Psalms 115:1-3
Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
Tag: God's Glory - Our Petition
We do a lot of praying. Even non-believers pray. Their prayers, as non-believers, are heard by God simple because God is omniscient and knows all things. But, God is not obligated to respond to their prayers. The believer's prayers, however, are different. God has sworn in His character, based upon Christ's atonement for us, to answer our prayers. That is what makes Psalm 115 so special. This Psalm is a song-prayer praising Yahweh for His greatness and goodness. It begins with a declaration about what all prayers, songs, sermons, service and behavior should be about: That His name might be praised and have glory. Note what Vine states in regard to this word, "glory" found in the opening verse:
kabod (כָּבוֹד, 3519), “honor; glory; great quantity; multitude; wealth; reputation [majesty]; splendor.” Cognates of this word appear in Ugaritic, Phoenician, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Akkadian. It appears about 200 times in biblical Hebrew and in all periods.
Kabod refers to the great physical weight or “quantity” of a thing. In Nah. 2:9one should read: “For there is no limit to the treasure—a great quantity of every kind of desirable object.” Isa. 22:24likens Eliakim to a peg firmly anchored in a wall upon which is hung “all the [weighty things] of his father’s house.” This meaning is required in Hos. 9:11, where kabod represents a great crowd of people or “multitude”: “As for Ephraim, their [multitude] shall fly away....” The word does not mean simply “heavy,” but a heavy or imposing quantity of things.
Kabod often refers to both “wealth” and significant and positive “reputation” (in a concrete sense). Laban’s sons complained that “Jacob hath taken away all that was our father’s; and of that which was our father’s hath he gotten all this [wealth]” (Gen. 31:1—the first biblical occurrence). The second emphasis appears in Gen. 45:13, where Joseph told his brothers to report to his “father... all my [majesty] in Egypt.” Here this word includes a report of his position and the assurance that if the family came to Egypt, Joseph would be able to provide for them. Trees, forests, and wooded hills have an imposing quality, a richness or “splendor.” God will punish the king of Assyria by destroying most of the trees in his forests, “and shall consume the glory of his forest,... and the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them” (Isa. 10:18-19). In Ps. 85:9the idea of richness or abundance predominates: “Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory [or abundance] may dwell in our land.” This idea is repeated in Ps. 85:12: “Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.”
When we pray to God we are asking that the "weight" of His character be fully measured and that we ascribe all the "weight" possible to Him for what He has done for us and in the world. We are showing Him, through our praise and prayers, the greatest value. Nothing else has value to us if we want His name to have the glory.
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