40:19 A craftsman casts 1 an idol;
a metalsmith overlays it with gold
and forges silver chains for it.
40:20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; 2
he then seeks a skilled craftsman
to make 3 an idol that will not fall over.
40:21 Do you not know?
Do you not hear?
Has it not been told to you since the very beginning?
Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?
40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; 4
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. 5
He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, 6
and spreads it out 7 like a pitched tent. 8
40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing;
he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant.
40:24 Indeed, they are barely planted;
yes, they are barely sown;
yes, they barely take root in the earth,
and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up,
and the wind carries them away like straw.
40:25 “To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?”
says the Holy One. 9
40:26 Look up at the sky! 10
Who created all these heavenly lights? 11
He is the one who leads out their ranks; 12
he calls them all by name.
Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,
not one of them is missing.
40:27 Why do you say, Jacob,
Why do you say, Israel,
“The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, 13
My God is not concerned with my vindication”? 14
40:28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is an eternal God,
the creator of the whole earth. 15
He does not get tired or weary;
there is no limit to his wisdom. 16
40:29 He gives strength to those who are tired;
to the ones who lack power, he gives renewed energy.
40:30 Even youths get tired and weary;
even strong young men clumsily stumble. 17
40:31 But those who wait for the Lord’s help 18 find renewed strength;
they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings, 19
they run without growing weary,
they walk without getting tired.
44:9 All who form idols are nothing;
the things in which they delight are worthless.
Their witnesses cannot see;
they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame.
44:10 Who forms a god and casts an idol
that will prove worthless? 20
44:11 Look, all his associates 21 will be put to shame;
the craftsmen are mere humans. 22
Let them all assemble and take their stand!
They will panic and be put to shame.
44:12 A blacksmith works with his tool 23
and forges metal over the coals.
He forms it 24 with hammers;
he makes it with his strong arm.
He gets hungry and loses his energy; 25
he drinks no water and gets tired.
44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; 26
he marks out an outline of its form; 27
he scrapes 28 it with chisels,
and marks it with a compass.
He patterns it after the human form, 29
like a well-built human being,
and puts it in a shrine. 30
44:14 He cuts down cedars
and acquires a cypress 31 or an oak.
He gets 32 trees from the forest;
he plants a cedar 33 and the rain makes it grow.
44:15 A man uses it to make a fire; 34
he takes some of it and warms himself.
Yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
Then he makes a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it. 35
44:16 Half of it he burns in the fire –
over that half he cooks 36 meat;
he roasts a meal and fills himself.
Yes, he warms himself and says,
‘Ah! I am warm as I look at the fire.’
44:17 With the rest of it he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships it.
He prays to it, saying,
‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’
44:18 They do not comprehend or understand,
for their eyes are blind and cannot see;
their minds do not discern. 37
44:19 No one thinks to himself,
nor do they comprehend or understand and say to themselves:
‘I burned half of it in the fire –
yes, I baked bread over the coals;
I roasted meat and ate it.
With the rest of it should I make a disgusting idol?
Should I bow down to dry wood?’ 38
44:20 He feeds on ashes; 39
his deceived mind misleads him.
He cannot rescue himself,
nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ 40
45:20 Gather together and come!
Approach together, you refugees from the nations!
Those who carry wooden idols know nothing,
those who pray to a god that cannot deliver.
8:4 They enthroned kings without my consent! 41
They appointed princes without my approval! 42
They made idols out of their silver and gold,
but they will be destroyed! 43
8:5 O Samaria, he has rejected your calf idol!
My anger burns against them!
They will not survive much longer without being punished, 44
even though they are Israelites!
8:6 That idol was made by a workman – it is not God!
The calf idol of Samaria will be broken to bits.
2:18 What good 45 is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? 46
What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? 47
Why would its creator place his trust in it 48
and make 49 such mute, worthless things?
2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead 50 –
he who says 51 to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’
Can it give reliable guidance? 52
It is overlaid with gold and silver;
it has no life’s breath inside it.
1 tn Heb “pours out”; KJV “melteth.”
2 tn The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan tÿrumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.
3 tn Or “set up” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NASB “to prepare.”
4 tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
5 tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
6 tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).
7 tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.
8 tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”
9 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
10 tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”
11 tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.
12 tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)
13 tn Heb “my way is hidden from the Lord” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
14 tn Heb “and from my God my justice passes away”; NRSV “my right is disregarded by my God.”
15 tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.
16 sn Exiled Israel’s complaint (v. 27) implies that God might be limited in some way. Perhaps he, like so many of the pagan gods, has died. Or perhaps his jurisdiction is limited to Judah and does not include Babylon. Maybe he is unable to devise an adequate plan to rescue his people, or is unable to execute it. But v. 28 affirms that he is not limited temporally or spatially nor is his power and wisdom restricted in any way. He can and will deliver his people, if they respond in hopeful faith (v. 31a).
17 tn Heb “stumbling they stumble.” The verbal idea is emphasized by the infinitive absolute.
18 tn The words “for the Lord’s help” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
19 tn Heb “they rise up [on] wings like eagles” (TEV similar).
20 tn The rhetorical question is sarcastic. The sense is, “Who is foolish enough…?”
21 tn The pronoun “his” probably refers to the one who forms/casts an idol (v. 10), in which case it refers to the craftsman’s associates in the idol-manufacturing guild.
22 sn The point seems to be this: If the idols are the mere products of human hands, then those who trust in them will be disappointed, for man-made gods are incapable of helping their “creators.”
23 tn The noun מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad), which refers to some type of tool used for cutting, occurs only here and in Jer 10:3. See HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד.
24 tn Some English versions take the pronoun “it” to refer to an idol being fashioned by the blacksmith (cf. NIV, NCV, CEV). NLT understands the referent to be “a sharp tool,” which is then used by the carpenter in the following verse to carve an idol from wood.
25 tn Heb “and there is no strength”; NASB “his strength fails.”
26 tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”
27 tn Heb “he makes an outline with the [?].” The noun שֶׂרֶד (shered) occurs only here; it apparently refers to some type of tool or marker. Cf. KJV “with a line”; ASV “with a pencil”; NAB, NRSV “with a stylus”; NASB “with red chalk”; NIV “with a marker.”
28 tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”
29 tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”
30 tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”
31 tn It is not certain what type of tree this otherwise unattested noun refers to. Cf. ASV “a holm-tree” (NRSV similar).
32 tn Heb “strengthens for himself,” i.e., “secures for himself” (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמֵץ Pi.2).
33 tn Some prefer to emend אֹרֶן (’oren) to אֶרֶז (’erez, “cedar”), but the otherwise unattested noun appears to have an Akkadian cognate, meaning “cedar.” See H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 44-45. HALOT 90 s.v. I אֹרֶן offers the meaning “laurel.”
34 tn Heb “and it becomes burning [i.e., firewood] for a man”; NAB “to serve man for fuel.”
35 tn Or perhaps, “them.”
36 tn Heb “eats” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV “roasts.”
37 tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”
38 tn There is no formal interrogative sign here, but the context seems to indicate these are rhetorical questions. See GKC 473 §150.a.
39 tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”
40 tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”
41 tn Heb “but without me”; NCV “without asking my permission”; CEV “without consulting me.”
42 tn Heb “but I did not know”; NRSV “but without my knowledge.”
43 tn Heb “in order to be cut off.” The text gives the impression that they made the idols for this purpose, but the language is ironic and sarcastic, bringing out the futility of their efforts. One could paraphrase, “they made idols…but only so that they might be destroyed.” Though they had other plans for the idols, God’s judgment would bring their intentions to naught.
44 tn Heb “How long will they be able to be free from punishment?” This rhetorical question affirms that Israel will not survive much longer until God punishes it.
45 tn Or “of what value.”
46 tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.
47 tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.
48 tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.
49 tn Heb “to make.”
50 tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.
51 tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.
52 tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).