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.
Parallel Translations
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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.
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For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
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For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for it is but a tree which one cutteth out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 10:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 44:9-20 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. 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?”
- 1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,
- Leviticus 18:30 Therefore you shall keep my requirements, that you do not practice any of these abominable customs which were practiced before you, and that you do not defile yourselves with them. I am Yahweh your God.’ ”
- Jeremiah 10:8 But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.
- Romans 1:21 Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.
- 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.
- Matthew 6:7 In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.
- 1 Kings 18:26-28 They took the bull which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, “Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice, and nobody answered. They leaped about the altar which was made. At noon, Elijah mocked them, and said, “Cry aloud; for he is a god. Either he is deep in thought, or he has gone somewhere, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened.” They cried aloud, and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them.
- Hosea 8:4-6 They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off. Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity? For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
- Jeremiah 2:5 Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless?
- Habakkuk 2:18-19 “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it.
- Isaiah 40:19-31 A workman has cast an image, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks a skillful workman to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved. Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you been told from the beginning? Haven’t you understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble. “To whom then will you liken me? Who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is lacking. Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and the justice due me is disregarded by my God?” Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall; but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet seems to break off his subject, and…
The Prophet seems to break off his subject, and even to reason inconclusively; for he had said in the last verse, “Learn not the rites of the Gentiles, and fear not the celestial signs;” and he now adds, Because the rites of the Gentiles are vanity; for wood they cut down from the forest. He seems then, as though forgetting himself, to have passed off to idols. But we must observe, that the Jews were influenced by that ancient opinion, that the Chaldeans and the Egyptians were alone wise, and that they had acquired a fame of this kind among all nations. We find also that heathen writers, when speaking of the origin of the sciences, trace them up to the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; for with them, it is said, have originated astrology and all the liberal sciences. The Jews then, no doubt, allowed so much authority to the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, that their minds, being possessed by that prejudice, could discern nothing aright. The Prophet then shakes off from them this stupidity, and shews how foolish they were, who yet would have themselves to be alone deemed wise, and regarded others, compared with themselves, as barbarous and ignorant. We now then see why the Prophet connects idolatry with that false and spurious astrology which he had mentioned.
He says, Laws: the word, חקות, chekut, means strictly, statutes. The word, חק chek, signifies to decree, or to write; and hence decrees are called חקות, chekut. The word Law is general; and one of those which are special and often occurs in Scripture, is the statute. Some render it “Edict;” and the verb means to publish by edict. But this word is often applied to ceremonies and rites. He then says, that the rites of the nations were vanity.
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He then proves this, Because they cut for themselves trees from the forest; and after having polished them by art, they think them to be gods. How detestable was this madness, to think that a tree, cut from the forest, was a god, as soon as it assumed a certain form or shape! As then a madness, so great and so monstrous, prevailed among the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, what right knowledge or judgment could have been in them? The Jews then were very foolish in thinking that they were very clear — sighted. “They are,” he says, “brute animals; for it is wholly contrary to reason to suppose that a god can be made from a dead piece of wood. When, therefore, the Chaldeans and the Egyptians amaze and astonish you through the influence of a false opinion, derived from nothing, that they are alone wise, do ye not see that ye are doubly and trebly mad? for where is their wisdom, when they thus make gods from trunks of trees?”
We now then perceive the design of the Prophet: but as these circumstances have not been considered by interpreters, they have only elicited a frigid doctrine and gathered some general thoughts. But when any one rightly and carefully examines the design of the Prophet, he will find how important is what he teaches; and no one can otherwise rightly understand what Jeremiah means.
A tree then does one cut, etc.: he uses the singular number. He then adds, the work of the hands of the artificer by the ax He shews that nature itself is changed through the false imagination of men; for as soon as it takes a new form, it seems to be no longer a tree. The tree, while it grows, when it produces fruit, is not worshipped as God; but when it is cut down, the dead and dry trunk is substituted in the place of God: for what reason? even because the ax has been applied. Some render it “hatchet,” hache, ou doloire, which is the same; for there is no ambiguity in the meaning: they cut down trees from the forests; and then after the tree was formed by the ax and worked by the hands of the artificer, what follows was done to it —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Meaning, not only in the observation of the stars,…
Meaning, not only in the observation of the stars, but their laws and ceremonies whereby they confirm their idolatry, which is forbidden, Deut. 12:30.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 10:3 For the customs of the people [are]…
Jer 10:3 For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
Ver. 3. For the customs of the people {a} are vain.] Their rites confirmed by custom; their imagery, for instance, a very magnum nihil, whether ye look to the efficient matter, form, or end of those idols.
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For one cutteth a tree out of the forest.] See Isa 40:2; Isa 44:12-17, which last place Jeremiah here seemeth to have imitated.
{a} Caeremoniae populorum,
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 The customs of the people are vain, i.e. such…
The customs of the people are vain, i.e. such courses, institutions, idolatrous customs, and ceremonies as these, that many people follow, they are vain, and it is a foolish and wicked thing that any that profess the true God should give heed to such lying vanities.
One cutteth a tree out of the forest: here he annexeth their idolatry to their astrology: q.d. They cut down timber to make the images and representations of these stars and planets that they fear and worship as gods, either in memorial of them, when they could not see them, or else upon a superstitious conceit that the stars which they worshipped did by some magic art convey some virtue or spirit into these statues or images; or rather, he doth set forth the folly of the heathen, that whereas for the matter of them, they are but a piece of wood, a tree out of the forest; and as to the form of them, no other than the carver, a sorry man, is pleased to put them into by his axe, which I suppose is here put for any cutting tool of the artist whereby he shapes it; yet they are afraid of these, as if they were gods, Isa 40:20. See Poole "Jer 8:2".
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 For the customs of the people are vain,.... Or,…
For the customs of the people are vain,.... Or, "their decrees", or "statutes" (o), their determinations and conclusions, founded upon the observation of the stars; or, their "rites and ceremonies" (p) in religion, in the worship of the sun and moon, and the hosts of heaven. The Syriac version is, "the idols of the people are nothing"; and which appears by what follows:
for one cutteth a tree out of the forest (the work of the hands of the workman) with the axe; not for building, or for burning, but to make a god of; the vanity, stupidity, and folly of which are manifest, when it is considered that the original of it is a tree that grew in the forest; the matter and substance of it the body and trunk of a tree cut down with an axe, and then hewed with the same, and planed with a plane, and formed into the image of a man, or of some creature; and now, to fall down and worship this must be vanity and madness to the last degree; see Isa 44:13.
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(o) "decreta", Targ.; "statua", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schmidt. (p) Ritus, Vatablus; "ceremoniae", Tigurine version.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. The customs of the people are vain]…
Verse 3. The customs of the people are vain] חקות chukkoth; the statutes and principles of the science are vain, empty, and illusory. They are founded in nonsense, ignorance, idolatry, and folly.
One cutteth a tree out of the forest] See Clarke on Isa 40:19, and "Isa 44:9", &c., which are all parallel places and where this conduct is strongly ridiculed.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 10:3-5. One cutteth down a tree, &c. —…
Jer 10:3-5. One cutteth down a tree, &c. — The prophet here exposes the folly of men’s worshipping the work of their own hands, by arguments similar to those which are used by Isa 44:10-20; where see the notes. They are upright,&c. — They are like the trunk of the palm-tree — Houb. “They are inflexible, immoveable, fixed, without action or motion, like the trunk of a tree: a comparison which admirably suits the ancient statues seen in Egypt and elsewhere, before the art of sculpture attained the perfection which it afterward did in Greece.” — Calmet. Dr. Waterland’s translation of this verse is, They are of just proportion, as a pillar, but they speak not; carried they must be, for go they cannot. Be not afraid of them — They can do you no more harm than the signs of heaven could do. The heathen worshipped some idols in order that they might do them good, and others, that they might do them no harm: but God tells them here, that as they cannot do evil, so neither is it in them to do good. See note on Isa 41:23. They can neither punish nor reward; they can neither hurt their enemies nor help their friends. By this the true God will be distinguished from idols, in that he alone can foretel things to come, and he alone can reward or punish.
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 The customs - Better, as the marg, “the ordinances,”…
The customs - Better, as the marg, “the ordinances,” established institutions, “of the peoples, i. e.” pagan nations.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 3. Customs — Rather, ordinances, that is, their religious…
3. Customs — Rather, ordinances, that is, their religious observances. These are as vain as the things on which they are based, namely, idols. The prophet now proceeds to show the vanity of idols in a passage which does, indeed, closely follow the thought of Isaiah, but is especially terse and graphic, and, when we consider that it was spoken when the popular current was setting toward idolatry, we shall feel it to be bold and effective. In the whole there is almost a vein of humour, which contrasts agreeably with Jeremiah’s accustomed pathos and sadness.
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 3. customs] lit. as mg. statutes. The expression is…
3. customs] lit. as mg. statutes. The expression is strange in this connexion. Probably the word in MT. has suffered corruption, but no substitute commanding general acceptance has been found. It is clear, at any rate, that the reference is to idols.
one cutteth a tree] the mg. is to be preferred.
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workman] better, craftsman, as Deu_27:15.
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 (3) The customs of the people.—Better, ordinances of the…
(3) The customs of the people.—Better, ordinances of the peoples. The prophet is speaking, not of common customs, but of religious institutions, and of these as belonging, not to “the people,” i.e., Israel, but to the nations round them. The verses that follow are so closely parallel to Isa_41:7; Isa_44:9-17; Isa_46:5-7 (where see Notes), that the natural conclusion is that one writer had seen the work of the other. The grandeur and fulness of Isaiah’s language, and the unlikeness of what we find here to Jeremiah’s usual style, makes it more probable that he was the copyist, and so far adds to the argument for the authorship of the chapter ascribed to Isaiah. It is, however, possible, as some critics have thought, that these verses are an interpolation, and in that case they supply no evidence either way. The fact that they are found in the LXX. as well as in the Hebrew is, however, in favour of their genuineness. It may be noted that the substance of what follows has a parallel in the Epistle ascribed to Jeremiah in the apocryphal book of Baruch.
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 The customs of the people. "People" should, as usual,…
The customs of the people. "People" should, as usual, be corrected into peoples the heathen nations are referred to. The Hebrew has "the statutes;" but the Authorized Version is substantially right, customs having a force as of iron in Eastern countries. It seems to be implied that the "customs" are of religious origin 2Ki_17:8, where "the statutes of the heathen" are obviously the rites and customs of polytheism. For one cutteth a tree, etc. This is intended to prove the foregoing statement of the "vanity," or groundlessness, of idolatry. The order of the Hebrew, however, is more forcible, for as wood out of the forest one cutteth it, viz. the idol.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh has just reminded them not to learn the ways of the nations nor be worried by things that happen in the sky.
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craftsman
a man skilled in his work
What they make with their hands is like scarecrows
A scarecrow is a man-like figure made to scare birds and prevent them from eating the crops. Here Yahweh compares the idols to scarecrows because they are not capable of doing anything. (See: Simile)
cucumber
a vegetable that is usually long, with green skin and white flesh that contains much water
they have to be carried
This can be stated in active form. AT: "people have to carry them" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
people group
worthy
ax
gold
false god
fear
evil
good
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 10:3 The stars are unable to predict anything—only the…
10:3 The stars are unable to predict anything—only the Lord knows the future. • A wooden idol was carved from a tree; a craftsman carved the wood until it looked something like a creature that lives on earth (Isa 40:18-20; 44:9-20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.