroy you. Or, shall add to you, to wit, further and greater blessings.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Opposed to the decreasepending and during the captivity.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord shall increase you more and more,…. The Word of the Lord, as the Targum, shall do it; in a temporal sense, with a numerous posterity, with riches, wealth, and honour; and in a spiritual sense, with an addition of spiritual blessings; with renewed instances of divine layout: with an increase of the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God, as faith, hope, love, joy, patience, humility, and other graces; and with more knowledge of God and Christ, and of divine and spiritual things.
You and your children; not only they that feared the Lord of the present generation, but those that should succeed them, and be as they were, a seed to serve the Lord, and who should be accounted to him for a generation.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(14) The Lord shall increase.More literally,
Jehovah shall heap blessings on you,
On you and on your children.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. A form of blessing founded on Deu 1:11, and timely here, as the danger threatened general wasting and desolation.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 115:14. The Lord shall increase you The Lord will heap blessings upon you. Here the author turns himself to them, and assures them of the favour of him who made heaven and earth; who therefore would preserve them, and not suffer them to go down among the dead. iosep, though I have translated it generally by all blessings, seems more particularly to intend an addition of days: “The Lord shall bless you and your sons with length of days, upon this earth which he has created for you, and where you pay him the tribute of praise.” Mudge, who translates the 16th verse thus, As to heaven, heaven is the Lord’s; but the earth he giveth, &c. Or it may be read, The heavens of heavens are the Lord’s, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 115:14 The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.
Ver. 14. The Lord shall increase you ] Or, the Lord increase you ( detach tephilla, prayer wise), as the Rabbis read it.
You and your children
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
children = sons.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 115:14-18
Psa 115:14-18
INVOKING THE BLESSING OF GOD
“Jehovah increase you more and more,
You and your children.
Blessed are ye of Jehovah,
Who made heaven and earth.
The heavens are the heavens of Jehovah;
But the earth hath he given to the children of men.
The dead praise not Jehovah,
Neither any that go down into silence;
But we will bless Jehovah
From this time forth and forevermore.
Praise ye Jehovah.”
“Increase you more and more” (Psa 115:14). In the KJV, the promise here is stated as prophecy of what will be; but as Miller noted, “The rendition that expresses a prayer or a hope is better. If the psalm was written shortly after the return from captivity, this blessing would have been especially appropriate for Israel at that time.
“The dead praise not Jehovah” (Psa 115:17). A statement like this is usually the signal for writers to relate how the Hebrews had no hope of a future life; but such a view is untenable. The Jews did believe in the after-life, as affirmed in Psa 16:9-11; Psa 17:15; Psa 49:15; Psa 73:23-24 and in Isa 26:19, and in many other direct statements and allusions in the Old Testament. See our comments on all those references. “Too often this verse is made the substance of a supposed Old Testament view of death, bringing it into conflict with the evidence. J. W. Burns also observed the same truth, declaring that, “Part of this text has been quoted to support the opinion that the Old Testament saints were in the dark on the subject of immortality. The whole text here goes to prove the very opposite.
“We will bless Jehovah from this time forth and forevermore” (Psa 115:18). Briggs downgraded what is stated here to make it mean, “In all subsequent generations and ages, but that is not what the passage says. It is not “all subsequent generations: that shall praise the Lord, it is the psalmist himself and his fellow-worshippers. We will bless Jehovah … forevermore. “`Forevermore’ is a word of very frequent use; and it has but one meaning, and that meaning is Eternity.
In fact, there is a little noticed distinction made in Psa 115:17 between the “dead who praise not Jehovah” and “any that go down into silence.” The word “neither” in our text proves that two classes of people are indicated, not merely one. Since those that “go down into silence” are obviously those who die and descend into Sheol, who are the “dead” of the previous clause? It appears that they are the “dead” worshippers of the dead idols mentioned above, of whom the psalmist stated that they would be like what they worshipped. If this is correct, the people referred to are like the person whom Paul mentioned, “being dead while living” (1Ti 5:6).
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 115:14. Increase is from a word with a very general meaning. The outstanding thought is that God will continue to bless the person who is righteous.
Psa 115:15. The importance of a blessing would depend on the quality of the one bestowing it. The blessing of which David was writing comes from the Maker of heaven and earth, therefore it will be all the more important.
Psa 115:16. Heaven and heavens refer to the firmament where the birds fly, and the expanse in which the planets exist. Actually, all creation is the Lord’s, so the expression here has a special significance. It is a contrast with the last clause of the verse which declares the earth is given to the children of men, or is intended as the temporal dwelling place of man. This is not very favorable to the notion that the moon and other heavenly bodies were intended to be inhabited.
Psa 115:17. This verse and others like it are relied upon by the advocates of materialism. They are the people who teach that man is wholly mortal and all there is of him dies at the same time. This verse claims only that the dead praise not the Lord. We all believe that, for when the spirit leaves the body it results in the death of the body, and then, of course, the body cannot praise the Lord.
Psa 115:18. To bless the Lord means to acknowledge Him as the source of all blessings. Praise the Lord is from a Hebrew term sometimes rendered “Hallelujah.”
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Lord: Gen 13:16, 2Sa 24:3, Isa 2:2, Isa 2:3, Isa 27:6, Isa 19:20, Isa 19:21, Isa 56:8, Isa 60:4-22, Jer 30:19, Jer 33:22, Hos 1:10, Zec 8:20-23, Zec 10:8, Rev 7:4, Rev 7:9
you: Gen 17:7, Jer 32:38, Jer 32:39, Act 2:39, Act 3:25
Reciprocal: Num 26:22 – General Deu 1:11 – make you 2Sa 22:36 – made me great 1Ch 21:3 – The Lord Psa 132:12 – their children Psa 144:12 – as plants Psa 147:13 – blessed Pro 14:26 – fear Isa 61:9 – they are Isa 65:23 – for Mat 19:13 – brought Mar 10:14 – Suffer Act 11:14 – all Rev 11:18 – and them
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 115:14-15. The Lord shall increase you more and more In number, power, and in all temporal and spiritual blessings, notwithstanding the efforts of your many enemies to diminish, weaken, and distress you. Hebrew, , the Lord shall add to you, namely, further and greater blessings. Here the psalmist turns himself to them, and assures them of the favour of him who created, and who upholds and governs all things. You and your children The blessing bestowed on you shall descend on your children with a continual increase. There is a blessing entailed on the offspring of them that fear God, even in their infancy. Or, he shall bless you in your children, and you shall have the comfort of seeing them increasing, as in stature, so in wisdom and grace, and in favour with God and men. Ye are blessed of the Lord You and your children are so; all that see them shall acknowledge that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed, Isa 61:9. Ye are blessed of the Lord Not of an impotent idol which can do its worshippers neither good nor hurt, but of Jehovah, who made heaven and earth Whose blessings therefore are free, for he needs not any thing himself; and therefore are rich, for he hath all things at command for you, and if you fear and trust in him he will bless you indeed, in spite of all that your enemies can do against you.