They that form a graven image are all of them vanity, and their delectable things are of no profit; and they are their own witnesses they see not, nor know; -- that they may be ashamed.
In Isaiah 44 God has just called His people His witnesses. Verse 9 turns the courtroom around and calls the other side to testify — and the case for idols collapses as soon as their makers speak.
Isaiah sets Israel's testimony beside a witness of another kind.
Next comes a devastating exposure of idolatry. If Israel were witnesses to the true God, Jehovah, the idols themselves were witnesses too. Their powerlessness testified against the foolish people who worshipped them.
The idol-makers end up testifying against themselves.
But if Israel witnesses to God, the idolaters become their own witness to how empty their idols are. Those who make the idols are all of them nothing, and their images are "profitable for nothing." They "neither see nor know," and their powerlessness brings shame on their makers.
Older translations call them "their delectable things." That means desired things — the treasures people want most (Morrish Bible Dictionary). So what a person values most may still be worth nothing. Everything the true God does for people, an idol needs done for it.
Idols are set against Jehovah here, but they cannot be compared with the true God for a moment. Jehovah is the Maker; an idol has to be made. Once made, instead of carrying others it has to be carried. Once set in its place it cannot move. It cannot answer a cry for help, and it cannot save anyone from trouble.
Isaiah says these witnesses "neither see nor know." The problem is not their intelligence. The same blindness explains why people still fall for false religion.
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 could not stop and see the lie in their own "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the false religious cults that are everywhere? The trouble lies not so much in their intellects as in their hearts.
Worship also drags the worshipper down. What a man bows to shapes him.
What can these senseless gods do but drag the men who bow before them down until they are as senseless as the idols? And that is the just penalty on people who can abandon God to follow what are plainly their own inventions.
An idol does not need a workshop. It needs only a heart.
You do not need to bow down to a block of wood or a stone to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. Giving the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the person who gives it is an idolater. That is the plain, solemn truth, however unwelcome it is to the proud human heart. Take that one great, universal sin of "covetousness." What does the inspired apostle call it? He calls it "idolatry." How many hearts are commanded by money! How many worshipers bow down before the idol of gold!
Even the man who laughs at carved images is not clear of the charge.
Even when a stronger mind here and there sees such folly and despises it, that man only becomes an unbeliever and denies God altogether. He is still an idolater. He does not bow down to a carved image, but he does bow down to his own mind, and he is just as much a slave of sin.
Isaiah tears down the false god to make room for the real One, who does what no image ever did.
An idol is "a block of wood!" "An abomination!" (Isa. 44:19). But Israel knows God, the God who has "blotted out as a thick cloud" her transgressions (Isa. 44:22); so "Sing, O heavens … the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and glorified Himself in Israel" (v. 23).
- Nothing. Isaiah calls the makers of idols nothing. What they make is "profitable for nothing" — the treasures people most desire can still be worth nothing.
- Witness. God called Israel to witness to Him. The idol-maker witnesses too, but against himself: his god's helplessness shames him.
- Blindness. "Neither see nor know" is not a failure of brainpower. A deceived heart closes the eyes — which is why false religion still finds takers today.
- Heart. An idol needs no workshop. Whatever commands the heart is one — money, or a man's own mind — so the apostle calls covetousness idolatry.
- Redeemer. The exposure clears the ground for the only God who profits. He blots out sins like a cloud and glorifies Himself in redeeming His people.
Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
The question in this verse is not asked for information. It challenges the whole trade of idol-making — no sane person would do this, yet everyone was doing it.
The verse sits in a courtroom scene. Just before it, God calls Israel His witnesses. Now the other side takes the stand, and it convicts itself.
Next comes a devastating exposure of idolatry. 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.
The shame runs backwards, from the object to the man who shaped it. What he made cannot see or know, and that emptiness lands on him.
But if Israel witnesses to God, then the idolaters become their own witness. They testify to the emptiness of their idols. Those who make idols are "nothing" themselves, and their images are "profitable for nothing." They "neither see nor 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 one.
The phrase is not scorn stretched for effect. The word used elsewhere for such gods carries the sense of a zero.
"All the gods of the peoples are idols" — or, as the word means, "nothings" — "but Jehovah made the heavens."
The verse asks who forms such a god. The answer is not "primitive people long ago." The impulse behind the chisel outlives chisels.
The root of all idolatry is self-will. It is making a god of our own. It is starting with self and shaping a god — and it need not be out of silver, or made with our hands. In this enlightened age you would say there is little danger of people shaping gods with their hands. But there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands: the mind of man. Wherever self takes the place of the will of God, you will find the human mind at work shaping a god to please itself. And it does this in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.
The carpenter later in the chapter shapes his god to look like a man, so what he ends up bowing to is a portrait of himself.
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 rule 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.
If the thing profits nothing, why does no one notice? The failure lies below the level of reasoning.
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 see the lie in their "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the mistaken religious movements that abound? The trouble lies not so much in their minds as in their hearts.
The exposure is not the end of the chapter. God is stripping His people of a worthless thing because He has something to give them.
Israel sees how helpless idols are, and abandons them for the true God. An idol is "a block of wood!" "An abomination!" (Isaiah 44:19). But Israel knows God, the God who has blotted out her transgressions "like a cloud" (Isaiah 44:22).
- Nothing. The word Scripture uses for these gods means "nothings" — a zero. The idol is not a weak god; it is not a god at all.
- Nothing gives nothing. What cannot see or know cannot help. That helplessness falls back on the man who made it: his own handiwork testifies against him.
- Nothing chosen. No one drifts into this. Idolatry starts with self-will. It is a god shaped to please me — now by the mind more than the hands, and often set up in God's own name.
- Nothing seen. The absurdity stays hidden because the fault is in the heart, not the mind. That is why clever people still take up religious lies today.
- Everything offered. God strips away the worthless thing to give His people the real gain: a God who blots out their sins like a cloud.
Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed; and the workmen are but men. Let them all be gathered together, let them stand up they shall fear, they shall be ashamed together.
Isaiah 44 moves from God's promise that Israel are His witnesses to a hard look at the idol-making trade. Verse 11 summons the whole workshop — owner, friends and craftsmen — to stand up together and face what they have made.
This attack on idols is not a side note in Isaiah.
In the first division of this portion of Isaiah, we find references to idols in every chapter, and this in connection with Israel (see Isaiah 40:18–25; 41:21–29; 42:17; 43:12; 44:9–20; 45:16; 46:1–7; 47:12–15; 48:5). So it becomes clear that the leading subject is God's controversy with Israel about their idolatry.
Israel was called to testify to God. The idols testify too, in their own way.
Next follows a withering 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.
The verdict falls on the maker because of what the made thing cannot do.
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 "see not, nor know," and their powerlessness brings shame to their makers. The smith by his own strength fashions a metal god, and the carpenter 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.
Smith and carpenter each work by their own strength. That strength is human, and so is everything it makes.
Behind the workshop lies a need the worker cannot meet by himself.
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 "into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man." So it is the image of himself that he worships.
These gods also do something to the people who bow to them.
The idol gives no answer to its worshipper by word or look. No hand of its own reaches out to help, no foot moves to bring relief, and no sound comes from its idle throat. What can these senseless deities do but drag the men who bow before them down into beings as senseless? And this is the just penalty on those who can forsake God to follow, plainly, their own inventions.
The verse promises terror and shame, yet the men in the workshop feel neither. Their blindness has a cause deeper than ignorance.
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 mistaken 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 of old that "a deluded heart has led him astray."
This folly then locks itself in. It hardens the mind and heart that could have escaped it.
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 discern the lie, nor deliver their souls from its effect.
Idolatry is not a dead subject. Commentators see it surfacing again at the end of history.
From the book of Revelation we know that in the last days another Babylon will appear on the stage as a final unfolding of idolatry. All the prophets brand this idolatry as a shameful stain (see Isaiah 44:9–20; Jeremiah 2:27; 3:9, and others).
The reason for the shame is simple.
A lifeless block of wood that man forms cannot be, or properly represent, the God who made him and all things.
- Controversy. One argument runs through chapters 40–48: God's case against His people over idolatry. Every chapter names idols.
- Craftsmen. The thing he made judges the maker — images that neither see nor know, shaped by merely human hands.
- Copy. Man still needs a god but does not know the true one. So he builds one shaped like himself, and worships his own image.
- Cause. The blindness starts in the heart, not the mind. A deluded heart cannot spot the lie it holds, and today's religious substitutes work the same way.
- Consummation. Every prophet marks idolatry as a shameful stain, and it will surface again at the end. So the summons to stand up and face the shame is still open.
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.
They have no knowledge, and understand not; for he hath plastered their eyes, that they may not see; and their hearts, that they may not understand.
The verse answers the question raised by a long exposure of idol-making: if the folly is so plain, why does no one see it? The answer is not missing evidence but shut eyes and a closed heart, and commentators trace that shutting to man's own heart and to God's hand.
The verses just before this one expose idolatry in detail. One writer sums up what that exposure does: the idols end up giving evidence against the people who worship them.
What follows is a crushing exposure of idolatry. If Israel were witnesses of the true God, Jehovah, then the idols were witnesses too. They gave their evidence by their powerlessness against the foolish people who worshipped them.
We assume people fall for absurd religion because they have not thought it through. One writer puts the failure somewhere else, and says the same is true today.
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 could not think it through, or see the lie in their "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the erroneous religious cults that abound? The trouble lies not so much in their intellects as in their hearts.
The verse names two things that close: the eyes and the heart. One writer shows how they work together, so that a man cannot get free of the lie his own heart produced.
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 discern the lie, nor deliver their souls from its effect.
The verse also says that another hand shut those eyes. One writer treats this as a rule in God's dealings: the blindness never comes first. He then points to men who bowed down to idols they had captured as spoils of war.
This has always been so, and it will be so still, under this blindness sent as a judgment. Worldly men ignore the clearest and most sensible ways of serving their own interests. Religious men wander from the plainest instructions of the truth. We are not to wonder at anything. The very idols which men have taken as spoils of war, they have afterwards bowed down to as their gods (2 Chron. 25:14). There is no folly, no unbelievable blindness of mind, that the deluded heart of man will not show. But this blindness is never sent to visit a man until he has justly laid himself open to judgment.
The idol has eyes that do not see, and the verse says the same of the worshipper. One writer treats that likeness as the penalty of the sin itself.
What were these idol-images? Simply matter — silver and gold — shaped by men's hands. They have a mouth and eyes, yet the idol gives no response to his worshiper by word or look. He realizes nothing: the voice that cries to him he does not hear, the smell of incense or of sacrifice he does not perceive. No hand can he stretch out to help, no foot of his will stir to bring relief. What can these senseless deities do but degrade the men who bow before them into beings as senseless? And this is the just penalty on those who can forsake God to follow their own inventions.
The passage does not end in the dark. A few verses on, the making runs the other way, and the God who exposed the folly deals with the guilt of it.
Israel is called to remember this: these idolaters form their own gods, but Jehovah has formed His people to serve Him. Having formed them, He will not forget them. He will blot out their sins, redeem them from the power of the enemy, and glorify Himself in Israel.
- Made — a man forms his own god, then cannot see the thing he formed.
- Heart — the deception starts in the heart, not in the mind. That is why good arguments so often bounce off.
- Shut — the blindness is also God's act, but never His first move. It comes only after a man has refused the light.
- Like — a lifeless god drags its worshipper down to its own level. "Cannot see, cannot understand" now fits both the idol and the man.
- Formed — the cure is a God who forms His people, not a god they form. He blots out the sins the idol never could.
And none taketh it to heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire, and have also baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh, and eaten [it], and with the rest thereof shall I make an abomination? shall I bow down to a block of wood?
Isaiah 44 puts God's witness, Israel, against the idol and its maker. Verse 19 is the sharp point of the argument: a man burns half a log for cooking and heat, bows to the piece left over, and never stops to notice.
The chapter does not attack idols from the outside. It lets the idol-makers testify against themselves.
If Israel witnesses to God, the idolaters become their own witness to the emptiness of their idols. Those who make idols are "all of them vanity." Their images are "profitable for nothing." They "do not see, nor know," and their helplessness brings shame on their makers.
The details around the verse are ordinary: planting, cutting, a fire, a meal. All of it comes from the same tree as the god.
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 the rest he makes a "god," falls down before it, and asks it to deliver him!
The word the prophet puts in the man's mouth is a strong one, and its use in the Old Testament is specific.
The word 'abomination' is used in the Old Testament for any wrongdoing as a holy God sees it. It also marks out what was unfit to bring into the service of God… But idolatry was the special thing declared to be an abomination to the Lord. The idols themselves carry this name: 2 Kings 23:13; Isaiah 44:19.
No one considers. No one has the knowledge to ask the obvious question. The reason is not a shortage 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. So they could not consider or 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.
The same blindness has a second effect. The man who makes a god cannot judge what he has made.
Human nature shows itself here in the blindness and folly of its religious side. It will make a god rather than not have one, and it cannot judge the value of a god made that way… Man does not like to keep God in his knowledge, so he makes Him what he wishes Him to be — the reflection of his own passions and desires. These desires already control him, and in his idol he simply gives way to their control.
Earlier in the passage the carpenter carves his god in the shape of a man. That choice of shape says something about the man who bows to it.
This 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 ruler and compass, shapes 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.
It is easy to read the verse as being about someone else's religion, long ago and far away.
Are we better than Israel? Not at all. We have brighter light and higher privileges. But in ourselves we are the same material, with the same capabilities and the same tendencies as they had. Our idolatry may take a different shape from theirs. But idolatry is idolatry, whatever the shape. The higher our privileges, the greater our sin.
The exposure is not the end. A few verses later, the same God speaks of Israel's sins wiped out.
Israel sees how powerless idols are, and gives them up for the true God. An idol is "a block of wood!" "An abomination!" (Isaiah 44:19). But Israel knows God, the God who has "blotted out as a thick cloud" her transgressions (Isaiah 44:22).
- Witness. God's people were called to testify to Him; instead the idol-makers ended up testifying against themselves, since what they made was "profitable for nothing."
- Wood. The same log warmed the man, baked his bread, and roasted his meat. The leftover piece became the thing he begged to save him.
- Heart. No one considers, because the failure is not in the mind but in a deceived heart. The man cannot even weigh the value of the god he has made.
- Mirror. Carved in the shape of a man, the idol is the worshipper's own image. He makes it because he must have a god of some kind.
- Blotted out. The chapter that calls an idol an abomination ends with transgressions swept away like a cloud. The true God does what a block of wood never could.
He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
The verse closes a long passage about the man who makes his own god. He cuts down a tree, burns half of it for warmth and bread, then bows to what is left. Now the verse names what such a man is living on, and why he cannot see through it.
God has just made rich promises to His people. One writer traces what comes next:
After this richest encouragement to His undeserving people (Isaiah 44:1-5), He again takes up His case against idols. He sets out the folly as well as the wickedness of a man making his own object of worship (6-20). And He makes a most touching appeal to Israel, formed to be His servant.
Ashes in the Bible speak of sorrow. Here the picture is stranger — the man is eating them:
To eat ashes expresses great sorrow (Ps. 102:9). To be reduced to ashes is a picture of complete destruction (Ezek. 28:18; Malachi 4:3). To feed on them tells of the empty things that can occupy the soul (Isa. 44:20).
Ashes are what the fire leaves behind. There is nothing in them to feed a soul.
Older translations read "a deceived heart" here, and the writers quoted below use that wording. One writer asks why the people could not see the folly, then puts the same question to us today:
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 could not weigh it up and see the lie in their "right hand." The position today is just the same. Why do so many take up the false religious cults that are all around us? The trouble lies not so much in their minds as in their hearts.
The verse says the man cannot deliver himself. The folly has already done something to him:
The terrible effect of such folly is to darken the understanding and harden the heart. Deceived by the imaginings of their own heart, they cannot see the lie. And they cannot free their souls from its effect.
The principle reaches far past carved images. Israel once demanded a king instead of the Lord. God let them have what they asked for, and one writer reads their story through this verse:
They will have what their soul was craving, but they will find it to be their plague. Their own king will be their sorrow and ruin, as all our own things are, if we insist on following them and having them. "He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray." What but ashes — sorrow and death — does the work of our own hands gather for us?
Another writer turns the same words on anyone looking for contentment in a world that cannot give it:
As long as a soul is seeking rest and satisfaction in a world without Christ, he is bound to be disappointed. There is nothing there to meet the hunger of the soul formed by God for higher things.
The verse ends with a question the man never asks himself. One writer names what breaks that silence:
The word of God is still the means by which we walk in the holiest paths. The natural man, whether he claims to be religious or not, never applies the word to himself. He never suspects that there may be a lie in his right hand.
- Ashes. The word marks emptiness, not just grief — to feed on ashes is to have the soul occupied with what has no substance in it.
- Heart. The verse blames a deceived heart, not a weak mind. That is why plain folly stays invisible to the man doing it.
- Grip. The deception darkens the understanding and hardens the heart. The man cannot see the lie, and he cannot free his own soul from it.
- Reach. The principle runs past carved images to anything of our own making. Israel got the king they demanded, and he became their sorrow and ruin.
- Remedy. The natural man never suspects a lie in his own right hand. Only the word of God, applied to yourself, opens the question the verse asks.