Isaiah 2:8-9

2:8 Their land is full of worthless idols;

they worship ¹  the product of their own hands,

what their own fingers have fashioned.

2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,

they lie flat on the ground in worship. ² 

Don’t spare them! ³ 

Isaiah 44:13-19

44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; ⁴ 

he marks out an outline of its form; ⁵ 

he scrapes ⁶  it with chisels,

and marks it with a compass.

He patterns it after the human form, ⁷ 

like a well-built human being,

and puts it in a shrine. ⁸ 

44:14 He cuts down cedars

and acquires a cypress ⁹  or an oak.

He gets ¹⁰  trees from the forest;

he plants a cedar ¹¹  and the rain makes it grow.

44:15 A man uses it to make a fire; ¹² 

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. ¹³ 

44:16 Half of it he burns in the fire –

over that half he cooks ¹⁴  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. ¹⁵ 

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?’ ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 10:3-4

10:3 For the religion ¹⁷  of these people is worthless.

They cut down a tree in the forest,

and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools. ¹⁸ 

10:4 He decorates it with overlays of silver and gold.

He uses hammer and nails to fasten it ¹⁹  together

so that it will not fall over.

Daniel 5:23

5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods ²⁰  that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control ²¹  your very breath and all your ways!

[2:8]  ¹ tn Or “bow down to” (NIV, NRSV).

[2:9]  ² tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.

[2:9]  ³ tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”

[44:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”

[44:13]  ⁵ 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.”

[44:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”

[44:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”

[44:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”

[44:14]  ⁹ tn It is not certain what type of tree this otherwise unattested noun refers to. Cf. ASV “a holm-tree” (NRSV similar).

[44:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “strengthens for himself,” i.e., “secures for himself” (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמֵץ Pi.2).

[44:14]  ¹¹ 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.”

[44:15]  ¹² tn Heb “and it becomes burning [i.e., firewood] for a man”; NAB “to serve man for fuel.”

[44:15]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps, “them.”

[44:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “eats” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV “roasts.”

[44:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”

[44:19]  ¹⁶ tn There is no formal interrogative sign here, but the context seems to indicate these are rhetorical questions. See GKC 473 §150.a.

[10:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “statutes.” According to BDB 350 s.v. חֻקָּה 2.b it refers to the firmly established customs or practices of the pagan nations. Compare the usage in Lev 20:23; 2 Kgs 17:8. Here it is essentially equivalent to דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) in v. 1, which has already been translated “religious practices.”

[10:3]  ¹⁸ sn This passage is dripping with sarcasm. It begins by talking about the “statutes” of the pagan peoples as a “vapor” using a singular copula and singular predicate. Then it suppresses the subject, the idol, as though it were too horrible to mention, using only the predications about it. The last two lines read literally: “[it is] a tree which one cuts down from the forest; the work of the hands of a craftsman with his chisel.”

[10:4]  ¹⁹ tn The pronoun is plural in Hebrew, referring to the parts.

[5:23]  ²⁰ tn Aram “which.”

[5:23]  ²¹ tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”