Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Parallel translations
- WEB Why should the nations say, “Where is their God, now?”
- KJV Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?
- NKJV Why should the Gentiles say, “So where is their God?”
- NASB Why should the nations say, “Where, then, is their God?”
- NLT Why let the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The nations mock Israel by asking where their God is. It matters because God's people often face taunts that seem to question his presence and power.
Overview
Surrounding peoples scoff that Israel's invisible God is absent or impotent, especially in times of trouble. The psalm will answer this taunt not by displaying Israel's strength but by proclaiming God's sovereign reality. Such mockery echoes through Scripture and even to the cross, where Christ was challenged to prove himself, yet God's hidden purposes were being accomplished.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Ps 42:3My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Ps 79:10Why should the nations ask, “Where is their God?” Before our eyes, make known among the nations Your vengeance for the bloodshed of Your servants.
- Ps 42:10Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Exod 32:12Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.
- Joel 2:17Let the priests who minister before the LORD weep between the portico and the altar, saying, “Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not make Your heritage a reproach, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
- Deut 32:26–27I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,
- Num 14:15–16If You kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,
- 2 Kgs 19:10–19“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 115:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.