11. Hath a nation? The question implies a negative answer. Only in extraordinary cases would an idolatrous nation discard its ancestral religion. Even today many adherents of heathen religions are truer to their gods than are nominal Christians to the one true God.
Yet no gods. The clause reads literally, “and they are no gods.” The “yet” translates the Hebrew conjunction and must not be interpreted as a temporal adverb. The gods of the nations are unreal. The gods that the idol is supposed to represent do not exist.
Changed their glory. Israel bartered the real for the unreal and traded the truth for falsehood (see Ps. 106:20; Rom. 1:23). “Their glory” was God, the source of all prosperity (see Deut. 10:21; 1 Sam. 4:21; Ps. 3:3). Elsewhere God is spoken of as the “excellency,” or, more accurately, the “pride” of Israel (Amos 8:7; Hosea 5:5). Other nations could have forsaken their false gods without any loss to themselves. But Israel, in forsaking their God, Jehovah, had acted not only contrary to the custom of other nations but also contrary to the dictates of reason.