But they are altogether brutish, &c.— But they are altogether foolish, and have received the instruction of those which are nothing but wood. Houb.
The stock is a doctrine of vanities— The true meaning and force of this passage seems to have escaped the notice of all the commentators, except Blayney. מוסר musar, properly signifies rectifying or correcting a false notion by just reproof; and by vanities are meant idols, so called from their being of no real use or advantage to those who had recourse to their assistance. And this unprofitableness of the idol the very dull and senseless matter, says the prophet, out of which it was formed, is capable of demonstrating. But the rebuke, strictly speaking, is not directed to the idol, but to those who had not sense to perceive, that all the efforts of human art could never change an inanimate log of wood into an animated being, possessed of power and intelligence far surpassing the person from whom its origin was derived. There is, therefore, an energy and pointedness in this short sentence, at least equal, in my opinion, to whatever has been said upon the same subject by the most spirited writer, whether sacred or profane. Not even the keen raillery of the Roman satirist in those celebrated lines, Olim truncus eram ficulnus,* &c. (Hor. Sat. lib. I. sat. Jeremiah 8:1.) cuts with greater severity.
* In days of yore our godship stood, A very worthless log of wood. FRANCIS.