Bible Strands
Isaiah 44:12
The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms. Yet he grows hungry and loses his strength; he fails to drink water and grows faint.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Isaiah addresses Israel regarding the futility of idol makers, contrasting the labor of human craftsmen with the powerlessness of the objects they produce.
The words — חָרַשׁ (cha.Rash) denotes the craftsman or metalworker, while מַֽעֲצָד (ma.'a.Tzad) refers to the specific tool he wields over the coals.
The thread — The motif of idol-making artisans appears in Isaiah 40:19 and Isaiah 46:6, where craftsmen cast metal and hire goldsmiths to fashion gods.
Why it lands — The text records a blacksmith’s exhaustion and hunger while forging an idol, demonstrating that the maker of a god is weaker than the god he claims to serve.
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
The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 40:19 To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains?
- Isaiah 41:6 Each one helps the other and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
- 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.
- Exodus 32:4 He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
- Exodus 32:8 How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
- 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.
- Habakkuk 2:13 Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?