Not to Us
they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell; Psalm 115:6 · Berean Standard Bible
The list continues—these statues have ears but can't hear prayers, noses but can't smell offerings. They're ornately decorated but completely deaf to worship.
This would have been cutting for people who genuinely believed their idols could hear them. The psalmist is showing that even sensory organs mean nothing without life behind them.
The psalmist, deepening the irony
Throughout the Bible, God is described as hearing His people—from Hagar in the wilderness to Hannah praying silently in the temple. Your God actually listens.
Extending the catalogue of useless idols: they cannot hear prayers, smell offerings, touch worshippers, walk to aid their devotees, or produce even the smallest gesture of autonomous response.
The accumulation here—ears, noses, hands, feet, throat—employs what medieval commentators like David Kimhi identified as merismus, the rhetorical piling of particulars to establish a universal principle. Ancient temples expected reciprocal relationships with gods: sacrifices produce divine blessing, prayers elicit response. This verse demonstrates idols cannot participate in such exchange.
The psalmist, maintaining the structure of iconoclastic enumeration.
The mockery of idols' inability to 'clear their throat' (Hebrew yakhu, to make sound) anticipates the New Testament's emphasis on the living God as a 'speaking God' (ho theos lalon, Hebrews 1:1)—the fundamental distinction between the God of Abraham who calls, responds, and covenants versus the mute statuary of human religion.
4Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
5They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;
6they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell;
7they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats.
8Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
Read all of Psalm 115 — Not to us, O Lord, but to Your name give glory. The idols of the nations have mouths but cannot speak. Our God does whatever He pleases.
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