[2] According to Alexander Kirkpatrick, this psalm "was probably composed for use in the [Second] Temple services after the Return from Babylon", perhaps when the first flush of enthusiasm had died away, and the little community in Jerusalem realised how contemptibly weak it was in the eyes of its neighbours".

Psalm 115 is used as a regular part of Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and various Protestant liturgies.

During the Romantic period, Felix Mendelssohn set the psalm in German, Gustav Holst in English, and Albert Kellermann in Hebrew.

[14] Psalm 113 in the Vulgate numbering is said to have been used as a memorial and thanksgiving by Henry V after the Battle of Agincourt:The king … gathering his armie togither, gaue thanks to almightie God for so happie a victorie; causing his prelats and chapleins to sing this psalme: ‘In exitu Israel de Aegypto’: and commanded euerie man to kneele downe on the ground at this verse: ‘Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam’.

[19] Johann Sebastian Bach based his early wedding cantata Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196, on verses 12 to 15 of Psalm 115 which speak of God's blessing especially for families.

[20] Joseph Haydn wrote a four-part setting of the first verse in Latin for choir a cappella as an offertory hymn, published by Carus in 2009.