Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?
Behold, all his fellows will be disappointed; and the workmen are mere men. Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. They will fear. They will be put to shame together.
The blacksmith takes an ax, works in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with his strong arm. He is hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water, and is faint.
The carpenter stretches out a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes. He marks it out with compasses, and shapes it like the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to reside in a house.
He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak, and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest. He plants a cypress tree, and the rain nourishes it.
Then it will be for a man to burn; and he takes some of it, and warms himself. Yes, he burns it, and bakes bread. Yes, he makes a god, and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it.
He burns part of it in the fire. With part of it, he eats meat. He roasts a roast, and is satisfied. Yes, he warms himself, and says, “Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire.”
The rest of it he makes into a god, even his engraved image. He bows down to it and worships, and prays to it, and says, “Deliver me; for you are my god!”
They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.
No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?”
He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 Meaning, that whatsoever is made by the hand of…
Meaning, that whatsoever is made by the hand of man, if he be esteemed as God, is most detestable.
Whereby appeareth their blasphemy, which call images the books of the laity, seeing that they are not only here called unprofitable, but Isa 41:24 abominable, and Jeremiah calleth them the work of errors, Jer. 10:15; Habakkuk, a lying teacher, Hab. 2:18.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv10–20 Isa 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten…
Isa 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image [that] is profitable for nothing?
Ver. 10. Who hath formed a god that is profitable for nothing?] q.d, Who but a madman? ειδωλομανης, such as was Julian the apostate, called therefore Idolian by some.
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“ Quis furor est, quae tanta animas dementia ludit? ”
- Sedullus.
What can be more ridiculous, {a} saith Basil, than for man to go about to make God? And yet Popish priests take upon them so to do: which made Averroes abhor Christianity, and wish that his soul might rather be among the philosophers.
{a} Quis haec ludibria non derideat? - Lact.
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 On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 What man in his wits can esteem that a…
What man in his wits can esteem that a god which his own hands have formed, or melt a graven image (understand out of the former clause, to be his god) which is profitable for nothing? He speaks of melting a graven image, because the image was first molten and cast in a mould, and then polished and graven with a tool, as was observed before. Or thus, Who art thou, O man, that formest a god, or meltest a graven image to worship it, which is profitable for nothing? Come hither, and let me reason the case with thee; which he doth in the following verses. So this verse is a kind of summons to idolaters to come and plead their own cause.
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 On vv10–20 Who hath formed a god,.... Who ever made one?…
Who hath formed a god,.... Who ever made one? was such a thing ever known? or can that be a god which is made or formed? who so mad, foolish and sottish, as to imagine he has made a god? or is it possible for a creature to be the maker of a god? or any so stupid as to fancy he had made one? yet such there were, so void of understanding and reason, and even common sense: "or molten a graven image": first melted it, and cast it into a mould, and then graved and polished it, and called it a god?
that is profitable for nothing? or seeing it "is profitable for nothing", as a god; cannot see the persons, nor hear the prayers, nor relieve the distresses of those that worship it; and therefore it must be great folly indeed to make an image for such a purpose, which answers no end.
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 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 Men - They are of mankind, and therefore cannot…
Men - They are of mankind, and therefore cannot possibly make a God. Together - Tho' all combine together, they shall be filled with fear and confusion, when God shall plead his cause against them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20 Verse 10. See Clarke on Isa 44:9.
Verse 10. See Clarke on Isa 44:9.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv12, 18 Isa 44:12-17. The smith, &c. — “The sacred writers,”…
Isa 44:12-17. The smith, &c. — “The sacred writers,” says Bishop Lowth, “are generally large and eloquent upon the subject of idolatry: they treat it with great severity, and set forth the absurdity of it in the strongest light. But this passage of Isaiah far exceeds any thing that ever was written upon the subject, in force of argument, energy of expression, and elegance of composition. One or two of the apocryphal writers have attempted to imitate the prophet, but with very ill success: Wis 13:11-19; Wis 15:7, &c.; Baruk, chap. 6.; especially the latter, who, injudiciously dilating his matter, and introducing a number of minute circumstances, has very much weakened the force and effect of his invective. On the contrary, a heathen author, in the ludicrous way, has, in a line or two, given idolatry one of the severest strokes it ever received:
“Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum;
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Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, Maluit esse Deum.”
“I was of old the trunk of a fig-tree, a useless block;
when the carpenter, uncertain whether to make a bench or a
Priapus, chose that I should be a god.” — Hor., lib. 1. sat. 8.
He maketh it after the figure of a man, &c. — In the same comely shape and proportions which are in a living man; that it may remain in the house — In the dwelling-house of him that made it. He heweth him down cedars and the oak — Which afford the best and most durable timber; which he strengtheneth for himself — He plants, and with care and diligence improves those trees, that he or his posterity may thence have materials for their images, and those things which belong to them. He maketh an image, and falleth down thereto — Having related the practices of idolaters, he now discovers the vanity and folly of them, that they make their fire and their god of the same materials, distinguished only by the art of man, and roast their meat with the article which they worship.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 Who hath formed a god - The Septuagint reads…
Who hath formed a god - The Septuagint reads this verse in connection with the close of the previous verse, ‘But they shall be ashamed who make a god, and all who sculpture unprofitable things.’ This interpretation also, Lowth, by a change in the Hebrew text on the authority of a manuscript in the Bodleian library, has adopted. This change is made by reading כי kı̂y instead of מי mı̂y in the beginning of the verse. But the authority of the change, being that of a single MS. and the Septuagint, is not sufficient. Nor is it necessary. The question is designed to be ironical and sarcastic: ‘Who is there,’ says the prophet, ‘that has done this? Who are they that are engaged in this stupid work? Do they give marks of a sound mind? What is, and must be the character of a man that bas formed a god, and that has made an unprofitable graven image?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 18, 20 File. Hebrew mahatsad, (Haydock; Jeremias x. 3.) "to make…
File. Hebrew mahatsad, (Haydock; Jeremias x. 3.) "to make an ax, with," &c. This is the remote cause of the idol.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 Who . . . ?--Sarcastic question: "How debased the…
Who . . . ?--Sarcastic question: "How debased the man must be who forms a god!" It is a contradiction in terms. A made god, worshipped by its maker (Co1 8:4)!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 18 12, 13. Notably, withering sarcasm is presented in these…
12, 13. Notably, withering sarcasm is presented in these verses. Let the ridiculous farce come out in the translation following, that of Delitzsch: In the workshops, “The iron smith has a chisel, and works with redhot coals, and shapes it with hammer, and works it with his powerful arm. He gets hungry thereby, and his strength fails. If he drinks no water his strength fails. The carpenter draws the line, marks it with pencil, carries it out with the planes, makes a drawing of it with the compass, and carries it out like the figure of a man, like the beauty of a man, that it may dwell in the house.” Note the points: Great haste to have the idol made quickly. Some emergency. Hunger is neglected, and fainting occurs from thirst. Very eager to expedite the work while the iron is hot. Yet the god gives or allows no relief, except to hunger and thirst. Is such a god of any worth? Then the idol must be like a man — a beautiful man — and its divinity is on the same level.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 10. Who hath formed, &c.] A rhetorical question: who…
10. Who hath formed, &c.] A rhetorical question: who has been such a fool? On molten a graven image see ch. Isa_40:19.
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 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20 (11) Behold, all his fellows . . .—The noun…
(11) Behold, all his fellows . . .—The noun has a half-technical sense, as describing a member of a religious guild or fraternity, such as were attached to heathen temples. In this sense “Ephraim was joined to idols” (Hos_4:17). In Hos_6:9, the noun is used for the “company” of priests.
Let them stand up.—The words gain in vividness when we remember that the challenge is addressed to the guild of idol-makers. They are but men; how can they make a god?
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv10–20 Who hath... molten a graven image? Metal idols were…
Who hath... molten a graven image? Metal idols were mostly cast in the first instance, and then finished off with a graving-tool. "Who hath molten" means "who has been so foolish as to do so to take so much trouble about a thing which cannot possibly profit any one?"
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17, 20 He planteth an ash
Isa_44:14
He planteth an ash
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The planter and the rain
The civilised and cultivated tree is the joint product of human care and the earths fertility.
Let us study the picture and see how true it is to what the world contains.
1. We may ask ourselves how it is that any institution or established form of human living comes to be prevalent and dominant. A strong idea, of freedom, of justice, of mercy, enters into some strong mans soul. It makes itself completely his. Then it will not be satisfied with him; it grows restless within him, and demands the world. Then he takes it out some day and plants it. With some vigorous, incisive word or deed he thrusts his live and fiery idea down deep into the fruitful soil of human life. Then human life takes up his idea and nourishes it. Wonderfully all the forces gather around it and give it their vitality. History bears witness that it has all been living by the power of that idea unknown, unguessed; philosophy says that in it lies the key of her hard problems; economy discovers that by it life may be made more thrifty and complete; poetry shows its nobleness; affection wreaths it with love; all the essential hopes and fears and needs of human nature come flocking to it; until at last you can no more conceive of human life without that idea than you can think with complacency of the landscape without the great tree which is as thoroughly a part of it as is the very ground itself. A free Church, a just court, a popular government--this is the way in which every institution comes to be. Here is the relation of the worlds few great creative men to the great mass and body of its life. Helpless Europe without Martin Luther. Helpless also Martin Luther without Europe. Here is the mutual need of great souls and the great world.
2. We have another illustration, even more striking, close at our hand, in the way in which character grows up in our personal nature. Where do our characters come from? It is easy sometimes to represent them as the result of strong influence which other men have had over us. It is easy at other times to think of them as if they made themselves, shaping themselves by mere internal fermentation into the result we see. But neither account tells the story by itself. When we question ourselves, not about character in general, but about special points and qualities of character, then we are sure that it was by some outer influence made our own, some seed of motive or example set into our lives and then taken possession of by those lives and filled with their vitality, developed into their owe type and kind of vice or virtue--it was thus that this, which is now so intimate that we call it not merely ours but ourselves, came into being. This is the reason of the perpetual identity along with the perpetual variety of goodness and badness. We are all good and bad alike; and yet every man is good and bad in a way all his own--in a way in which no other man has ever been bad or good since the world began,--just as all ash-trees are alike because they have all been planted from the same nurseries; and yet every ash-tree is different from every other because it has grown in its own soil and fed on its own rain: the society and the individuality of moral life.
3. The truth has its clearest illustration, it may be, in the way in which God has sent into the world the Gospel of His Son. Most sharp and clear and definite stands out in history the life and death of Jesus Christ. It was the entrance of a new, Divine force into the world. But what has been the story of that force once introduced? It has been subjected to the influences which have created the ordinary currents of human life. The characters and thoughts of men have told upon it. The Gospel has shared in the fortunes of the Christian world. It has followed in the track of conquering armies; it has been beaten back and hindered by the tempests of revolution and misrule; it has been tossed upon the waves of philosophical speculation; it has been made the plaything or the tool of politics; it has taken possession of countries and centuries only by taking possession of men through the natural affections of their human hearts; it has worked through institutions which it only helped to create. While it has helped to make the world, it has also at every moment been made by the world into something different from its own pure self. If you try to take either half of the truth by itself you get into the midst of puzzle and mistake. Think of the Gospel simply as an intrusion of Divine force kept apart from any mixture with the influences of the world, and it is impossible to understand the forms in which it has been allowed to present itself. Its weaknesses and its strength are alike unintelligible. Think of it as a mere development of human life, and you cannot conceive how it came to exist at all. But consider it in its completeness. Remember that it is a Divine force working through human conditions; let it be all one long incarnation, God manifest in the flesh--and then you see at once why it is so weak and why it is so strong; why it has not occupied the world with one lightning flash of power, and why it must at last, however slowly, accomplish its complete salvation.
4. Every Christian is a little Christendom; and the method of the entrance of the Gospel into the great world is repeated in the way in which the Gospel enters into every soul, which then it occupies and changes. Again, there is the special act of the implanting of the new life, and then there is the intrusting of the new-implanted life to the nature and its circumstances. The man was born again! Since then, long years have come and gone. What have they seen? The rain has nourished it--that long-sown seed! Nothing has happened since which has not touched that seed and helped or hindered its maturity. Still remember, it is His rain. The influences into whose influence the seed was given still were Gods. He took the child, and gave the friend, and sent you on the journey, and shaped the nature which bestowed on the Christian life its distinctive character.
5. May we not say that the principle itself includes the whole truth of the supernatural, and its relation to the natural? (Phillips Brooks, D. D)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v20
Isaiah
FEEDING ON ASHES
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Isa 44:20.
The prophet has been pouring fierce scorn on idolaters. They make, he says, the gods they worship. They take a tree and saw it up: one log serves for a fire to cook their food, and with compass and pencil and plane they carve the figure of a man, and then they bow down to it and say, ‘Deliver me, for thou art my god!’ He sums up the whole in this sentence of my text, in which the tone changes from bitter irony to astonished pity. Now, if this were the time and the place, one would like to expand and illustrate the deep thoughts in these words in reference to idolatry; thoughts which go dead in the teeth of a great deal that is now supposed to be scientifically established, but which may be none the more true for all that. He asserts that idolatry is empty, a feeding on ashes. He declares, in opposition to modern ideas, that the low, gross forms of polytheism and idol-worship are a departure from a previous higher stage, whereas to-day we are told by a hundred voices that all religion begins at the bottom, and slowly struggles up to the top. Isaiah says the very opposite. The pure form is the primitive; the secondary form is the gross, which is a corruption. They tell us too, nowadays, that all religion pursues a process of evolution, and gradually clears itself of its more imperfect and carnal elements. Isaiah says, ‘he cannot deliver his soul’; and no religion ever worked itself up, unless under the impulse of a revelation from without. That is Isaiah’s philosophy of idolatry, and I expect it will be accepted as the true one some day.
But my text has a wider bearing. It not only describes, in pathetic language, the condition of the idolater, but it is true about all lives, which are really idolatrous in so far as they make anything else than God their aim and their joy. Every word of this text applies to such lives-that is to say, to the lives of a good many people listening to me now. And I would fain try to lay the truths here on some hearts. Let me just take them as they lie in the words before me.
I. A life that substantially ignores God is empty of all true satisfaction.
‘He feedeth on ashes’! Very little imagination will realise the force of that picture. The gritty cinders will irritate the lips and tongue, will dry up the moisture of the mouth, will interfere with the breathing, and there will be no nourishment in a sackful of them.
Dear brethren, the underlying truth is this-God is the only food of a man’s soul. You pick up the skeleton of a bird upon a moor; and if you know anything about osteology-the science of bones-you will see, in the very make of its breast-bone and its wing-bones, the declaration that its destiny was to soar into the blue. You pick up the skeleton of a fish lying on the beach, and you will see in its very form and characteristics that its destiny is to expatiate in the depths of the sea. And, written on you, as distinctly as flight on the bird, or swimming on the fish, is this, that you are meant, by your very make, to soar up into the heights of the glory of God, and to plunge deep into the abysses of His infinite love and wisdom. Man is made for God. ‘Whose image and superscription hath it?’ said Christ. The coin belongs to the king whose head and titles are displayed upon it; and on your heart, friend, though a usurper has tried to recoin the piece, and put his own foul image on the top of the original one, is stamped deep that you belong to the King of kings, to God Himself.
For what does our heart want? A perfect, changeless, all-powerful love. And what does our mind want? Reliable, guiding, inexhaustible, and yet accessible truth. And what does our will want? Commandments which have an authoritative ring in their very utterance, and which will serve for infallible guides for our lives. And what do our weak, sinful natures want? Something that shall free our consciences, and shall deliver us from the burden of our transgressions, and shall calm our fears, and shall quicken and warrant our lofty hopes. And what do men whose destiny is to live for ever want but something that shall go with them through all changes of condition, and, like a light in the midst of the darkest tunnel, shall burn in the passage between this and the other world, and shall never be taken away from them? We want a Person to be everything to us. No accumulation of things will satisfy a man. And we want all our treasures to be in one Person, and we need that that Person shall live as long as we live, and as long as we need shall be sufficient to supply us. And all this is only the spelling in many letters of the one name-God. That is what we want, that, and nothing less.
Then the next step that I suggest to you is, that where a man will take God for the food of his spirit, and turn love and mind and will and conscience and practical life to Him, seeing Him in everything, and seeing all things in Him; saturating, as it were, the universe with the thought of God, and recreating his own spirit with communion of friendship to Him; to that man lower goods do first disclose their real sweetness, their most poignant delight, and their most solid satisfaction. To say of a world where God has set us, that it is all ‘vanity and vexation of spirit,’ goes in flat contradiction to what He said when, creation finished, He looked upon His world, and proclaimed to the waiting seraphim around that ‘it was very good.’ There is a view of the world which calls itself pious, but is really an insult to God; and the irreligious pessimism that is fashionable nowadays, as if human life were a great mistake, and everything were mean and poor and insufficient, is contrary to the facts and to the consciousness of every man. But if you make things first which were meant to be second, then you make what was meant to be food ‘ashes.’ They are all good in their place. Wealth is good; wisdom is good; success is good; love is good. And all these things may be enjoyed without God, and will each of them yield their proportional satisfaction to the part of our nature to which they belong. But if you put them first you degrade them; a change passes over them at once. A long row of cyphers means nothing; put a significant digit in front of it, and it means millions. Take away the digit, and it goes back to nothing again. The world, and all its fading sweets, if you put God in the forefront of it, and begin the series with Him, is sweet, though it may be fleeting, and is meant to be felt by us as such. But if you take away Him, it is a row of cyphers signifying nothing, and able to contribute nothing to the real, deepest necessities of the human soul. And so the old question comes-’Why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?’ It is bread, if only you will remember first that God is the food of your souls. But if you try to nourish yourselves on it alone, then, as I said, a sackful of such ashes will not stay your appetite. Oh! brethren, God has not so blundered in making the world that He has surrounded us with things that are all lies, but He has so made it that whosoever flies in the face of the gracious commandment which is also an invitation, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ has not only no security that the ‘other things’ shall ‘be added unto him,’ but has the certainty that though they were added to him, in degree beyond his dreams and highest hopes, they would avail nothing to satisfy the hunger of his heart. As George Herbert puts it-
‘Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,
Embroidered lies, nothing between two dishes,
These are the pleasures here.’
‘He feedeth on ashes,’ because he does not take God for the food of his soul.
II. So, secondly, notice that a life which thus ignores God is tragically unaware of its own emptiness.
‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside.’ That explains how the man comes to fancy that ashes are food. His whole nature is perverted, his vision distorted, his power of judgment marred. He is given over to hallucinations and illusions and dreams.
That explains, too, why men persist in this feeding on ashes after all experience. There is no fact stranger or more tragical in our histories than that we do not learn by a thousand failures that the world will not avail to make us restful and blessed. You will see a dog chasing a sparrow,-it has chased hundreds before and never caught one. Yet, when the bird rises from the ground, away it goes after it once more, with eager yelp and rush, to renew the old experience. Ah! that is like what a great many of you are doing, and you have not the same excuse that the dog has. You have been trying all your lives-and some of you have grey hairs on your heads-to slake your thirst by dipping leaky buckets into empty wells, and you are at it yet. As some one says, ‘experience throws a light on the wave behind us,’ but it does very little to fling a light on the sea before us. Experience confirms my text, for I venture to put it to the experience of every man-how many moments of complete satisfaction and rest can you summon up in your memory as having been yours in the past? ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase.’ Appetite always grows faster than supply. And so, though we have tried them in vain so often, we turn again to the old discredited sources, and fancy we shall do better this time. Is it not strange? Is there any explanation of it, other than that of my text? ‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside.’
And that deceived heart, stronger than experience, is also stronger than conscience. Do you not know that you ought to be Christians? Do you not know that it is both wrong and foolish of you to ignore God? Do you not know that you will have to answer for it? Have you not had moments of illumination when there has risen up before you the whole vanity of your past lives, and when you have felt ‘I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly’? And yet, what has come of it all with some of you? Why, what comes of it with the drunkard in the Book of Proverbs, who, as soon as he has got over the bruises and the sickness of his last debauch, says, ‘I will seek it yet again.’ ‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside.’
And how is it that this hallucination that you have fed full and been satisfied, when all the while your hunger has not been appeased, can continue to act on us? For the very plain reason that every one of us has in himself a higher and a lower self, a set of desires for the grosser, more earthly, and, using the word in its proper sense, worldly sort-that is to say, directed towards material things, and a higher set which look right up to God if they were allowed fair play. And of these two sets-which really are one at bottom, if a man would only see it-the lower gets the upper hand, and suppresses the higher and the nobler. And so in many a man and woman the longing for God is crushed out by the grosser delights of sense.
One sometimes hears of cowardly, unmanly sailors, who in shipwreck push the women and children aside, and struggle to the boats. And there are in all of us groups of sturdy mendicants, so to speak, who elbow their way to the front, and will have their wants satisfied. What becomes of the gentler group that stand behind, unnoticed and silent? It is an awful thing when men and women do, as so many of us do, pervert the tastes that are meant to lead them to God, in order to stifle the consciousness that they need a God at all. There are tribes of low savages who are known as ‘clay-eaters.’ That is what a great many of us are; we feed upon the serpent’s meat, the dust of the earth, and let all the higher heavenly food, which addresses itself first to loftier desires, but also satisfies these lower ones, stand unnoticed, unsought for, unpartaken of. Dear friends, do not be befooled by that treacherous heart of yours, but let the deepest voices in your soul be heard. Understand, I beseech you, that their cry is for no created person or thing, and that only God Himself can satisfy them.
III. And now, lastly, notice that a life thus ignoring God needs a power from without to set it free.
‘He cannot deliver his soul.’ Can you? Do you think you can break the habits of a lifetime? Do you think that, left to yourself, you would ever have any inclination to break them? Certainly, left to yourselves, you will never have the power. These long indulged appetites of ours grow with indulgence; and that which first was light as a cobweb, and soft as a silken bracelet, becomes heavier and solider until it is an iron fetter upon the limb, which no man can break. There is nothing more awful in life than the influence of habit, so unthinkingly acquired, so inexorably certain, so limiting our possibilities and enclosing us in its grip.
Dear brethren, there is something more wanted than yourselves to break this chain. You have tried, I have no doubt, in the course of your lives, more and more resolutely, to cure yourselves of some more or less unworthy habits. They may be but mere slight tricks of attitude or intonation, or movement. Has your success been such as to encourage you to think that you can revolutionise your lives, and dethrone the despots that have ruled over you in the past? I leave the question to yourselves. To me it seems that the world of men is certain to go on ignoring God, and seeking its delight only in the world of creatures, unless there comes in an outside power into the heart of the world and revolutionises all things.
It is that power that I have to preach, the Christ who is the ‘Bread of God that came down from Heaven,’ who can lift up any soul from the most obstinate and long-continued grovelling amongst the transitory things of this limited world, and the superficial delights of sense and a gratified bodily life; who can bring the forgiveness which is essential, the deliverance from the power of evil which is not less essential, and who can fill our hearts with Himself the food of the world. He comes to each of us; He comes to you, with the old unanswerable question upon His lips, ‘Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?’ It is unanswerable, for you can give no reason sufficient for such madness. All that you could say, and you durst not say it to Him, is, ‘a deceived heart hath turned me aside.’ He comes with the old gracious word upon His lips, ‘Take! eat! this is My body which is broken for you.’ He offers us Himself. He can stay all the hungers of all mankind. He can feed your heart with love, your mind with truth which is Himself, your will with His sweet commands.
As of old He made the thousands sit down upon the grass, and they did all eat and were filled, so He stands before the world to-day and says, ‘I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger.’ And if you will only come to Him-that is to say, will trust yourselves altogether to the merits of His sacrifice, and the might of His indwelling Spirit-He will take away all the taste for the leeks and onions and garlic, and will give you the appetite for heavenly food. He will spread for you a table in the wilderness, and what would else be ashes will become sweet, wholesome, and nourishing. Nor will He cease there, for in His own good time He will call us to the banqueting house above, where He will make us to sit down to meat, and come forth Himself and serve us. Here, hunger often brings pain, and eating is followed by repletion. But there, appetite and satisfaction will produce each other perpetually, and the blessed ones who then hunger will not hunger so as to feel faintness or emptiness, nor be so filled as to cease to desire larger portions of the Bread of God. I beseech you, cry, ‘Lord, ever more give us this bread!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking.
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all his associates
Possible meanings are 1) this refers to the associates of the craftsman who makes the idol. AT: "all of the craftsman's associates" or 2) this refers to those who associate themselves with the idol by worshiping it. AT: "all those who worship the idol" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
be put to shame
This can be stated in active form. AT: "will be ashamed" (See: Active or Passive)
Let them take their stand together
"Let them all come together before me"
they will cower
"they will be terrified." To "cower" is to bend over in fear.
translationWords
shame
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv15, 18 44:15-17 he uses part of the wood to make…
44:15-17 he uses part of the wood to make a fire . . . he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god to worship: This description of the process of making an idol drips with sarcasm and ridicule at the stupidity of the foolish idol worshipers (see also 44:19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.