3 For that which is feared by the people is foolish: it is the work of the hands of the workman; for a tree is cut down by him out of the woods with his axe.
Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame. Whoever makes a god, makes nothing but a metal image in which there is no profit. Truly, all those who make use of secret arts will be put to shame, and their words of power are only words of men: let them all come forward together; they will all be in fear and be put to shame. The iron-worker is heating the metal in the fire, giving it form with his hammers, and working on it with his strong arm: then for need of food his strength gives way, and for need of water he becomes feeble. The woodworker is measuring out the wood with his line, marking it out with his pencil: after smoothing it with his plane, and making circles on it with his instrument, he gives it the form and glory of a man, so that it may be placed in the house. He has cedars cut down for himself, he takes an oak and lets it get strong among the trees of the wood; he has an ash-tree planted, and the rain gives it growth. Then it will be used to make a fire, so that a man may get warm; he has the oven heated with it and makes bread: he makes a god with it, to which he gives worship: he makes a pictured image out of it, and goes down on his face before it. With part of it he makes a fire, and on the fire he gets meat cooked and takes a full meal: he makes himself warm, and says, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the rest of it he makes into a god, even his pictured image: he goes down on his face before it, giving worship to it, and making prayer to it, saying, Be my saviour; for you are my god. They have no knowledge or wisdom; for he has put a veil over their eyes, so that they may not see; and on their hearts, so that they may not give attention. And no one takes note, no one has enough knowledge or wisdom to say, I have put part of it in the fire, and made bread on it; I have had a meal of the flesh cooked with it: and am I now to make the rest of it into a false god? am I to go down on my face before a bit of wood? As for him whose food is the dust of a dead fire, he has been turned from the way by a twisted mind, so that he is unable to keep himself safe by saying, What I have here in my hand is false.
So they took the ox which was given them, and made it ready, crying out to Baal from morning till the middle of the day, and saying, O Baal, give ear to us. But there was no voice and no answer. And they were jumping up and down before the altar they had made. And in the middle of the day, Elijah made sport of them, saying, Give louder cries, for he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or he may have gone away for some purpose, or he may be on a journey, or by chance he is sleeping and has to be made awake. So they gave loud cries, cutting themselves with knives and swords, as was their way, till the blood came streaming out all over them.
The workman makes an image, and the gold-worker puts gold plates over it, and makes silver bands for it. The wise workman makes selection of the mulberry-tree of the offering, a wood which will not become soft; so that the image may be fixed to it and not be moved. Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? has not news of it been given to you from the first? has it not been clear to you from the time when the earth was placed on its base? It is he who is seated over the arch of the earth, and the people in it are as small as locusts; by him the heavens are stretched out like an arch, and made ready like a tent for a living-place. He makes rulers come to nothing; the judges of the earth are of no value. They have only now been planted, and their seed put into the earth, and they have only now taken root, when he sends out his breath over them and they become dry, and the storm-wind takes them away like dry grass. Who then seems to you to be my equal? says the Holy One. Let your eyes be lifted up on high, and see: who has made these? He who sends out their numbered army: who has knowledge of all their names: by whose great strength, because he is strong in power, all of them are in their places. Why do you say, O Jacob, such words as these, O Israel, The Lord's eyes are not on my way, and my God gives no attention to my cause? Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? The eternal God, the Lord, the Maker of the ends of the earth, is never feeble or tired; there is no searching out of his wisdom. He gives power to the feeble, increasing the strength of him who has no force. Even the young men will become feeble and tired, and the best of them will come to the end of his strength; But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness.
They have put up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, but I had no knowledge of it; they have made images of silver and gold, so that they may be cut off. I will have nothing to do with your young ox, O Samaria; my wrath is burning against them; how long will it be before the children of Israel make themselves clean? The workman made it, it is no god; the ox of Samaria will be broken into bits.
What profit is the pictured image to its maker? and as for the metal image, the false teacher, why does its maker put his faith in it, making false gods without a voice? A curse on him who says to the wood, Awake! to the unbreathing stone, Up! let it be a teacher! See, it is plated with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 10
Commentary on Jeremiah 10 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Warning against idolatry by means of a view of the nothingness of the false gods (Jeremiah 10:1-5), and a counter-view of the almighty and everlasting God (Jeremiah 10:6-11) and of His governing care in the natural world. This warning is but a further continuation of the idea of Jeremiah 9:23, that Israel's glory should consist in Jahveh who doth grace, right, and justice upon earth. In order thoroughly to impress this truth on the backsliding and idolatrous people, Jeremiah sets forth the nullity of the gods feared by the heathen, and, by showing how these gods are made of wood, plated with silver and gold, proves that these dead idols, which have neither life nor motion, cannot be objects of fear; whereas Jahveh is God in truth, a living and everlasting God, before whose anger the earth trembles, who has created the earth, and rules it, who in the day of visitation will also annihilate the false gods.
(Note: This whole passage is declared by Movers ( de utr. rec. Jer . p. 43), de W., Hitz., and Näg. to be spurious and a late interpolation; because, as they allege, it interrupts the continuity, because its matter brings us down to the time of the Babylonian exile, and because the language of it diverges in many respects from Jeremiah's. Against these arguments Küper, Haev., Welte, and others have made a Stand. See my Manual of Introd. §75, 1. - By the exhibition of the coherence of the thought given in the text, we have already disposed of the argument on which most stress is laid by the critics referred to, the alleged interruption of the connection. How little weight this argument is entitled to, may over and above be seen from the fact that Graf holds Jeremiah 9:22-25 to be an interpolation, by reason of the want of connection; in which view neither Movers preceded him, nor has Hitz. or Näg. followed Him. The second reason, that the subject-matter brings us down to the time of the exile, rests upon a misconception of the purpose in displaying the nothingness of the false gods. In this there is presupposed neither a people as yet unspotted by idolatry, nor a people purified therefrom; but, in order to fill the heart with a warmer love for the living God and Lord of the world, Israel's own God, the bias towards the idols, deep-seated in the hearts of the people, is taken to task and attacked in that which lies at its root, namely, the fear of the power of the heathen's gods. Finally, as to the language of the passage, Movers tried to show that the whole not only belonged to the time of the pseudo-Isaiah, but that it was from his hand. Against this Graf has pronounced emphatically, with the remark that the similarity is not greater than is inevitable in the discussion of the same subject; whereas, he says, the diversity in expression is so great, that it does not even give us any reason to suppose that the author of this passage had the pseudo-Isaiah before him when he was writing. This assertion is certainly an exaggeration; but it contains thus much of truth, that along with individual similarities in expression, the diversities are so great as to put out of the question all idea of the passage's having been written by the author of Isa 40-56. In several verses Jeremiah's characteristic mode of expression is unmistakeable. Such are the frequent use of הבל for the idols, Jeremiah 10:3 and Jeremiah 10:15, cf. Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 14:22, and עת פּקדּתם , Jeremiah 10:15, cf. Jeremiah 8:12; Jeremiah 46:21; Jeremiah 50:27, neither of which occurs in the second part of Isaiah; and הובישׁ , Jeremiah 10:14, for which Isaiah uses בּושׁ , Isaiah 42:17; Isaiah 44:11. Further, in passages cognate in sense the expression is quite different; cf. Jeremiah 10:4 and Jeremiah 10:9 with Isaiah 40:19-20; Isaiah 41:7, where we find ימּוט instead of יפיק , which is not used by Isaiah in the sense of "move;" cf. Jeremiah 10:5 with Isaiah 46:7 and Isaiah 41:23; Jeremiah 10:12 with Isaiah 45:18. Finally, the two common expressions cannot prove anything, because they are found in other books, as שׁבט נחלתו , Jeremiah 10:16 and Isaiah 63:17, derived from Deuteronomy 32:9; or יהוה צבאות , which is used frequently by Amos; cf. Amos 4:13; Amos 5:27, Amos 5:8; Amos 9:6, cf. with Jeremiah 33:2. - Even נסך in the sense of molten image in Jeremiah 10:14, as in Isaiah 41:29; Isaiah 48:5, is found also in Daniel 11:8; consequently this use of the word is no peculiarity of the second part of Isaiah.)
Jeremiah 10:1-2
The nothingness of the false gods. - Jeremiah 10:1. "Hear the word which Jahveh speaketh unto you, house of Israel! Jeremiah 10:2. Thus saith Jahveh: To the ways of the heathen use yourselves not, and at the signs of the heaven be not dismayed, because the heathen are dismayed at them. Jeremiah 10:3. For the ordinances of the peoples are vain. For it is wood, which one hath cut out of the forest, a work of the craftsman's hands with the axe. Jeremiah 10:4. With silver and with gold he decks it, with nails and hammers they fasten it, that it move not. Jeremiah 10:5. As a lathe-wrought pillar are they, and speak not; they are borne, because they cannot walk. Be not afraid of them; for they do not hurt, neither is it in them to do good."
This is addressed to the house of Israel, i.e., to the whole covenant people; and "house of Israel" points back to "all the house of Israel" in Jeremiah 9:25. עליכם for אליכם , as frequently in Jeremiah. The way of the heathen is their mode of life, especially their way of worshipping their gods; cf. ἡ ὁδὸς , Acts 9:2; Acts 19:9. למד c . אל , accustom oneself to a thing, used in Jeremiah 13:21 with the synonymous על , and in Psalms 18:35 (Piel) with ל . The signs of heaven are unwonted phenomena in the heavens, eclipses of the sun and moon, comets, and unusual conjunctions of the stars, which were regarded as the precursors of extraordinary and disastrous events. We cannot admit Hitz.'s objection, that these signs in heaven were sent by Jahveh (Joel 3:3-4), and that before these, as heralds of judgment, not only the heathen, but the Jews themselves, had good cause to be dismayed. For the signs that marked the dawning of the day of the Lord are not merely such things as eclipses of sun and moon, and the like. There is still less ground for Näg. 's idea, that the signs of heaven are such as, being permanently there, call forth religious adoration from year to year, the primitive constellations (Job 9:9), the twelve signs of the zodiac; for תּחתּוּ ( נחת ), to be in fear, consternari, never means, even in Malachi 2:5, regular or permanent adoration. "For the heathen," etc., gives the cause of the fear: the heathen are dismayed before these, because in the stars they adored supernatural powers.
Jeremiah 10:3-5
The reason of the warning counsel: The ordinances of the peoples, i.e., the religious ideas and customs of the heathen, are vanity. הוּא refers to and is in agreement with the predicate; cf. Ew. §319, c . The vanity of the religious ordinances of the heathen is proved by the vanity of their gods. "For wood, which one has hewn out of the forest," sc. it is, viz., the god. The predicate is omitted, and must be supplied from הבל , a word which is in the plural used directly for the false gods; cf. Jeremiah 8:19; Deuteronomy 32:21, etc. With the axe, sc. wrought. מעצד Rashi explains as axe, and suitably; for here it means in any case a carpenter's tool, whereas this is doubtful in Isaiah 44:12. The images were made of wood, which was covered with silver plating and gold; cf. Isaiah 30:22; Isaiah 40:19. This Jeremiah calls adorning them, making them fair with silver and gold. When the images were finished, they were fastened in their places with hammer and nails, that they might not tumble over; cf. Isaiah 41:7; Isaiah 40:20. When thus complete, they are like a lathe-wrought pillar. In Judges 4:5, where alone this word elsewhere occurs. תּמר means palm-tree (= תּמר ); here, by a later, derivative usage, = pillar, in support of which we can appeal to the Talmudic תּמּר , columnam facere , and to the O.T. תּימרה , pillar of smoke. מקשׁה is the work of the turning-lathe, Exodus 25:18, Exodus 25:31, etc. Lifeless and motionless as a turned pillar.
(Note: Ew., Hitz., Graf, Näg. follow in the track of Movers, Phöniz . i. S. 622, who takes מקשׁה se acc. to Isaiah 1:8 for a cucumber garden, and, acc. to Epist. Jerem . v. 70, understands by תּמר מקשׁה the figure of Priapus in a cucumber field, serving as a scare-crow. But even if we admit that there is an allusion to the verse before us in the mockery of the gods in the passage of Epist. Jerem. quoted, running literally as follows: ω ̔͂σπερ γὰρ ἐν οἰκυηράτῳ προβασκάνιον οὐδὲν φυλάσσον, οὕτως οἱ θεοὶ αὐτῶν εἰσὶ ξύλινοι καὶ περίχρυσοι καὶ περιάργυροι ; and if we further admit that the author was led to make his comparison by his understanding מקשׁה in Isaiah 1:8 of a cucumber garden; - yet his comparison has so little in common with our verse in point of form, that it cannot at all be regarded as a translation of it, or serve as a rule for the interpretation of the phrase in question. And besides it has yet to be proved that the Israelites were in the habit of setting up images of Priapus as scare-crows.)
Not to be able to speak is to be without life; not to walk, to take not a single step, i.e., to be without all power of motion; cf. Isaiah 46:7. The Chald. paraphrases correctly: quia non est in iis spiritus vitalis ad ambulandum . The incorrect form ינּשׂוּא for ינּשׂאוּ is doubtless only a copyist's error, induced by the preceding נשׂוא . They can do neither good nor evil, neither hurt nor help; cf. Isaiah 41:23. אותם for אתּם , as frequently; see on Jeremiah 1:16.
Jeremiah 10:6-9
The almighty power of Jahveh, the living God. - Jeremiah 10:6. "None at all is like Thee, Jahveh; great art Thou, and Thy name is great in might. Jeremiah 10:7. Who would not fear Thee, Thou King of the peoples? To Thee doth it appertain; for among all the wise men of the peoples, and in all their kingdoms, there is none at all like unto Thee. Jeremiah 10:8. But they are all together brutish and foolish; the teaching of the vanities is wood. Jeremiah 10:9. Beaten silver, from Tarshish it is brought, and gold from Uphaz, work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and red purple is their clothing; the work of cunning workmen are they all. Jeremiah 10:10. But Jahveh is God in truth, He is living God and everlasting King; at His wrath the earth trembles, and the peoples abide not His indignation. Jeremiah 10:11. Thus shall ye say unto them: The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens."