Texts in Conversation
Isaiah ridicules idols carried on shoulders because they cannot move. The Letter of Jeremiah echoes this, describing idols that have no feet, showing dependence on people. Both depict the absurdity of revering objects that show their own powerlessness.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 46:7
Hebrew Bible
5 To whom can you compare and liken me? Tell me whom you think I resemble, so we can be compared! 6 Those who empty out gold from a purse and weigh out silver on the scale hire a metalsmith, who makes it into a god. They then bow down and worship it. 7 They put it on their shoulder and carry it; they put it in its place and it just stands there; it does not move from its place. Even when someone cries out to it, it does not reply; it does not deliver him from his distress. 8 Remember this, so you can be brave. Think about it, you rebels! 9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity. Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me,
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Letter of Jeremiah 1:26
Deuterocanon
24 Notwithstanding the gold with which they are covered to make them beautiful, unless someone wipes off the tarnish, they won’t shine; for they didn’t even feel it when they were molten. 25 Things in which there is no breath are bought at any cost. 26 Having no feet, they are carried upon shoulders. By this, they declare to men that they are worth nothing. Those who serve them are also ashamed, 27 for if they fall to the ground at any time, they can’t rise up again by themselves. If they are bowed down, they can’t make themselves straight; but the offerings are set before them, as if they were dead men. 28 And the things that are sacrificed to them, their priests sell and spend. In like manner, their wives also lay up part of it in salt; but to the poor and to the powerless they give none of it.
Date: 300–101 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Although this text is ostensibly composed before the deportation, in reality it is a reworking and reapplication of the earlier oracles of Jeremiah, especially those dealing with the dangers of idolatry. The epistle draws particularly on the denunciation of idols found in Jeremiah 10:1–16 (compare also, e.g., Jeremiah 44:1–30), restating repeatedly its message that, despite their outward beautifying with gold and silver and purple clothing (verses 3, 7, 10, 11, 23, 29, 38, 50, 54, 56, 69–71; compare Jeremiah 10:4, 9), they are completely useless because they are made with human hands (verses 7, 23, 45, 50; compare Jeremiah 10:3–4, 9, 14). They are, therefore, mere blocks of wood that cannot speak and walk as even humans do (verse 26; compare Jeremiah 10:4–5, 14). Although this section of Jeremiah is alluded to rather than formally cited, direct dependence on and close engagement with it is indicated by a number of specific verbal parallels. These include the terms (“purple”; verses 11, 71; compare Jeremiah 10:9) and (“goldsmiths”; verse 45; compare Jeremiah 10:9, 14); the claim that there is “no breath” in the idols (verse 24; compare Jeremiah 10:14); and the shared motif of the display of signs in the heavens for the nations (verse 66; compare Jeremiah 10:2). Early Jewish exegesis is largely motivated by the presence of a real or perceived problem or gap in the underlying scriptural text, and Jeremiah 10–16 would have raised questions for later readers ..."
Susan Docherty, “The Epistle of Jeremiah,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 397–409.
* 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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