Hear the word that Jehovah speaketh unto you, house of Israel.
Jeremiah 10 opens with a direct summons: God has something to say to His people, and their first duty is to listen. What follows is a warning about the religion of the nations around them. Their fear of the sky and their handmade gods stand over against the Lord Himself.
This call does not begin a new subject. It closes a long message that started at the temple gate.
Jeremiah 7-10 begin with the house of God as the witness of the people's sin and the starting-point of His judgment. They say that Israel, who pay no attention to the Lord, might learn a lesson from the birds of the sky, which keep to their own movements and seasons. And they insist, though with the deepest grief on the prophet's part, that God's judgments must fall both on them and on the nations around them.
God speaks to "the house of Israel," and what He gives them is not comfort but caution. He does not just forbid the customs of the nations. He holds them up to ridicule.
Jeremiah 10 closes the section with a solemn warning to Israel against the superstitious fear and idolatry of the ways of the nations. The chapter exposes those ways by ridiculing their falsehood. Verses 17 and 18 speak of swift and well-deserved judgment.
The first thing this word touches is fear of the sky. The nations read the heavens for warnings, and it left them afraid.
The nations paid attention to the signs of heaven, such as eclipses, comets, meteor showers, and so on. These things filled them with dread. Everything they did, all their customs and ceremonies tied to idol worship, was nothing but emptiness.
The chapter works by comparison. On one side stand the empty gods of the nations; on the other stands the Lord Himself. And God says it all again to people who have already refused Him.
Jeremiah 10 sets the idols and empty things of the nations against Jehovah. In verses 19-25 we have the affliction of the prophet. He speaks of the ruin of Jerusalem as though he were himself the ruined city, and he prays that God's dealings might be correction only, and not cutting off. The reader will do well to notice this. God pleads with Israel again and again, and that is the most touching proof of His kindness. He multiplies His appeals to a rebellious and perverse people, "rising up early," as He puts it, to protest to them.
One detail in this chapter carries the warning beyond Israel. God set one verse in the language of the empire that was about to carry His people away.
The wise men with their teaching of empty things, and the workmen with their skilled work in silver and gold and wood, may work together with Chaldean learning to hold the nations by idolatry. But they are all the works of error; therefore, "they shall perish" (Jer. 10:15). The God of truth will triumph over this falsehood! It is in this chapter that the greatness of His glorious Name is declared, and the Spirit records in verse 11, in the Chaldean language, that these false gods will perish completely. It is the only verse written that way in the whole book. The idolatrous Chaldeans were to take Israel captive, but in their very language God records the complete overthrow of their false gods. He proclaims that Israel, whom He allows them to carry into captivity, is His rod.
God gave this command not to copy the nations to a whole people. Commentators see in it a picture of what is now true of every believer, one by one.
God had set the Israelites apart for Himself as a nation, an outward separation, and He called them to keep clear of idolatry and the evil practices of the nations around them. So, far back in His dealings with His earthly people, God gives us a picture of what should be true of us who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In our case it is personal and inward, and in a far higher way than was ever expected of Israel.
- Hear first. The chapter calls the house of Israel to listen. This is the close of one long message that began at the temple gate in chapter 7.
- Hear a warning. What they must hear is a warning against the superstitious fear and idolatry of the nations. God exposes them by ridicule.
- Hear about the sky. Eclipses, comets and meteor showers filled the nations with dread. God tells His people not to fear them.
- Hear who God is. The chapter sets the empty gods of the nations against the Lord. God records their overthrow in verse 11, in the Chaldean language of the empire about to take Israel captive.
- Hear it again. God pleads with a rebellious people again and again, "rising up early" to appeal to them. That is the most touching proof of His kindness. And His call not to copy the nations now reaches each believer inwardly.
Thus saith Jehovah Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.
God speaks here about the religion of the nations around Israel. The warning has two halves: do not copy their practices, and do not catch their fears. The nations watched the sky and trembled; God tells His people that this dread has no claim on them.
The command is not vague disapproval of foreigners. It concerns worship, and it assumes God's people will be drawn to copy. One writer sets out what was to govern them instead.
God told His people of the ways of the heathen, and forbade them to imitate them. The Word must alone govern them in all matters relating to divine worship, as indeed in everything else.
The signs in view are the ones the nations watched for in the sky.
The heathen paid attention to the signs of heaven, such as eclipses, comets, meteoric showers, and so on. They were dismayed at these things. All they did, their customs and observances connected with idol worship, was nothing but vanity.
The sky is not a rival power. Sun, moon and stars are made things, and the point of their beauty is to send the eye higher. Reading fortunes in them turns that upside down.
If they lifted their eyes up to heaven, above the level of earthly creatures, let them be sure to look higher than the sun, moon and stars. Let them look to the One who created all these things, instead of worshipping these visible works of God's hands... God has created these wonderful heavenly bodies, but they are there only to direct our attention to their unseen Maker. Yet Israel later turned again to worship idols of every sort, and the sun as well.
The chapter moves straight from dread of the sky to the workshop where men make their gods. Both fail the same test: what can such a thing do?
The signs of the heavens dismay the nations! With axe and hammer they make their gods! They cannot speak! They have to be carried, for they cannot walk themselves! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them! The "wise men" who teach their doctrines are foolish. So the prophet exposes the utter emptiness of idolatry... "The Portion of Jacob is not like them; for He is the Former of all things," the prophet cries out with joy.
Fear of the sky has one answer: the greatness of God Himself. The chapter describes the Maker of the heavens the omen-watchers are staring at.
Idols are nothing, but the Lord God of Israel is all. He is the King of Nations, who rules over all. He is the true God, the living God, the everlasting King... He made the earth by His power; He established the world by wisdom; He stretched out the heavens by His discretion.
The warning has not aged out. One writer points at habits that look harmless but carry the same instinct: letting some sign decide your future.
All superstitions, such as dreading certain days and numbers ("Friday" or "13"), and other foolish observances, sadly found so much among professing Christians, are heathenish and dishonour God, who alone knows and controls the welfare and future of His people.
Jeremiah 10 repeats material his hearers had heard many times before. That repetition is not impatience.
In Jeremiah 10 the idols and the vanities of the nations are put in contrast with Jehovah... The reader will do well to observe that the repetition of God's pleadings with Israel is the most touching proof of the kindness of God, who multiplies His appeals to a rebellious and perverse people, "rising up early," as He expresses it, to protest to them.
- Learn — the danger starts as learning, not rebellion. God's people pick up the nations' way of worship, when His Word alone was to govern them.
- Signs — the nations read eclipses, comets and meteor showers as omens. Those customs were empty, and so was the fear behind them.
- Lift — God made the sun, moon and stars to turn the eye up to their unseen Maker. They were never there to tell you about tomorrow.
- Contrast — gods made with an axe cannot speak or walk. The Portion of Jacob formed all things, and He is the living God, the everlasting King.
- Today — dreading days, numbers and omens is the same instinct, and it dishonours the God who alone controls His people's future. He says it again and again because He is kind.
For the statutes of the peoples are vanity; for [it is] a tree cut out of the forest, worked with a chisel by the hands of the artizan;
Jeremiah 10 warns Israel not to copy the ways of the nations. Verse 3 gives the reason — a picture of a man walking into a wood with an axe and coming out with a god.
The nations around Israel watched the sky and were shaken by what they saw. One writer names those signs and gives God's verdict on the whole system built on them.
Verses 1–5. The nations paid attention to the signs of heaven, such as eclipses, comets, meteor showers, and so on. They were dismayed at these things. Everything they did — their customs and practices tied to idol worship — was nothing but vanity.
The whole chapter works by comparison.
In Jeremiah 10 the idols and the vanities of the nations stand in contrast with the LORD.
God does not argue with idolatry here so much as laugh at it. "Vanity" here means emptiness — a thing with nothing in it. The chapter walks through how a man makes his idol, until the worshipper's fear looks absurd.
Jeremiah 10 closes the section with a solemn warning to Israel. They must not take up the superstitious fear and idolatry of the ways of the nations. The chapter exposes them by mocking their falsehood: "They are vanity, a work of errors; when the time of their judgment comes they will perish. The portion of Jacob is not like them, for He formed all things; and Israel is the rod of His inheritance: the LORD of hosts is His name."
The tree, the axe and the craftsman's hands are only the start of the description. Follow the object through the next verses and its helplessness becomes the point.
With axe and hammer they make their gods! They cannot speak! They have to be carried! For they cannot go themselves! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them! The "wise men" who teach their doctrines are foolish. So the prophet exposes the utter vanity and emptiness of idolatry.
A cut log is an unlikely object of worship, so the deeper question is what drives a person to it. The pull is a wish for a god that matches our own desires. Once a man makes the idol, it takes power over him.
Human nature shows itself in the blindness and folly of its religious side. It would rather make a god than have no god at all. It cannot judge the value of a god made that way… No folly seems more complete than bowing down to the work of one's own hands. Yet the passage shows what real power that idol has. 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. In his idol he is only handing himself over to their control.
The mockery has a purpose. It clears the ground, so that later in the same chapter the true God stands out for what He is.
Speaking to His people Israel through the prophet Jeremiah, the LORD talks about the idols of the nations: "A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They cover it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it cannot move." How different the God of Israel was! He is "the LORD, the true God, He is the living God and an everlasting King. At His anger the earth trembles, and they will perish from the earth and from under these heavens."
A reader may assume the axe dates the danger. One writer answers that the workshop has only moved.
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. In our enlightened age, you would say there is very little danger of people making gods with their hands. Ah, but there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands — the intellect of man. Wherever self takes the place of the will of God, you will find the human mind busy making a god to please itself. And it does this in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.
- Custom — God weighs the practices of the nations, including their dread of signs in the sky, and finds them nothing but vanity.
- Craft — the verse traces the god back to its origin: a tree, an axe, a workman. A god you have to make cannot save you.
- Carried — the finished idol cannot speak and cannot walk; it is dead wood under gold, with no breath in it.
- Cause — people build gods because self-will would rather shape a god than face the God who is. The idol then hands them over to the desires that made it.
- Contrast — against every manufactured god stands the living God, the everlasting King, and the earth trembles at His anger. Today the tool that makes rivals to Him is the mind, not the axe.
they deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
The prophet turns to plain mockery. Step by step he shows how a god gets made: timber, axe, gold leaf, nails. One question sits under the sarcasm. What is a god worth if you have to build it, decorate it, and then nail it down so it will not fall over?
The mockery starts higher up, with the sky. The nations watched the heavens, and what they saw left them afraid.
The pagan nations paid attention to the signs of heaven, such as eclipses, comets, meteoric showers, and so on. These things filled them with dismay. Everything they did — all their customs and practices tied to idol worship — was nothing but emptiness.
Everything in the description is workmanship. One writer lists the details of these verses one after another, like hammer blows.
With axe and hammer they make their gods! They cannot speak! They have to be carried! For they cannot go themselves! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them! So the prophet exposes the utter emptiness of idolatry. The nations compete in curious and clever arts to form these worthless things. But the prophet joyfully exclaims, "The Portion of Jacob is not like them; for He is the Former of all things."
The nails hold up something that cannot hold itself up. Writing on idols in Isaiah, one writer names that reversal — and its opposite.
Idols are contrasted with Jehovah, but cannot for a moment be compared with the true God. Jehovah is the Maker, but an idol has to be made. Once made, instead of carrying others it has to be carried. When set in its place it cannot move, cannot answer the cry of need, and cannot save from trouble. In contrast to these helpless idols that have to be carried, the house of Israel is reminded that Jehovah carries the remnant of Israel. He made His people, carries them, and will deliver them from all their enemies.
The covering is not random. People plate the idol with what they already treasure, and that points to where idolatry starts.
"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands," says the psalmist (Ps. 115:4). "Their land is filled with silver and gold … their land is filled with idols," says the prophet (Isa. 2:7-8). Whatever man considers most precious, whatever his heart craves, whatever serves his own glory — that he makes into a god. That is the root of idolatry. God is displaced and man exalted, in the exalting of his idol.
If a god has to be nailed down, it holds no power to dread. Fear belongs somewhere else, and this chapter names where.
Their idols are nothing; the only one to fear is God Himself. And notice this. Jeremiah was a prophet to the nations, and the Lord Himself is called "King of nations." That is another feature unique to the book of Jeremiah.
The chapter does more than mock. It announces an end, and one writer points out where God chose to write that sentence down.
The wise men with their doctrine of empty things, and the workmen with their clever arts, may work together with Chaldean scholarship to hold the nations by idolatry. But they are all the works of error; therefore, "they shall perish." The God of truth will triumph over this falsehood! In this chapter the greatness of His glorious Name is declared. And in verse 11 the Spirit records that these false gods will perish completely — in the Chaldean language! This is striking and significant. It is the only verse so written in the whole book. The idol-worshipping Chaldeans were about to take Israel captive. Yet in their own language God records the complete overthrow of their false gods.
- Made — the idol begins as timber and ends as craftsmanship: axe, hammer, gold leaf. Jehovah is the Maker; the idol has to be made.
- Decorated — the idol wears silver and gold because that is what people already prize. Man makes a god of what he craves, and in lifting up the idol he lifts up himself.
- Fastened — the nails confess the weakness. What must be propped up cannot carry anyone; it cannot move, answer, or save.
- Feared — the nations trembled at eclipses and comets and at gods they had built themselves. Both fears are misplaced: idols are nothing, and the only one to fear is God, the King of nations.
- Finished — the chapter closes the case. God writes their doom in the very language of the captors. Against these dead idols stands the Portion of Jacob, the Former of all things.
They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
Jeremiah 10 sets the living God beside the gods people make by hand, and the comparison is meant to cure fear. If an idol can do nothing at all, why fear it — and what does bowing to it do to the one who bows?
The picture of a helpless idol answers a command given a few lines earlier. The passage runs from the workman's axe to the greatness of God.
So Jeremiah 10 calls them to hear the word which the LORD speaks to the house of Israel. "Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vain: one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe... They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must be carried, because they cannot go."
The ESV reads "like scarecrows in a cucumber field." Older translations read "upright as the palm tree." Either way, the picture is a stiff figure fixed in place.
Read the details together and the effect is mockery. Every step of manufacture only proves how dead the finished product is.
The signs of heaven dismay the nations! With axe and hammer they make their gods! Silver and gold and blue and purple may cover them, but they are just blocks of wood! There is no breath in them! The "wise men" who teach their doctrines are foolish. So the prophet exposes how empty and worthless idolatry is.
The clause "they have to be carried" is the hinge of the whole contrast. God makes; someone must make the idol. God carries His people; the idol is a load on their shoulders.
So idols stand in contrast to the LORD. They cannot for one moment be compared with the true God. The LORD is the Maker, but 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, cannot answer the cry of need, and cannot save from trouble.
The same test still shows what a person trusts, even where there is no carved figure.
It is still a fair question — do you go your way, carrying the things that you idolize, or does your God carry you? The idols of the modern English-speaking world are not images. They are subtler things, such as money, pleasures, lusts. Yet as life draws to its end they let you down. The God whom we know, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, carries us through to the finish. We are held in the embrace of the love that will never let us go.
"They cannot do evil" removes the fear of the object itself. It does not mean idolatry is safe. Commentators draw a sharp line here.
Even if such products of man's making have no existence, and their images cannot see or hear, demons are very real. They take advantage of man's imagination or his fears and claim the idol-sacrifices for themselves... The idols and their sacrifices may be completely powerless. But demons hiding behind them can and do shut the true God out of souls. They seize the honour that belongs to Him alone.
An idol with a mouth that says nothing does more than disappoint. It shapes the person kneeling in front of it.
But the idol gives no response to his worshipper by word or look. He is aware of nothing. He does not hear the voice that cries to him. He does not smell the incense or the sacrifice. He can stretch out no hand to help. No foot of his will stir to bring relief. There is not even a murmur of sound in the idle throat. 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.
This verse does not end fear. It moves fear off the idol and puts it where it belongs.
Their idols are nothing; the only one to fear is God Himself. And here you notice something more. Jeremiah was not only a prophet to the nations. The Lord Himself is called "King of nations" — another feature special to the Book of Jeremiah.
- Made — the idol begins with an axe and a workman; someone must make it before anyone can worship it, while God is the Maker of all.
- Mute — it cannot speak, has no breath, and gives its worshipper no answer by word or look.
- Carried — people must carry it, because it cannot move; the test of a true God is whether He carries you or you carry Him.
- Empty, not safe — in itself it can do neither harm nor good. Yet demons hide behind idolatry and steal the honour due to God alone.
- Feared — take your fear back from what is senseless and give it to the One called "King of nations."