Bible Strands
Isaiah 30:22
So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through Isaiah to Judah, placing this command between a promise of divine guidance in Isaiah 30:21 and a promise of agricultural blessing in Isaiah 30:23. The audience is a nation that has turned to foreign alliances and invested wealth in crafted deities.
The words — The Hebrew verb טִמֵּאתֶם (ti.me.Tem) translates literally as "you will make unclean," operating on the noun צִפּוּי (tzi.Pui), meaning "plating" or "covering." These terms specify the physical defilement of the metal casings surrounding carved and molten idols.
The thread — The directive to discard metal idols reappears in Isaiah 31:7, where the same people will reject the silver and gold they forged. The pattern of funding crafted gods with weighed silver also surfaces in Isaiah 46:6 and the misdirected silver dedication in Judges 17:3.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to treat manufactured objects of worship as ritually defiled waste rather than sources of help. It demands a practical abandonment of any trust placed in human craftsmanship over divine provision.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
Cross-references
- Judges 17:3 And when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I wholly dedicate the silver to the LORD for my son’s benefit, to make a graven image and a molten idol. Therefore I will now return it to you.”
- Isaiah 31:7 For on that day, every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold that your own hands have sinfully made.
- Isaiah 46:6 They pour out their bags of gold and weigh out silver on scales; they hire a goldsmith to fashion it into a god, so they can bow down and worship.
- Zechariah 13:2 And on that day, declares the LORD of Hosts, I will erase the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land.
- Exodus 32:2 So Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that are on your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”
- Isaiah 2:20 In that day men will cast away to the moles and bats their idols of silver and gold—the idols they made to worship.
- Isaiah 17:7 In that day men will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
- Ezekiel 36:31 Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and abominations.
- Hosea 14:8 O Ephraim, what have I to do anymore with idols? It is I who answer and watch over him. I am like a flourishing cypress; your fruit comes from Me.
- 2 Kings 23:4 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.