Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 2:8
Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
8. idols ] Lit. “nonentities.” The word ( ’llm) is almost peculiar to Isaiah; and appears to contain a scornful play on the word for “gods” ( ’lm). work of their own hands ] The prophet refuses to distinguish, as a heathen might, between the false deity and his image; the latter alone has real existence. Cf. Hos 13:2; Isa 40:19 f., Isa 41:7; Isa 44:12-20, &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Their land also is full of idols – compare Hos 8:4; Hos 10:1. Vitringa supposes that Isaiah here refers to idols that were kept in private houses, as Uzziah and Jotham were worshippers of the true God, and in their reign idolatry was not publicly practiced. It is certain, however, that though Uzziah himself did right, and was disposed to worship the true God, yet he did not effectually remove idolatry from the land. The high places were not removed, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on them; 2Ki 15:4. It was customary with the pagan to keep in their houses Penates or household gods – small images, which they regarded as protectors, and to which they paid homage: compare Gen 30:19; Jdg 17:5; 1Sa 19:13; Hos 3:4. This is a true and literal description of India. The traveler cannot proceed a mile through an inhabited country without seeing idols, and vestiges of idolatry in every direction. See their vessles, their implements of husbandry, their houses, their furniture, their ornaments, their sacred trees, their domestic and public temples; and they all declare that the land is full of idols. – Roberts.
The work of their own hands … – Idols. It is often brought as proof of their great folly and degradation that they paid homage to what they had themselves made. See this severely satirized in Isa 40:18-20; Isa 41:6-7; Isa 44:9-17.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 2:8
Their land also is full of idols
Idols
The philosophic theory of polytheism is one centre, many emanations.
Iamblicus and Porphyry defend it on this line against the monotheism of early Christianity. Hermes Trismegistus, according to St. Augustine, says the Egyptians regarded images as being merely the bodies of the gods. In India there may be seen any day of the week the ceremony of praying a spirit of Vishnu or of Shiva Into a statue, or into a symbolic stone, by the Brahmin priest. The priestly theory is one of consubstantiation, like the Lutheran theory of the Eucharist, the difference being between the spiritual indwelling in material bread and material wine In the one case, and material wood and stone in the other. The gods, thus made visible to the common people, are endowed, by the popular consent, with human passions and human prejudices. Each represents one or more of these human propensities. Some are emblems of the reproductive powers of nature–fertilizers of the flocks and fields. Their worship, pure at the first possibly, became beyond all telling, licentious and abominable. (F. Sessions.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. Their land also is full of idols – “And his land is filled with idols”] Uzziah and Fotham are both said, 2Kg 15:3-4; 2Kg 15:34-35, “to have done that which was right in the sight of the Lord;” that is, to have adhered to and maintained the legal worship of God, in opposition to idolatry and all irregular worship; for to this sense the meaning of that phrase is commonly to be restrained; “save that the high places were not removed where the people still sacrificed and burned incense.” There was hardly any time when they were quite free from this irregular and unlawful practice, which they seem to have looked upon as very consistent with the true worship of God; and which seems in some measure to have been tolerated, while the tabernacle was removed from place to place, and before the temple was built. Even after the conversion of Manasseh, when he had removed the strange gods, commanded Judah to serve JEHOVAH the God of Israel, it is added, “Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still on the high places, yet unto JEHOVAH their God only,” 2Ch 33:17. The worshipping on the high places therefore does not necessarily imply idolatry; and from what is said of these two kings, Uzziah and Jotham, we may presume that the public exercise of idolatrous worship was not permitted in their time. The idols therefore here spoken of must have been such as were designed for a private and secret use. Such probably were the teraphim so often mentioned in Scripture; a kind of household gods, of human form, as it should seem, (see 1Sa 19:13, and compare Ge 31:34,) of different magnitude, used for idolatrous and superstitious purposes, particularly for divination, and as oracles, which they consulted for direction in their affairs.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
They give that worship to their own creatures which they deny to me their Creator, than which nothing can be more impious and absurd.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. (Ho8:4). Not so much public idolatry, which was not sanctioned inUzziah’s and Jotham’s reign, but (see 2Ki 15:4;2Ki 15:35) as private.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Their land also is full of idols,…. Of the Virgin Mary, and of saints departed, whose images are set up to be worshipped in all their churches, and had in private houses:
and they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made; namely, idols of gold, silver, brass, wood, and stone, Re 9:20.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8. Their land is also full of idols He repeats what he had already noticed about idolatry, but enters into it more fully; and, having first mentioned the subject itself, he next speaks of the use of it, which almost always follows. It seldom happens that we do not abuse idols when they are set up among us, for it is as when fire has been applied to a pile of wood, which must immediately burn; and wood is not more ready to be set on fire than we are to follow superstition. In the Hebrew language idols are very properly denominated by the word אלילים, ( elilim) which the Prophet here employs, for they are empty things, and of no value. (40) And undoubtedly the Holy Spirit intended by this word to reprove the madness of men who imagined that, by relying on such inventions, they approached nearer to God; as the papists of the present day, in order to plead for the usefulness of their idols, boast that they are the books of the unlearned: but we ought rather to believe the testimony of the Holy Spirit; and even the facts themselves plainly show what advantage the unlearned derive from them; for, led away by gross fancies, they imagine to themselves earthly and carnal gods. Hence Jeremiah justly declares not only that idols are useless, but that they are teachers of falsehood and lies. (Jer 10:14.)
And they have bowed down (41) before the work of their own hands We must also attend to this description, in which the Prophet relates that the people bowed down before the works of their own hands; for how stupid was it that men should not only worship wood and stone instead of God, but should honor their own workmanship with the appellation of Deity, which they cannot bestow on themselves! It is truly shocking and monstrous that, as soon as a block of wood which lay neglected has received the finishing-stroke from a mortal man, he presently worships it as if it had been made a God. Although the Prophet addresses the ancient people, the same reasoning applies to the papists, who acknowledge no majesty of God but in the works of their own hands.
Before that which their own fingers have made The repetition is emphatic, and to the hands he adds the fingers, in order to exhibit more strongly the grossness of the crime. We must also attend to the mode of expression, which denotes adoration by means of outward gesture; not that it is unlawful among men to bend the knee or the head for the sake of paying public respect, but because he who bows down before an idol professes to render divine worship. Consequently, the silly talk of papists about that adoration which they call Dulia (42) ( δουλεία) is a childish evasion; for when the Prophet speaks of religious worship he condemns universally every token of homage. (43)
(40) “So called,” says Buxtorf, “because they are absolutely nothing, agreeably to that saying of the Apostle, an idol is nothing in the world, ” (1Co 8:4.) רפאי אלל, ( rophee elil) physicians of no value, (Job 13:4,) is an instance of the literal use of the word. — Ed
(41) They worship. — Eng. Ver.
(42) The popish distinction between an inferior kind of adoration, called δουλεία and a higher kind of adoration, called λατρεία, is illustrated and refuted by our Author, in the Institutes, vol. 1, p. 141, and in the Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 1, p. 221. — Ed
(43) That is, of homage paid to idols. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) Their land also is full of idols.The word which Isaiah chooses for idols (ellmi.e., vain, false, gods) seems intentionally contrasted with elm (gods, or mighty ones), and may fairly be rendered by no-gods. The reign of Ahaz was conspicuous from the first for this cultus (2Ch. 28:2-3), but it had been prominent even under Jotham (2Ch. 27:2).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Land is full of idols It is scarcely to be supposed that the idolatry mentioned here was public. The “idols” were a private possession of individuals and of families, like the teraphim in Jacob’s family. Gen 31:34. The word rendered “idols” properly signifies unrealities, nonentities, of no avail as deities or any thing else. Such is the prophet’s view of them. Psa 46:5.
Their own fingers have made This expresses still deeper contempt of them. So, also, in Isa 41-67.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
Ver. 8. Their land also is full of idols. ] As Babylon, “a land of idols”; Jer 50:38 as Athens, “wholly given to idolatry”; Act 17:16 as China is said to have in it at this day a hundred thousand gods. And what shall we think of Popish idols? The word here rendered idols signifieth nihilitates, nothingness; for an idol is nothing in the world. 1Co 8:4
They worship the work of their own hands.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
idols = nothings. Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 26:1. Deu 17:14-19). App-92.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
is full: Isa 57:5, 2Ch 27:2, 2Ch 28:2-4, 2Ch 28:23-25, 2Ch 33:3-7, Jer 2:28, Jer 11:13, Eze 16:23-25, Hos 12:11, Act 17:16
worship: Isa 37:19, Isa 44:15-20, Deu 4:28, Psa 115:4-8, Hos 8:6, Hos 13:2, Hos 14:3, Rev 9:20
Reciprocal: 1Ki 16:7 – with the work 2Ki 22:17 – the works 2Ch 9:28 – brought 2Ch 32:19 – the work 2Ch 34:25 – Because Isa 17:8 – the work Isa 40:20 – chooseth Isa 46:6 – they fall Jer 1:16 – worshipped Mic 5:13 – no Act 7:41 – rejoiced
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 2:8-9. Their land also is full of idols Every city had its god, (Jer 11:13,) and, according to the goodness and fertility of their lands, they made goodly images, Hos 10:1. They worship the work of their own hands They gave that worship to their own creatures, to the images which their own fancies had devised, and their own fingers had made, which they denied to JEHOVAH their Creator, than which nothing could be more impious or more absurd. And the mean man boweth down, &c. Men of all ranks, both high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, fall down and worship idols. The corruption is universal, and the whole land is given to idolatry. Therefore forgive them not Thou wilt not forgive them, the imperative being put for the future, as we have seen it frequently is in the Psalms. Vitringa, however, Dr. Waterland, and Bishop Lowth, with many others, consider this verse, not as describing their idolatry, but as a predicting the punishment which God was about to bring upon them for it; and therefore translate it, in perfect consistency with the Hebrew, in the future tense, thus: Therefore the mean man shall be bowed down, and the mighty man shall be humbled; and thou wilt not forgive them. They bowed themselves down to their idols, therefore shall they be bowed down, and brought low, under the avenging hand of God. Bishop Lowth. According to this interpretation, the prophet begins here to describe the imminent severe judgments of God, wherewith he would punish the pride of these men, and their alienation from the true worship of God and their disobedience to his law.