The iron-smith [hath] a chisel, and he worketh in the coals, and he fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm; -- but he is hungry, and his strength faileth; he hath not drunk water, and he is faint.
The picture in this verse is an ordinary one: a metalworker at his forge, hammering, sweating, going hungry. God spells out how a god gets made, so Israel would see what an idol is and what its maker is.
This verse sits inside a long section of Isaiah where God deals with His people about one sin.
In the first part of this section of Isaiah, we find references to idols in every chapter, and always in connection with Israel (see Isa. 40:18–25; Isa. 41:21–29; Isa. 42:17; Isa. 43:12; Isa. 44:9–20; Isa. 45:16; Isa. 46:1–7; Isa. 47:12–15; Isa. 48:5). So it becomes clear that the leading subject is God's controversy with Israel about their idolatry.
God had just called Israel His witnesses. Now a second witness takes the stand: the idols themselves.
A withering exposure of idolatry follows. If Israel were witnesses to the true God, Jehovah, then the idols were witnesses too. Their powerlessness testified against the foolish people who worshipped them.
Everything in the verse comes out of the workman: his coals, his hammers, his arm. That is the problem. The strength that made this god runs out, and the verdict falls on the maker.
Those who make the idols are "nothing," and their images "do not profit." They "neither see nor know," and their helplessness brings shame to their makers. The smith fashions a metal god by his own strength, and the carpenter shapes a wooden idol "into the figure of a man."
Look at who depends on whom. A hungry, thirsty man is the source of his own god. That reversal holds wherever people make idols.
Such is the idol always, in all its forms, really beneath those who form it.
In the next verse the carpenter finishes what the smith began, and the product has a human shape. That shape explains what the maker is really doing.
Such is the condition of man. He feels the need of having a god, but he is so ignorant of the true God that he makes one for himself. The carpenter, with rule and compass, fashions his god into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man. So it is the image of himself that he worships.
Isaiah lays the absurdity out plainly, and Israel kept worshipping idols anyway. Why?
The folly and absurdity of such doings should have been plain to all the people, but it was not. How was it that their eyes were closed and their understanding darkened? The trouble lay in their hearts, which were deceived. So they were unable to consider and discern the lie in their "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the false religious cults that abound? The trouble lies not so much in their intellects as in their hearts. It is true for them, as for Israel long ago, that "a deluded heart has led him astray."
Because the root is in the heart, people build idols far away from any forge.
How subtle this power is! Idolatry is the universal sin of the world. No nation is free. There is no place where Satan, as the god of this world, has not in some form made himself the object of man's worship — more secretly than openly in most places. But whether the idol is religious forms, or the power, riches and pleasures of the world, or a material image, the effect is the same. Corruption keeps pace with the world's idolatry, in religious forms, in intellectual forms, and in lower ones. And its constant companions always come with it — degradation and violence.
Isaiah's answer to the hungry smith is one line about God: He makes, and no one made Him.
You can contrast idols with Jehovah, but you cannot compare them with the true God for a moment. Jehovah is the Maker; an idol has to be made. Once it is made, it cannot carry others — others have to carry it. Set in its place, it cannot move. It cannot answer the cry of need, and it cannot save anyone from trouble.
- Made. Every idol has a maker, and the maker here is a man at a forge — the god exists only because human muscle put it together.
- Faint. The strength that made the god runs out. The smith goes hungry and thirsty, so his god stands beneath its own maker.
- Mirror. Man must have a god, but he does not know the true One. So he makes a god shaped like himself and worships his own image.
- Heart. The folly lasts because the heart is deceived, not because people are stupid. That is why idols still take the form of religion, power, riches or pleasure.
- Maker. God is never made, never carried, never silent — the one Maker who can answer when trouble comes.
The worker in wood stretcheth out a line; he marketh it out with red chalk; he formeth it with sharp tools, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of man that it may remain in the house.
Isaiah 44 pauses on a workshop. Instead of arguing against idols, God describes a man measuring, marking and shaping a block of wood until it looks like a person.
The chapter has just called Israel God's witnesses. Now the idols become witnesses too — against the people who bow to them.
Next follows a withering exposure of idolatry. If Israel were witnesses of the true God, Jehovah, then the idols testified against their own foolish worshippers. Their powerlessness was the evidence.
Another writer draws out who suffers the shame.
But if Israel witnesses to God, the idolaters become their own witness to the emptiness of their idols. Those who make the idols are "all of them vanity," and their images "profitable for nothing." They "neither see nor know." Their helplessness brings shame to their makers.
Verse 13 is one half of a pair. The verse before shows a metalworker. Verse 13 shows a woodworker with his line and compass, making something to stand indoors. Read the verses around it together, and the point becomes plain.
The passage describes the work of smith and carpenter. The result is an image built "with the beauty of a man," which a man can keep in the house. Then our thoughts turn to the work of planting trees, or cutting them down. Then comes the absurdity. A man uses some of the wood to warm himself, or to bake bread and roast meat. Out of what is left he fashions a "god," and falls down before it asking for deliverance!
Of all the shapes the carpenter could carve, he chooses a human one. Notice who that leaves him bowing to.
Such is man's condition. He feels the need of having a god, but is so ignorant of the true God that he makes one for himself. The carpenter, with rule and compass, fashions his god "into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man." So it is the image of himself that he worships.
One writer traces the carving back to the mind that designed it.
Man has projected an imaginary being — the creation of his own mind, the personification of the qualities he finds in himself. He has clothed it with power beyond his own, has made it divine, and has worshipped it. In result he has worshipped himself, or a demon behind himself. Even if there were no surer and better way, we could still learn something of what man is from the gods he has made and worshipped.
The tools in this verse are not the only ones that make idols.
The root of all idolatry is self-will. It is making a god of our own. It is starting with self and fashioning a god, not necessarily out of silver, and not necessarily with our hands. In this enlightened age you would say there is very little danger of people fashioning gods with their hands. Ah, but there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands, and that is the intellect of man. Wherever self takes the place of the will of God, you will find the human mind at work, fashioning a god to please itself. And it does this in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.
The passage does not stop at the workshop. Later verses describe what this work does inside the man himself.
The terrible effect of such folly is to darken the understanding and harden the heart. Their own imaginations deceive them, so they cannot see the lie or free their souls from its effect.
- Made — The passage exposes idolatry by showing how a man makes an idol: measured, marked, shaped, kept in the house. What a man makes can neither see nor know.
- Madness — The absurdity is in the sequence. The same tree warms a man, bakes his bread, and then, from what is left over, becomes the thing he asks to save him.
- Mirror — The carpenter shapes his god in human form, so what he bows to is his own likeness. His gods therefore tell you what he is.
- Root — The chisel is not the real instrument. The root of idolatry is self-will, and the mind can fashion a god to please itself while still using God's name.
- Result — The end of this work is not a harmless hobby. It is a darkened understanding and a hardened heart, unable to see the lie it made.
When he heweth him down cedars, he taketh also a holm-oak and a terebinth -- he chooseth for himself among the trees of the forest he planteth a pine, and the rain maketh [it] grow.
Isaiah 44 takes idol-making apart step by step. Verse 14 stops at the raw material: a man picks his timber in the forest, plants a tree, waits for rain to grow it, and then bows to what he carves from it.
One writer follows the chapter's argument from the workshop to the forest and back to the fire:
But at the time when Isaiah wrote there was among the people this persistent tendency to turn to their idols and false gods. So once more, in verses 9-20 of our chapter, God reasons with the people about their folly in this matter. The passage describes the work of the blacksmith and the carpenter, and the result is an image "according to the beauty of a man," which can be kept in the house. Then our thoughts turn to the work of planting trees, or cutting them down. Then comes the absurdity of using some of the wood for warming oneself, or baking bread and roasting meat. Then out of what is left the man fashions a "god," falls down before it, and asks for deliverance!
The verse names specific trees. The first is the wood Solomon used for God's temple — and the same wood served for carved images:
The beautiful tall tree that Solomon used widely in building the temple and his palaces. It is called 'cedar' from the firmness of its roots; its wood is very durable and fragrant. It served for beams, pillars and masts, and for carved images. 1 Kings 6:9-10; Isa. 44:14; Ezek. 27:5.
The last name in the list is less certain. Ancient translators into Greek and Latin had to make a choice:
The particular tree pointed out by the Hebrew word oren is not known. Isa. 44:14. The Septuagint and the Vulgate call it 'pine.'
The same tree serves both the cooking fire and the shrine — and Israel, who knew better, copied it:
Scripture shows the folly of a man cutting down a tree. He burns part of it to cook his food and to warm himself, and yet makes a god of the rest and worships it (Isa. 44:14-17). And yet Israel, to whom God had revealed Himself, not only as Creator but in redemption, adopted these wicked follies.
Behind the carpentry lies a real hunger, answered the wrong way:
Such is the condition of man. He feels the need of having a god, but is so ignorant of the true God that he makes one for himself. The carpenter, with rule and compass, fashions his god "after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man." So it is the image of himself that he worships.
If the folly is so obvious, why did no one see it? The same writer traces it to something other than a lack of intelligence:
The folly and absurdity of such doings should have been plain to all the people, but it was not. How was it that their eyes were closed and their understanding darkened? The trouble lay in their hearts, which were deceived... The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the mistaken religious cults that abound? The trouble lies not so much in their intellects as in their hearts.
One writer sets Isaiah beside a later speaker who pressed the same point more gently:
Man alone of the creatures on earth is God's offspring. If that is so, how can anyone hold that the divine is like a work of man's skill and imagination in gold, silver, or stone? "We ought not" so to think, he says graciously, not forgetting that Israel too had to bear the sterner irony of Isaiah (Isa. 44:9-20). A lifeless block of wood that man forms cannot be, or properly represent, the God who made him and all things.
- Planted — He picks cedar, oak and a tree no one can now name for sure. He even plants a young tree and waits for rain to grow it.
- Cut — One part of the log warms him and bakes his bread. Out of what is left he shapes something he begs to save him.
- Carved — He measures the image by human beauty, so what he ends up worshipping is a likeness of himself.
- Blind — The failure is not in the mind but in a deceived heart. That is why clever people still take up mistaken religions today.
- Answered — A lifeless block cannot represent the God who made the man. Israel knew Him as Creator and in redemption, and still copied this folly.
And it shall be for a man to burn, and he taketh thereof, and warmeth himself; he kindleth it also, and baketh bread; he maketh also a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
Isaiah 44 follows one log step by step: part of it warms the man, part bakes his bread, and the rest becomes a god he kneels to. How can the same wood be firewood in one hand and a saviour in the other?
Verse 15 sits inside a longer passage about idol makers. One writer walks through it, from the metalworker to the carpenter and his divided log:
If Israel witnesses to God, the idol worshippers become their own witness to how worthless their idols are. Those who make the idols are all of them worthless, and their images are good for nothing. They do not see or know, and their helplessness brings shame on their makers. The smith uses his own strength to shape a metal god, and the carpenter shapes a wooden idol in the figure of a man. To do this he cuts down the trees of the forest. With part of the wood he makes a fire to warm himself. With part he bakes his bread. And with part he makes a carved image, and he bows down and worships it.
Isaiah just describes what the man does, step by step. One writer retells it, from planting the tree to the prayer at the end:
Then our thoughts turn to the work of planting trees, or cutting them down. Then comes the absurdity of using some of the wood to warm yourself, or to bake bread and roast meat. And out of the rest a man makes a "god," falls down before it, and asks it to deliver him!
Notice what the carpenter copies when he shapes the leftover wood: a human form.
Such is the condition of man. He feels he must have a god, but he is so ignorant of the true God that he makes one for himself. The carpenter, with ruler and compass, shapes his god into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man. So it is the image of himself that he worships.
The craving behind the carving is stronger than the logic against it. And the god a man invents ends up ruling him.
Human nature shows itself in the blindness and folly of its religious side. It will make a god rather than have none, and it cannot judge the worth of a god made this way… No folly seems more complete than bowing down to the work of your own hands. Yet here we see what its power really is. Not wanting to keep God in his knowledge, man makes Him what he wishes Him to be — the reflection of his own passions and desires. These already control him, and in his idol he hands himself over to them.
If the contradiction is this obvious, why did nobody see it? One writer asks that question, and finds the same problem alive today:
The folly and absurdity of such doings should have been plain to all the people, but it was not. Why were their eyes closed and their minds dark? The trouble lay in their hearts, which were deceived. So they could not consider and discern the lie in their "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the mistaken religious cults that abound? The trouble lies not so much in their intellects as in their hearts.
You may think this chapter says nothing to people who own no statues. One writer points to a different tool:
The root of all idolatry is self-will; it is making a god of our own. It starts with self and shapes a god — not always out of silver, and not always with our hands… there is a tool more clever and skilful than the hands, and that is the human mind. Wherever a man puts self in the place of God's will, you will find that mind busy shaping a god to please itself. And it does so in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.
- One log — the wood that warms the man and bakes his bread is the wood he kneels to. Isaiah exposes idolatry just by describing it.
- One maker — the worshipper made what he worships. An image shaped in the figure of a man is really an image of himself.
- One motive — man will make a god rather than have none. He shapes one that mirrors his own desires, then lets those desires rule him.
- One cause — the blindness is not a failure of intelligence but of the heart, and false religion works the same way today.
- One warning — the axe is optional. Wherever self replaces the will of God, the mind carves an idol and calls it by God's name.
He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh, he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he is warm, and saith, Aha, I am become warm, I have seen the fire.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And with the remainder thereof he maketh a god, his graven image; he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.
Isaiah 44 pictures a man felling a tree, cooking his dinner over half of it, and then kneeling to the other half. Verse 17 is the point the prophet has been building towards: the wood that cooked the meal is now prayed to as a saviour, and no one sees the problem.
The force of the verse lies in the word "rest" — the leftover. One writer follows the chain from the growing tree to the prayer for rescue.
Then think of the work of planting trees, or cutting them down. Then comes the absurdity. A man uses some of the wood to warm himself, or to bake bread and roast meat. Out of the rest he shapes a "god," falls down before it, and asks it to save him!
Earlier in the chapter the craftsman shapes his idol to look like a man. That detail explains what the finished idol is, and why a man wants one at all.
He feels he must have a god, but he knows so little of the true God that he makes one for himself. The carpenter, with ruler and compass, shapes his god to look like a man, with the beauty of a man. So he worships an image of himself.
God had called Israel His witnesses a few verses earlier. One commentator points out that the idols are witnesses too — against the people who kneel to them.
Next comes a devastating exposure of idolatry. If Israel were witnesses of the true God, Jehovah, then the idols were witnesses too: their powerlessness testified against the foolish people who worshipped them.
If the folly is this obvious, why does no one see it? One writer points at the heart rather than the mind, and finds the same cause behind false religion today.
The folly and absurdity of such doings should have been plain to all the people, but it was not. Why were their eyes closed and their understanding dark? The trouble lay in their deceived hearts... It is just the same today. Why do so many take up the false religious cults that are everywhere? The trouble lies not so much in their minds as in their hearts. It is true for them, as for Israel long ago, that "a deceived heart has turned him aside."
There is a bitter irony in this. The worshipper asks the block of wood to deliver him, while he himself is the one unable to get free.
The terrible effect of such folly is to darken the understanding and harden the heart. Deceived by the imaginations of their own heart, they cannot see the lie, and they cannot free their souls from its effect.
It would be easy to file this verse under ancient superstition. Commentators refuse that escape: the shape of the idol does not change the sin.
Idolatry is the universal sin of the world. No nation is free... But whether the idol is religious forms, or the power, riches and pleasures of the world, or a physical image, the effect is the same.
The cry for deliverance is not the problem. Everything depends on who hears it, and one writer names the only One who can answer.
There are idols we cannot see, and they rule the heart and the will as much as, or more than, idols of gold, silver or stone, carved by man's art and imagination. What are ease, pleasure, power and honour to men of every kind, high or low? What is Mammon — money — but the lowest of false gods?... Who can deliver you from this evil inside you except the same One Whom God raised from among the dead, Jesus the Deliverer from the wrath to come?
- Same log. He cooks his meal with half the tree, then begs the other half to save him — one log exposes the whole system.
- Own image. A man who will not know the true God still needs one, so he builds a god to his own measurements and then bows to it.
- Own witness. The idol can do nothing, and that is the proof — the thing prayed to testifies against the one praying.
- Own heart. The blindness is in the heart, not the mind — "a deceived heart has turned him aside" — so clever people still fall for the lie.
- Own deliverance — impossible. The man who begs the idol cannot free his own soul. Only the risen Christ answers.