Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 115:15
Ye [are] blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.
15. The prayer is still continued, Blessed be ye of Jehovah. The designation Maker of heaven and earth is characteristic of the later Psalms (Psa 121:2; Psa 124:8; Psa 134:3; Psa 146:6). It contrasts Jehovah the omnipotent Creator with the powerless idols of the heathen (Jer 10:11; and often in Isaiah 40-66). Here it also implies that He has the power to dispense the blessings of earth. Cp. also Isa 37:16; Psa 96:5; Neh 9:6.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ye are blessed of the Lord – Blessed in your present comforts and mercies; blessed in his promises in regard to the time to come; blessed in the prospects which are before you.
Which made heaven and earth – The true God; the great Creator of all things. It was not the blessing of a creature – man or angel – it was the blessing of the living God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 115:15
Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth.
The Lord blessing His saints
I. A blessing belonging to a peculiar people,
1. A people whom God has blessed because He willed to do so.
2. A people to whom this first will of God to bless them has been certified by countless acts of indisputable love. Gethsemane and Calvary speak volumes concerning the reality of the blessings which God has given to His chosen, for there they were loved to the death and redeemed by blood. An incarnate God, a Mediator covered with bloody sweat, a Redeemer wounded and slain,–What say you to this?
3. The people to whom this blessing comes are, after their conversion, known by their character. They fear the Lord.
4. It is very sweet to notice that this benediction is common to all Godfearing persons,–both small and great; and the small are put first, lest they should think they are forgotten.
II. A blessing from a peculiar quarter. Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth.
1. This is a blessing from one peculiarly related to us, and therefore it is the more to be prized. All other blessings are only blessings in proportion as they contain the essence of this blessing; Gods blessing is the sea, and others are but drops; that is the sun, and others are but sparks.
2. This blessing comes not from an idol-god. The psalm leads us to make that observation. The gods of the heathen had mouths, but they spake not; ears, but they heard not: any benediction from them would be a mockery: but the children of God are not blessed of Baal or Ashtaroth, but of Jehovah, the self-existent Lord of all!
3. This benediction comes from the omnipotent Creator, who made heaven and earth. This intimates that the blessing is almighty in power. Have I the blessing of Him who said, Let there be light, and there was light? Then He can speak into my darkness, and cheer the gloom of my despair. Does the blessing of Him who brought order out of chaos rest upon me? then He can speak to the confusion of my circumstances, and the turmoil of my desponding mind, and charm all things into harmony. The blessing of Him who clothed the earth with beauty, piled the hills, and digged the channels of the sea, must have in it a fulness unrivalled.
4. It is a blessing from the All-wise One who made heaven and earth. His infallible counsels shall conduct thine affairs to a blessed issue.
III. A benediction with a peculiar date. Ye are the blessed, etc. This verb is in the present tense, and, indeed, it may be said to be in all the tenses put together, in a tense that is not a tense, a time that hath no time, but lasteth on evermore, till time shall be no more.
1. This blessing embraces all circumstances. You are laid low and pining away with consumption, but You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. You are smitten down in the very heyday of your usefulness, and laid aside, but You are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. Oh, that your faith may lay hold of this when you are very sorely exercised, for happy is the man whom God correcteth, and blessed is the man whom thou chastenst, O Lord!
2. Our text reaches to all time and beyond all time, because it runs thus: Ye are blessed of the Lord that made heaven and earth. While I am on earth, this shall console me: I am blessed of the Lord that made the earth; and He Himself has said of His servants, Blessed shalt thou be in the city, etc. When I have to go out of this earth into another world, this shall console me: I am blessed of the Lord that made heaven. I shall still dwell in a place which my Father made. I am not going into a foreign country when I leave the warm precincts of this house of clay. I shall emigrate to the country where flowers never fade, and winter never chills.
IV. A blessing with a peculiar certainty. Scripture does not lie, or utter perhapses and ifs and buts. Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. Oh, ye that fear God, this is a matter of fact, ye daily and continually abide under a true and real blessing. Some blessings are vain words: the utterer is a hypocrite. Other blessings are sincere, but the person pronouncing them has no power to fulfil them. Such blessings are wells without water, or barren fig trees bearing leaves but no fruit. The Lord blesses not in word only, but in deed; not in futile wishes, but in omnipotent acts. We may fail to obtain the benedictions which our friends invoke upon us, but Gods blessings are sure to all the seed.
V. This blessing involves a peculiar duty, for, if God has blessed us, the succeeding duty is that we should bless Him (verse 18). Praise Him from this time forth. If the past has been marred by any other talk, now from this time bless the Lord. Wash thy mouth of all complaining, take the cup of gratitude to sweeten thy soul, and bless His name from this time forth. What, dumb till now? An heir of heaven speechless? May a sight of Gods blessing open thy mouth. From this time forth begin to bless Him. Then the psalmist resolves to praise the Lord for evermore. Our adoration of God is never to cease. As long as there is breath in our body let us praise Him who gives it to us. Dum spiro spero, said the heathen, While I breathe, I hope. But the Christian says, Dum expire spero, When I die, I will still hope in God. While we exist we will adore. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Who therefore can bless you indeed in spite of all your enemies curses and oppositions; and not of an impotent idol, that can do you neither good nor hurt.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15-17. They were not only God’speculiar people, but as living inhabitants of earth, assigned thework of His praise as monuments of divine power, wisdom, andgoodness.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
You are blessed of the Lord,…. The Arabic version reads it, “we are blessed”; with temporal and with spiritual blessings; being the beloved of the Lord, chosen of him; whose sins are pardoned, whose persons are justified by the righteousness of Christ; who are put among the children of God, and are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; regenerated by his Spirit, favoured with communion with God, and wrought up to some degree of conformity to Christ, and shall ever be with him.
Which made heaven and earth; and so able to bless with all kind of blessings, both heavenly and earthly; and from whom all help and assistance may be hoped for, and who may be trusted and confided in: and this, it may be, is observed to distinguish him from the idols of the Gentiles, who made not the heavens and the earth; and who are not able to bless, nor give the least relief to any of their votaries.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The voice of consolation is continued in Psa 115:15, but it becomes the voice of hope by being blended with the newly strengthened believing tone of the congregation. Jahve is here called the Creator of heaven and earth because the worth and magnitude of His blessing are measured thereby. He has reserved the heavens to Himself, but given the earth to men. This separation of heaven and earth is a fundamental characteristic of the post-diluvian history. The throne of God is in the heavens, and the promise, which is given to the patriarchs on behalf of all mankind, does not refer to heaven, but to the possession of the earth (Psa 37:22). The promise is as yet limited to this present world, whereas in the New Testament this limitation is removed and the embraces heaven and earth. This Old Testament limitedness finds further expression in Psa 115:17, where , as in Psa 94:17, signifies the silent land of Hades. The Old Testament knows nothing of a heavenly ecclesia that praises God without intermission, consisting not merely of angels, but also of the spirits of all men who die in the faith. Nevertheless there are not wanting hints that point upwards which were even better understood by the post-exilic than by the pre-exilic church. The New Testament morn began to dawn even upon the post-exilic church. We must not therefore be astonished to find the tone of Psa 6:6; Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13, struck up here, although the echo of those earlier Psalms here is only the dark foil of the confession which the church makes in Psa 115:18 concerning its immortality. The church of Jahve as such does not die. That it also does not remain among the dead, in whatever degree it may die off in its existing members, the psalmist might know from Isa 26:19; Isa 25:8. But the close of the Psalm shows that such predictions which light up the life beyond only gradually became elements of the church’s consciousness, and, so to speak, dogmas.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
15. Ye are blessed of Jehovah In the preceding verse the prophet had given them the hope of uninterrupted happiness, arising from God’s infinite resources never failing, however liberally and largely he bestows, and from his never ceasing to enrich those whom he hath admitted as sharers of his bounty. In confirmation of this doctrine, he declares that the children of Abraham were separated from other nations; so that, relying upon this privilege, they might unhesitatingly and unreservedly surrender themselves to a father so benignant and bountiful. And as the flesh, in consequence of its stupidity, cannot perceive the power of God, the understanding of which preserves us in a state of peace and security under his protection, the prophet, in designating him the maker of heaven and earth, reminds us that there is no ground to fear that he is unable to defend us; for, having created the heaven and the earth, he does not now remain unconcerned in heaven, but all creation is under his sovereign control.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
15. A form of blessing borrowed from Melchizedek. Gen 14:19
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 115:15 Ye [are] blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.
Ver. 15. Ye are blessed of the Lord, &c. ] And therefore shall be blessed, as Isaac said of his son Jacob, Gen 27:33 .
Which made heaven and earth
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
blessed: Psa 3:8, Gen 14:19, Gen 32:26-29, Eph 1:3, Eph 1:4, 1Pe 3:9
made: Psa 96:5, Psa 146:5, Psa 146:6, Gen 1:1
Reciprocal: Gen 24:3 – the Gen 24:31 – thou Gen 26:29 – the blessed Deu 7:14 – blessed Deu 33:24 – Asher be blessed 2Sa 2:5 – Blessed 1Ch 29:11 – all that Psa 37:22 – Blessed Psa 50:12 – world Psa 103:5 – satisfieth Psa 124:8 – General Psa 144:12 – as plants Psa 147:13 – blessed Isa 19:25 – the Lord Isa 65:23 – for Jer 27:5 – and have Mat 19:13 – brought Mar 10:14 – Suffer Act 2:39 – the promise
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
115:15 Ye [are] blessed of the LORD which {i} made heaven and earth.
(i) And therefore still governs and continues all things in it.