Bible Strands
Jonah 2:8
Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jonah speaks to God from inside the great fish, immediately after recalling the Lord during his near-death distress. He positions his own impending thanksgiving and reliance on divine salvation in direct contrast to those who pursue false gods.
The words — The Hebrew מְשַׁמְּרִים (me.sha.me.Rim) literally means "those who pay regard," paired with יַעֲזֹֽבוּ (ya.'a.Zou), which means "they abandon." Together they describe a trade: holding fast to vanities while relinquishing covenant loyalty.
The thread — This theme of abandoning divine loyalty for emptiness runs through Psalms 31:6, 2 Kings 17:15, and Jeremiah 2:13. Each passage records the same pattern of rejecting God's statutes or living water in favor of worthless alternatives.
Why it lands — The text demands a clear choice between clinging to empty substitutes and receiving salvation from the Lord. It asks the reader to examine what they hold onto when facing distress and to verify whether that attachment yields life or abandonment.
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
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Cross-references
- Psalms 31:6 I hate those who cling to worthless idols, but in the LORD I trust.
- 2 Kings 17:15 They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the LORD had commanded them not to imitate.
- Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- 1 Samuel 12:21 Do not turn aside after worthless things that cannot profit you or deliver you, for they are empty.
- Jeremiah 10:8 But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!
- Habakkuk 2:18 What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
- Jeremiah 10:14 Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.
- Jeremiah 16:19 O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.