Isaiah 2:20 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 2:20
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
man
הָאָדָ֔םha.'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
cast
יַשְׁלִ֣יךְyash.Likh
H7993
to throw out · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
idols
אֱלִילֵ֣י'e.li.Lei
H457
good for nothing · noun, common masculine plural construct
silver
כַסְפּ֔וֹkhas.Po
H3701
silver (from its pale color) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
idols
אֱלִילֵ֣י'e.li.Lei
H457
good for nothing · noun, common masculine plural construct
gold
זְהָב֑וֹze.ha.Vo
H2091
gold · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
himself
עָֽשׂוּ'a.su-
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
worship
לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֹ֔תle.hish.ta.cha.Vot
H7812
to depress · preposition + verb, infinitive construct
moles
לַחְפֹּ֥רlach.Por
H2661
a burrower · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
bats
וְלָעֲטַלֵּפִֽיםve.la.'a.ta.le.Fim
H5847
a bat · conjunction + preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 30:22 Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away a…
Isaiah 31:7 For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.
Leviticus 11:19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
Isaiah 46:1 Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden t…
Isaiah 46:6 They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea, they wo…
Hosea 14:8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fru…
Philippians 3:7-8 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 2:10–end
The prophet here goes on to show what a desolation would be brought upon their land when God should have forsaken them. This may refer particularly to their destruction by the Chaldeans first, and afterwards by the Romans, or it may have a general respect to the method God takes to awaken and humble proud sinners, and to put them out of conceit with that which they delighted in and depended on more than God. We are here told that sooner or later God will find out a way,
I. To startle and awaken secure sinners, who cry peace to themselves, and bid defiance to God and his judgments (Isa 2:10): "Enter into the rock; God will attack you with such terrible judgments, and strike you with such terr…
moles--Others translate "mice." The sense is, under ground, in darkness.
bats--unclean birds (Lev 11:19), living amidst tenantless ruins (Rev 11:13).
John Gill on Isaiah 2:20
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols o gold,.... Being frightened at the terrible shaking of the earth, and at the glory and majesty of Christ, which will be seen in his witnesses and people, at the time of his spiritual coming, and the destruction of antichrist; insomuch that they shall cast away their idols, and relinquish their idolatrous practices, and give glory to the God of heaven, Revelation 11:11,
which they made each one for himself to worship; everyone having their peculiar idol, the work of their own hands; which shows their gross ignorance and wretched stupidity:
to the moles, and to the bats; that is, either they shall leave them to persons as blind…
In that day a man will cast away his idols Idolaters are amazingly delighted with their own superstitions and ungodly worship; for although they abound in enormities and crimes, still they betake themselves to this refuge, that they imagine that their worship appeases God. Just as in the present day, if we should represent the crimes and lawless passions of every kind which abound among the papists, they certainly will not be able to deny our statements, but will flatter themselves on this ground, that they have a plausible form of worship, and will believe that this vail covers all their crimes. Accordingly, the Prophet deprives idolaters of this cloak, and threatens that they will no longe…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 20.) Therefore cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for he is considered high. This was omitted by the LXX, and in the Greek copies it was added under asterisks by Origen from the edition of Aquila, which reads in Hebrew: Hedalu LachemMen Aadam Aser Nasama Baaphpho Chi Bama Nesab Hu. Where we said, he is considered high: Aquila interpreted it as, in whom he is considered high. The Hebrew word Bama (), or ὕψωμα in Greek, means 'high place' or 'exalted', which we read in both the Books of Kings and in Ezekiel. It is also written with the same letters as the Hebrew word Beth, Mem, He, and depending on the context, it can be read as Bamma, meaning 'high place', or Bama, meaning 'exalted'. Therefore, the Jews, understanding that it was a prophecy about Christ, interpreted the ambiguous word in a negative way, so that they would not appear to be praising Christ, but rather disregarding Him. For what is the consequence of words, and what is the order of reason and meaning, so that we may say: Since these things are so, and the day of the Lord is coming, when the whole Judaean state will be destroyed, and everything will be demolished: I warn and command you to refrain from a man who breathes and lives like this, for he is considered nothing. Let no one praise any man in such a way as to say: Beware lest he offend him, who is indeed nothing at all. Therefore, on the contrary, understand it in this way: Since all these things are about to happen to you and are being proclaimed by the prophetic spirit, I warn and command you to abstain from him who, according to the flesh, is indeed a man, and has a soul, and breathes in this way, and draws breath through his nostrils, just as we humans breathe and live. But according to the divine majesty, he is both exalted, esteemed, and believed. Considering silently in my mind, I cannot find a reason why they did not want to translate such a clear prophecy about Christ into Greek. For the others, indeed, who translated [the text], brought forth an ambiguous meaning towards impiety, it is not surprising why they were interpreted badly, nor did they want to say something glorious about Christ, in whom they did not believe: namely, the Jews or Semijews, that is, the Ebionites. But that Christ is exalted and highest, who is called in another language among the Hebrews, Elion (), we read in the 86th Psalm: Shall…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bat — The Hebrew word (atalleph’) so rendered (Lev. 11:19; Deut. 14:18) implies “flying in the dark.” The bat is reckoned among the birds in the list of unclean animals. To cast idols to the “moles and to…
Mole — Heb. tinshameth (Lev. 11:30), probably signifies some species of lizard (rendered in R.V., “chameleon”). In Lev. 11:18, Deut. 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, “swan” (R.V., “horned…
B · Unclean: Mole — Unclean: Mole
Birds · Unclean: Bat — Unclean: Bat
Idol · .Gol — .Gol
Isaiah · and distrust of God — and distrust of God
Mole · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Isa 2:20 forms the commencement to the fourth strophe: "In that day will a man cast away his idols of gold and his idols of silver, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats." The traditional text separates lachpor peroth into two words,
(Note: Abulwali=d Parchon and others regard the double word as the singular of a substantive, applied to a particular bird (possibly a woodpecker), as a pecker of fruit (peroth). Kimchi would rather take lachpor as an infinitive (as in Jos 2:2), to dig pits; and compares with it the talmudic word pēr, a pit or grave. No one adopts the rendering "into mouse-holes," simply because pērah, a mouse (from an Arabic word fa'ara, to dig, or…
Animals such as rodents and bats lead a shadowy, subterranean existence. Those who worship idols will become like them in attempting to escape the Lord’s judgment.
Rashi on Isaiah 2:20
to prostrate himself to moles Heb. לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, idols in the likeness of moles, a species of rodents who dig in the earth, called talpes in O.F. [taupes in modern French].
and to bats kalbe soric [chauvesouris in modern French]. Alternatively, this may be interpreted to mean that man will cast his idols that he made for himself, before which to prostrate himself, into pits and ditches that he finds before him when he goes to escape and hide.
