Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 42 says that God’s honor and reputation will not be shared with idols, framing the criticism as a question of rightful recognition. Wisdom of Solomon echoes this, portraying people as giving this recognition to objects of their own making.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 42:8
Hebrew Bible
6 “I, the Lord, officially commission you; I take hold of your hand. I protect you and make you a covenant mediator for people and a light to the nations, 7 to open blind eyes, to release prisoners from dungeons, those who live in darkness from prisons. 8 “I am the Lord! That is my name! I will not share my glory with anyone else or the praise due me with idols. 9 Look, my earlier predictive oracles have come to pass; now I announce new events. Before they begin to occur, I reveal them to you.” 10 Sing to the Lord a brand new song! Praise him from the horizon of the earth, you who go down to the sea and everything that lives in it, your coastlands and those who live there.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Wisdom of Solomon 14:21
Deuterocanon
19 for he, wishing perhaps to please his ruler, used his art to force the likeness toward a greater beauty. 20 So the multitude, allured by reason of the grace of his handiwork, now consider an object of devotion him that a little before was honored as a man. 21 And this became an ambush for life, because men, in bondage either to calamity or to tyranny, invested stones and wood with the Name that shouldn’t be shared. 22 Afterward it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, while they live in a great war of ignorance, they call a multitude of evils peace. 23 For either slaughtering children in solemn rites, or celebrating secret mysteries, or holding frenzied revels of strange customs,
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... 14:12 at first sight seems strange, but in the background lies the rich metaphorical use in the Old Testament of the term “fornication / prostitution” for religious apostasy (see Jeremiah 2:20; 3:2, 9; Hosea 4:12; 5:4; 6:10). The parallelistic structure of the verse reinforces this less specific meaning of the term “fornication” (the idea of making idols parallels the invention of them; the beginning of fornication parallels the corruption of life). In 14:21 some commentators have seen an allusion to the practice of not pronouncing the divine name Yahweh. But idolaters were hardly likely to be calling their gods by such a name, and the more universal term theos is almost certainly what the author had in mind (compare Isaiah 42:8). 14:22 has been taken to be an allusion to the Pax Romana. The NRSV slightly obscures the meaning of 14:29. It is because the wicked are so sure that their gods are lifeless that they swear false oaths (verse 30) and do not, therefore, expect to suffer any untoward consequences, in contrast to Exodus 20:7. 14:31 is concerned to emphasize that it is not the power of the gods represented by the idols which brings retribution on perjurers, while the Greek of verse 31 evokes the personification of Justice (Dikē) relentlessly pursuing wrongdoers ..."
A. Peter Hayman, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Wisdom of Solomon (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2019), 63–64.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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