Discovery BoxIsaiah 2:8-9
Context2:8 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 44:9-20
Context44:9 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? 4
44:11 Look, all his associates 5 will be put to shame;
the craftsmen are mere humans. 6
Let them all assemble and take their stand!
They will panic and be put to shame.
44:12 A blacksmith works with his tool 7
and forges metal over the coals.
He forms it 8 with hammers;
he makes it with his strong arm.
He gets hungry and loses his energy; 9
he drinks no water and gets tired.
44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; 10
he marks out an outline of its form; 11
he scrapes 12 it with chisels,
and marks it with a compass.
He patterns it after the human form, 13
like a well-built human being,
and puts it in a shrine. 14
44:14 He cuts down cedars
and acquires a cypress 15 or an oak.
He gets 16 trees from the forest;
he plants a cedar 17 and the rain makes it grow.
44:15 A man uses it to make a fire; 18
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. 19
44:16 Half of it he burns in the fire –
over that half he cooks 20 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. 21
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?’ 22
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?’ 24
Hosea 9:1
Context9:1 O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly 25 like the nations,
for you are unfaithful 26 to your God.
You love to receive a prostitute's wages 27
on all the floors where you thresh your grain.
Hosea 9:10
Context9:10 When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness.
I viewed your ancestors 28 like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season.
Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame –
they became as detestable as what they loved.
Habakkuk 2:18-20
Context2:18 What good 29 is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? 30
What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? 31
Why would its creator place his trust in it 32
and make 33 such mute, worthless things?
2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead 34 –
he who says 35 to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’
Can it give reliable guidance? 36
It is overlaid with gold and silver;
it has no life’s breath inside it.
2:20 But the Lord is in his majestic palace. 37
The whole earth is speechless in his presence!” 38
[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.”
[44:10] 4 tn The rhetorical question is sarcastic. The sense is, “Who is foolish enough…?”
[44:11] 5 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.
[44:11] 6 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.”
[44:12] 7 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.
[44:12] 8 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.
[44:12] 9 tn Heb “and there is no strength”; NASB “his strength fails.”
[44:13] 10 tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”
[44:13] 11 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] 12 tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”
[44:13] 13 tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”
[44:13] 14 tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”
[44:14] 15 tn It is not certain what type of tree this otherwise unattested noun refers to. Cf. ASV “a holm-tree” (NRSV similar).
[44:14] 16 tn Heb “strengthens for himself,” i.e., “secures for himself” (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמֵץ Pi.2).
[44:14] 17 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] 18 tn Heb “and it becomes burning [i.e., firewood] for a man”; NAB “to serve man for fuel.”
[44:15] 19 tn Or perhaps, “them.”
[44:16] 20 tn Heb “eats” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV “roasts.”
[44:18] 21 tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”
[44:19] 22 tn There is no formal interrogative sign here, but the context seems to indicate these are rhetorical questions. See GKC 473 §150.a.
[44:20] 23 tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”
[44:20] 24 tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”
[9:1] 25 tn Heb “do not rejoice unto jubilation”; KJV “Rejoice not…for joy”; NASB “Do not rejoice…with exultation.”
[9:1] 26 tn Heb “you have committed adultery”; NRSV “you have played the whore.”
[9:1] 27 tn Heb “you love the wages of the prostitute” (NIV similar); NAB “loving a harlot’s hire.”
[9:10] 28 tn Heb “fathers”; a number of more recent English versions use the more general “ancestors” here.
[2:18] 29 tn Or “of what value.”
[2:18] 30 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.
[2:18] 31 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.
[2:18] 32 tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.
[2:19] 34 tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.
[2:19] 35 tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.
[2:19] 36 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).
[2:20] 37 tn Or “holy temple.” The
