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10. God and Idols

¹ Hear what the LORD says to you, people of Israel. ² This is what the LORD says:

   “Do not learn the ways of the nations
   or be terrified by signs in the heavens,
   though the nations are terrified by them.
³ For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
   they cut a tree out of the forest,
   and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
⁴ They adorn it with silver and gold;
   they fasten it with hammer and nails
   so it will not totter.
⁵ Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
   their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
   because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
   they can do no harm
   nor can they do any good.”

    ⁶ No one is like you, LORD;
   you are great,
   and your name is mighty in power.
⁷ Who should not fear you,
   King of the nations?
   This is your due.
Among all the wise leaders of the nations
   and in all their kingdoms,
   there is no one like you.

    ⁸ They are all senseless and foolish;
   they are taught by worthless wooden idols.
⁹ Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish
   and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have made
   is then dressed in blue and purple—
   all made by skilled workers.
¹⁰ But the LORD is the true God;
   he is the living God, the eternal King.
When he is angry, the earth trembles;
   the nations cannot endure his wrath.

¹¹ “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” The text of this verse is in Aramaic.

    ¹² But God made the earth by his power;
   he founded the world by his wisdom
   and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
¹³ When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
   he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
   and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

    ¹⁴ Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
   every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;
   they have no breath in them.
¹⁵ They are worthless, the objects of mockery;
   when their judgment comes, they will perish.
¹⁶ He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,
   for he is the Maker of all things,
including Israel, the people of his inheritance—
   the LORD Almighty is his name.

Coming Destruction

    ¹⁷ Gather up your belongings to leave the land,
   you who live under siege.
¹⁸ For this is what the LORD says:
   “At this time I will hurl out
   those who live in this land;
I will bring distress on them
   so that they may be captured.”

    ¹⁹ Woe to me because of my injury!
   My wound is incurable!
Yet I said to myself,
   “This is my sickness, and I must endure it.”
²⁰ My tent is destroyed;
   all its ropes are snapped.
My children are gone from me and are no more;
   no one is left now to pitch my tent
   or to set up my shelter.
²¹ The shepherds are senseless
   and do not inquire of the LORD;
so they do not prosper
   and all their flock is scattered.
²² Listen! The report is coming—
   a great commotion from the land of the north!
It will make the towns of Judah desolate,
   a haunt of jackals.

Jeremiah’s Prayer

    ²³ LORD, I know that people’s lives are not their own;
   it is not for them to direct their steps.
²⁴ Discipline me, LORD, but only in due measure—
   not in your anger,
   or you will reduce me to nothing.
²⁵ Pour out your wrath on the nations
   that do not acknowledge you,
   on the peoples who do not call on your name.
For they have devoured Jacob;
   they have devoured him completely
   and destroyed his homeland.

The Prophet, anticipating what might be said, refers to the splendor and pomp of idols, and declares that all was frivolous and extremely puerile. Whence was it that the world shewed so much honor to idols, except that their pomp dazzled the eyes of men? The devil has also by this artifice ever deluded the unbelieving; for he has exhibited in idols something that involved men’s minds in darkness.

The Prophet then assails these foolish imaginations, and says, Silver is brought from Tharsis, that is, from Cilicia; for so the Scripture designates that transmarine country, which lies opposed to Judea; and we know that Cilicia was over against Judea; for the Mediterranean Sea intervenes between Syria and Cilicia; and the sea of Tharsis is what they call that part which extended towards Cilicia and Asia Minor. The Prophet then says; that it was brought from a far country. Well, he says, the fact is so; and then it is added that gold was brought from Uphaz Some have explained this last word wrongly, by saying that it means pure or fine gold; but it appears from this place and many others, that it is the name of a country, that is, Persia, or one not far from Persia: it was at least a country eastward of Judea. He then says, gold is brought from Uphaz; and he mentions the workmanship, the work of the artificer; that is, it is not silver and gold in its rude state; but they are so elegantly wrought, that they readily attract the eyes of men. Then he adds the hands (he speaks in the plural number) of the melter; that is, the silver and gold were melted and were made to assume a certain form; and then art was employed, which gave an increased polish to these forms which came out of the furnace. He afterwards says, The hyacinth and purple are their vestments; that is, it is not enough to have the precious metal, and that cast into an elegant and lovely form, but it must be clothed in purple and hyacinth. He says in the last place, that the work was that of the wise; that is, skillful men were chosen, who could in the most perfect manner give expression to every lineament; in short, nothing was left undone. ¹⁰¹⁰     The verse is literally thus, —
   9. Silver extended, from Tarsis it is brought, And gold from Uphaz, — The work of the artizan And of the hands of the founder; Blue and purple their garments, — The work of the wise, all of them.
   The Septuagint and Arabic have “Mophaz;” the Vulgate, “Ophaz;” the Syriac and the Targum, “Ophir.” Probably the same country is meant, and that it had two names. “Blue” is rendered “hyacinth,” violet-color, by all the versions and the Targum.
   “Uphaz,” according to Bochart, was a country near the Ganges in India, and the same with Ophir. — Ed.

But the Prophet, though he concedes generally to the unbelieving that they added whatever could add beauty to their idols, yet declares that they were mere trumperies: they are puppets, he says; for man, who is a mortal, cannot make a god: and then, what can art and the toil and labor of man do in this respect? can he change the nature of things? can he make a god from wood and stone? and when a vestment covers the idol of gold or of silver, can it raise it above the heavens, that it may attain a new divinity? We hence see that the Prophet mentions all that was done, that he might taunt the heathens and ridicule their fatuitous trifles; for in their idols there was nothing real, nothing that could be dependd upon. He then subjoins —