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.