Why should the Gentiles say, “So 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?
- BSB Why should the nations say, “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 day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
- Ps 79:10Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let it be known among the nations, before our eyes, that vengeance for your servants’ blood is being poured out.
- Ps 42:10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
- Exod 32:12Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people.
- Joel 2:17Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
- Deut 32:26–27I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men;
- Num 14:15–16Now if you killed this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of you will speak, saying,
- 2 Kgs 19:10–19‘Tell Hezekiah king of Judah this: “Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given 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.