Jeremiah 10:1-16 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

The Folly of Idolatry, This passage (like Jeremiah 9:23-26) interrupts the connexion of Jeremiah 9:22 and Jeremiah 10:17; its denunciation of the idols of the heathen as utterly futile for good or evil relates it to the times of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 44:11 ff.), and sharply distinguishes it from the denunciation of Israel's syncretistic worship, and the declaration of its penalty, found in Jeremiah 7-9. Israel is urged to hold aloof from the heathen religion of its environment. The idol is but a human product (Jeremiah 10:3 mg.), as lifeless as a scarecrow in a cucumber garden, needing to be carried in a procession (Isaiah 46:7). Fear is not necessary before these things, which can do nothing; it is fitting towards Yahweh alone (Jeremiah 10:7 mg.). The worshippers of idols are one and all senseless, and the instruction of idols is wood, i.e. without moral or spiritual force (so Driver, but the rendering is doubtful, and the sentence obscure). The idol is plated with costly metals, and dressed in fine clothes by human hands, but it is Yahweh who is truly God (Jeremiah 10:10 mg.). There follows (Jeremiah 10:11) a gloss in Aramaic, which breaks the connexion of Jeremiah 10:10 and Jeremiah 10:12, and is doubtless some marginal watchword of Jewish faith against heathenism, which has crept into the text. The remaining verses (Jeremiah 10"12- 16, repeated Jeremiah 51:15-19) describe the manifestation of Yahweh's power in creation and in tempest (with Jeremiah 10:13 cf. Psalms 135:7). The result of the Divine visitation is that the idolater is struck dumb (Jeremiah 10:14 a), and the idolmaker put to shame by the utter inability of the image to do such things. The idol is a lifeless mockery, doomed in the Day of Yahweh, when the power of Israel's God shall be revealed.

Jeremiah 10:2. the signs of heaven: i.e. eclipses, comets, etc., pointing to the astrology of Babylon, amid which this passage was probably written.

Jeremiah 10:5. Read as mg., where the reference suggests that the pillar serves the purpose of a scarecrow.

Jeremiah 10:9. Tarshish: Tartessus in Spain, Psalms 48:7 *, Isaiah 2:16 *; for Uphaz, not known, read as mg.; Ophir was perhaps in S.E. Arabia (Isaiah 13:12 *).

Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 10:1

Jeremiah 10:1-16

1 Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customsa of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

8 But they are altogetherb brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.

10 But the LORD is the truec God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.

11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.

13 When he uttereth his voice, there is a multituded of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

16 The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The LORD of hosts is his name.