THE TREATMENT OF IDOLS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

From the biblical record it is obvious that the worship of idols was ubiquitous, not only in the lands surrounding Israel, but in Israel herself. At various times of religious renewal there was often a groundswell movement to stamp out all forms of idolatry in the Holy Land by destroying prominent sites of such worship, but that sometimes led to the practice being driven into more private places where it continued to be practiced. But an even more effective means of combating the practice was through sarcasm, and the prophets were especially skilled in using this method. Below are a few of such sarcastic pronouncements designed to wake up those offenders who continued to be attracted to idol worship.

Isaiah 40:18-20

Wolf says, “Verses 18-20 begin the comparison between God and idols that continues into chapter 48. Idols can be made beautiful if several craftsmen labor over them, but even them one must be careful not to let the idols fall over.This note of sarcasm (v. 20) is developed more fully in chapter 44.”

“If God's transcendence is the most fundamental truth of OT theology, its immediate corollary is the next most fundamental: one cannot make an image of God. Any likeness (demut) of him that we contingent creatures attempt will of necessity be wrong. Furthermore, it plays directly into the hands of our passionate desire to make God controllable by making him part of our cosmos. Thus, the OT throughout wages a never-ending battle against making images of God...Of all the likenesses, one might choose to image God, surely the silliest, to Isaiah, is the idol. Here and in three other places (41:6-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7) the prophet marshals his deepest sarcasm to depict how foolish it is to try to make a god out of earthly material.”(Oswalt)

Isaiah 41:7

Barrett: “These chapters [40-55] are the high point of the prophetic exaltation of Yahweh and the complementary denial of the reality of other gods. The idol makers, idol worshipers and their idols are worthy only of ridicule, the idols being lifeless, silent and powerless (Is 40:19-20; 41:5-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7; cf. Jer 10:2-10), something that the nations will eventually realize, causing them to turn to Yahweh (e.g. Is 45:22-24).”

D.F. Payne adds, “The nations' fear of the advance of Cyrus is emphasized (5f.); v. 7 seems to show their hasty and pitiful attempts to construct idols to help them.”

Isaiah 44:9-20

“The passage falls into three parts: a general statement of the theme (verses 9-11); a satirical description of idol-making, in which the satire is implicit rather than explicit (verses 12-17); and a sententious conclusion (verses 18-20). The author has been led into a good deal of inelegant repetition through his desire to make his point clearly.” (Whybray)

Isaiah 46:1-7

Wolf: “The Lord's case against idols (which began in Chapter 41) is brought to a climax in chapter 44. Every chapter from 40 to 48 contains some reference to idols, images, or pagan worship, but chapter 44 presents the strongest attack against them.

Jeremiah 10:3-5

“The description of the idol follows similar descriptions in other parts of the OT (Ps. 115:4; 135:15; Isa. 2:20; 31:7; 40:18-20; 41:7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7; Hab. 2:19)...It is probable that there was a range of aphorisms which were used in Israel over many centuries to describe the lifeless, futile idols to which men turned for help. In the passages in Jer. 10 and Isa. 40, 44, and 46 several of these are brought together. There is no necessity to insist with many writers that a passage like this represents a postexilic insertion into Jeremiah, even though such insertions were possible...The immobility of the complete idol is now [in v. 5] described under two images. It is like an immobile and speechless scarecrow in a patch o cucumbers. It has to be carried about because it lacks even the power to move from one place to another.

Here is powerful irony. Idol-worship tried to capture in material objects what is a spiritual experience. As a result it encouraged the absurd practice of people venerating their own impotent creations. Jeremiah's appeal to the people here is not to fear such lifeless inventions, which can do neither good nor evil.” (Thompson)

Psalm 115:4-8

Nancy DeClaisse-Walford translates this passage as follows: “Their idols are silver and gold, the making of the hands of humankind. There is a mouth to them, but they do not speak; eyes to them but they do not see; ears to them, but they do not hear; a nose to them, but they do not smell. Their hands do not feel; their feet do not walk; they do not utter any sound in their throats. Like them are the ones making them, all who are trusting in them.”

The Psalmist systematically goes through all the main senses which a human being possesses and an idol does not. But the real zinger comes with the last line in which the author turns his guns on the idolaters themselves who are portrayed as being just as senseless as their idols.

As DeClaisse-Walford says, “In two short phrases, the vast gulf separating the objects of worship of the nations and the object of worship of Israel is delineated. The God of Israel inhabits a realm beyond human existence; the gods of the nations are the crafted product of humanity...The taunt continues in v. 8, as the psalmist compares the crafters and worshipers themselves to these inanimate idols...In the world of the ancient Near East, where the gods of the nations were depicted with human and animal-like images, a God who had no physical image was difficult to comprehend and embrace.”
Psalm 135:15-18

Anderson begins by pointing out the close similarity of this passage to Psalm 115:4-8 above. He adds, “It is sometimes pointed out that such an ironic account of idols or the gods of other nations and an implicit emphasis on the exclusiveness of one's own God have no real parallels in non-biblical literature.”

Derek Kidner notes that this stanza reproduces 115:4-8 “almost exactly.” The only differences are that the omission of v. 7 “and 115:6b is given a new twist after our psalm has taken its opening word, 'ap, not in the sense of 'nose' but as the emphatic conjunction rendered here “nor.”