Bible Strands
Isaiah 40:20
One lacking such an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses Israel in a section contrasting human idol-making with divine sovereignty, positioned between a description of metalworkers crafting an image and a series of rhetorical questions about God’s eternal knowledge.
The words — The text highlights תּרוּמָה (tərûmâ), meaning a contribution or offering, and עֵץ (ʿēṣ), meaning wood. It specifies the man’s search for wood that will not rot (יִרְקַב) and a skilled craftsman (חָרָשׁ חָכָם) to erect the idol.
The thread — This imagery runs through Isaiah 41:7, where craftsmen encourage one another in forging idols, and Isaiah 46:7, which notes that idols are carried and set in place yet cannot move or respond. Jeremiah 10:3 parallels the passage by describing the futile practice of cutting a tree and shaping it with a chisel.
Why it lands — The text states that a person without a proper offering must resort to rot-resistant wood and hire a craftsman to build a static idol, exposing the material limits of manufactured worship. It requires the reader to acknowledge that human craftsmanship cannot produce a reliable or living deity.
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
He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 41:7 The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who wields the hammer cheers him who strikes the anvil, saying of the welding, “It is good.” He nails it down so it will not be toppled.
- Isaiah 46:7 They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.
- Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
- Isaiah 2:8 Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.
- Daniel 5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
- 1 Samuel 5:3 When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.
- Isaiah 44:13 The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He fashions it in the likeness of man, like man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.