Psalm 115 · a question people ask
"Those who make them will be like them" (115:8). What does that mean?
The psalm doesn't explain it. It says it straight after the list of what the idols have and don't use (115:5-7), and it says it of two groups: "Those who make them" and "everyone who trusts in them" (115:8). Psalm 135 has the same words in Hebrew (Psalm 135:18). Other books say something of the same kind in other words. The LORD says through Jeremiah that the fathers "have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless" (Jeremiah 2:5), and 2 Kings says of the children of Israel (2 Kings 17:7), "they followed vanity, and became vain" (2 Kings 17:15). In Hebrew those two verses share the same two words, the noun hevel and the verb havel, which Psalm 115 doesn't use. The psalm names no one today, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.”
“Those who make them will be like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.”
“The LORD says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless?”
“It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,”