Psalms 113:15
They have hands and feel not: they have feet and walk not: neither shall they cry out through their throat.
Open Psalms 113:15 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Manus habent, et non palpabunt ; pedes habent, et non ambulabunt ; non clamabunt in gutture suo.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- χεῖρας ἔχουσιν καὶ οὐ ψηλαφήσουσιν, πόδας ἔχουσιν καὶ οὐ περιπατήσουσιν· οὐ φωνήσουσιν ἐν τῷ λάρυγγι αὐτῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 115:7
- יְדֵיהֶ֤ם וְלֹ֬א יְמִישׁ֗וּן רַ֭גְלֵיהֶם וְלֹ֣א יְהַלֵּ֑כוּ לֹֽא יֶ֝הְגּ֗וּ בִּגְרוֹנָֽם
Haydock's commentary
Throat. Roman and Milan Psalters add, neither is there any breath in their mouths, which occurs, (Psalm cxxxiv. 17.) instead of this sentence. (Haydock)
Juvenal (Sat. 13.) laughs at the silence of Jupiter's statue. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian The Chaplet, or De Corona, Chapter X
So, when you allege that the ornaments of the heathen deities are found no less with God, with the object of claiming among these for general use the head-crown, you already lay it down for yourself, that we must not have among us, as a thing whose use we are to share with others, what is not to be found in the service of God. Well, what is so unworthy of God indeed as that which is worthy of an idol? But what is so worthy of an idol as that which is also worthy of a dead man? For it is the privilege of the dead also to be thus crowned, as they too straightway become idols, both by their dress and the service of deification, which (deification) is with us a second idolatry. Wanting, then, the sense, it will be theirs to use the thing for which the sense is wanting, just as if in full possession of the sense they wished to abuse it. …
St Cyprian Treatise XI, Chapter I
In the cxiiith Psalm it is shown that “the idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have a mouth, and speak not; eyes have they, and see not. They have ears, and hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouth. Let those that make them be made like unto them.” Also in the Wisdom of Solomon: “They counted all the idols of the nations to be gods, which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor fingers on their hands to handle; and as for their feet, they are slow to go. For man made them, and he that borrowed his own spirit fashioned them; but no man can make a god like unto himself. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXV
5. “For they have mouths, and speak not: eyes have they, and see not” ( ver. 5 ). “They have ears, and hear not: noses have they, and smell not” ( ver. 6 ). “They have hands, and handle not; feet have they, and walk not; neither cry they through their throat” ( ver. 7 ). Even their artist therefore surpasseth them, since he had the faculty of moulding them by the motion and functions of his limbs: though thou wouldest be ashamed to worship that artist. Even thou surpassest them, though thou hast not made these things, since thou doest what they cannot do. …