There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Parallel Translations
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There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
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And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
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And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Deuteronomy 4:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 28:64 Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.
- Jeremiah 16:13 Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
- Deuteronomy 28:36 Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.
- Isaiah 46:7 They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.
- Ezekiel 20:39 “ ‘As for you, house of Israel, the Lord Yahweh says: “Go, everyone serve his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not listen to me; but you shall no more profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.
- 1 Samuel 26:19 Now therefore, please let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is so that Yahweh has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it is the children of men, they are cursed before Yahweh; for they have driven me out today that I shouldn’t cling to Yahweh’s inheritance, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods!’
- Psalms 115:4-8 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.
- Psalms 135:15-18 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they can’t speak. They have eyes, but they can’t see. They have ears, but they can’t hear, neither is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.
- Isaiah 44:9 Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.
- Isaiah 45:20 “Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.
- Jeremiah 10:3 For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.
- Jeremiah 10:9 There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men.
- Acts 7:42 But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
- Ezekiel 20:32 “ ‘ “That which comes into your mind will not be at all, in that you say, ‘We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Deu 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the…
Deu 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Ver. 28. And there ye shall serve gods.] As ye have made a match with mischief, so ye shall have enough of it. Ephraim is joined to idols, &c. See Act 7:42.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain i.e. Idols. You shall be compelled by men, and…
i.e. Idols. You shall be compelled by men, and given up by me to idolatry. So that very thing which was your choice shall be your punishment; it being just and usual for God to punish one sin by giving them up to another, as is manifest from Rom 1:24,25.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And there ye shall serve gods, the work of…
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone,.... Idols made by men, cut out of wood and stone; these they should be enticed into the service of, or compelled to serve; which was still more brutish and stupid than to worship the sun, moon, and stars, which were not the works of men's hand, but the glorious works of the eternal God. But since in their captivities they were not subject to idolatry, but were cured of it thereby, another sense of the words is given by some, as by Onkelos and Jonathan, who paraphrase the words of serving the people, that serve idols; but what follows confirms the first sense:
which neither see, nor hear, nor taste, nor smell; senseless things, which have none of the senses of seeing, hearing, and smelling, nor the faculty of eating, which they need not to support life, of which they are destitute; and therefore it must be monstrous stupidity to worship such lifeless, senseless, objects; see Psa 115:4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Ye shall serve Gods - You shall be compelled…
Ye shall serve Gods - You shall be compelled by men, and given up by me to idolatry. So that very thing which was your choice, shall be your punishment: it being just and usual for God to punish one sin by giving men up to another.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. There ye shall serve gods - wood…
Verse 28. There ye shall serve gods - wood and stone] This was also true of the Israelites, not only in their captivities, but also in their own land. And it may now be literally the case with the ten tribes who were carried away captive by the Assyrians, and of whose residence no man at present knows any thing with certainty. That they still exist there can be no doubt; but they are now, most probably, so completely incorporated with the idolaters among whom they dwell, as to be no longer distinguish able: yet God can gather them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Deu 4:28-29. Ye shall serve gods, the work of…
Deu 4:28-29. Ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands — You shall be compelled by men, and given up by me, to idolatry. So that very thing which was your choice, shall be your punishment: it being just and usual for God to punish one sin by giving men up to another. If from thence thou seek the Lord — Whatever place we are in, we may from thence seek him. There is no part of the earth which has a gulf fixed between it and heaven.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's…
there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands--The compulsory measures of their tyrannical conquerors would force them into idolatry, so that their choice would become their punishment.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s…
28. ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, etc.] The acme of their punishment. They have chosen to serve idols; idols must they serve in a land where the worship of Jehovah is impossible. This scorn of senseless idols, also in Deu_27:15, Deu_28:36; Deu_28:64, Deu_29:17, Deu_31:29, is an essential temper of monotheism, appearing also in Hos_8:6; Hos_13:2; Isa_2:8; Isa_2:20, etc.; Jer_2:8; Jer_10:1-10, and most frequently in Isa_40:19 f., Isa_41:7, Isa_44:9-20, Isa_46:6 f.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28) And there ye shall serve gods, the work…
(28) And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands.—That is, “you shall be in bondage to them,” being ruled by their worshippers. And so Rashi explains it. Captivity was the means of eradicating idolatry from Israel rather than encouraging it. But the cause of a people and its idols is so constantly identified in the Old Testament, that those who are in bondage to a nation may naturally be described as in bondage to its gods. The gods were even held to be sharers in the captivity of the nation. It is said of Bel and Nebo, in Isa_46:2, “They could not deliver . . . but themselves are gone into captivity”
(29, 30, 31) Comp. Deu_30:1-5 for a more explicit promise and prophecy of the same thing, and see Note on that passage.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.