Isaiah 41:24

Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
nothing	מֵאַ֔יִן me.'A.yin	H369	a non-entity · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
work	וּפָעָלְכֶ֖ם u.fa.'a.le.Khem	H6467	an act or work (concretely) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
nought	מֵאָ֑פַע me.'A.fa'	H659	properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
abomination	תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה to.'e.Vah	H8441	properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
chooseth	יִבְחַ֥ר yiv.Char	H977	properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular

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

Psalms 115:8 They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
1 Corinthians 8:4 As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, a…
Isaiah 41:29 Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion.
Jeremiah 10:8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.
Jeremiah 10:14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no b…
Deuteronomy 7:26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou sh…
Deuteronomy 27:15 Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth…
Isaiah 37:19 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed th…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 41:21–end

The Lord, by the prophet, here repeats the challenge to idolaters to make out the pretentions of their idols: "Produce your cause (Isa 41:21) and make your best of it; bring forth the strongest reasons you have to prove that your idols are gods, and worthy of your adoration." Note, There needs no more to show the absurdity of sin than to produce the reasons that are given in defence of it, for they carry with them their own confutation. I. The idols are here challenged to bring proofs of their knowledge and power. Let us see what they can inform us of, and what they can do. Understanding and active power are the accomplishments of a man. Whoever pretends to be a god must have these in perfec…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 41:24

of nothing--(See on Isa 40:17). The Hebrew text is here corrupt; so English Version treats it. abomination--abstract for concrete: not merely abominable, but the essence of whatever is so (Deu 18:12). chooseth you--as an object of worship.

John Gill on Isaiah 41:24

Behold, ye are of nothing,.... Not as to the matter of them, for they were made of gold, silver, brass, &c. but as to the divinity of them: there was none in them, they were of no worth and value; they could do nothing, either good or evil, either help their friends, or hurt their enemies; yea, they were less than nothing; for the words may be rendered by way of comparison, "behold, ye are less than nothing"; (a). See Gill on Isaiah 40:17; and your work of nought; the workmanship bestowed on them, in casting or carving them, was all to no purpose, and answered no end; or the work they did, or pretended to do, their feigned oracles, and false predictions: or, "worse than nothing": some rende…

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John Calvin on Isaiah 41:24

Lo, ye are of nothing. He now mocks at idols, in order to confirm the godly in the belief and worship of one God, when by the comparison they see that those who worship idols are miserably deceived and blind. And your work is of nothing. Work must here be taken in a passive sense, as if he had said that it is a vain imagination, a contrivance of no value. But it may be thought that Isaiah speaks inaccurately, when he says that idols are of nothing, for they are composed of gold, or silver, or brass, or stone, or other materials. The solution is easy, for Isaiah did not look at the material, but at the quality, that is, the notion of divinity which men erroneously attribute to them. Supersti…

The Church Fathers

(Verse 24) Behold, you are nothing (from nothing): and your work is from something that does not exist: an abomination is he who chooses you. LXX: they have chosen you from the land of abominations. Or this may be said, that mute images of humans and insensible things are neither able to do good nor evil, nor to know the past nor the future, because they are made out of nothing and out of that which does not exist, and not they themselves, but rather the one who worships them, is deserving of abomination. For the idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see (Psalm 115: 4-6). So how can they know and proclaim the future or recount the past, and do good or evil, when they have no understanding like humans and animals? It does not matter what material they appear to be made of, since they are all earthly.
— Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah

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

Divination — Of false prophets (Deut. 18:10, 14; Micah 3:6, 7, 11), of necromancers (1 Sam. 28:8), of the Philistine priests and diviners (1 Sam. 6:2), of Balaam (Josh. 13:22). Three kinds of divination are…
Condescension Of God · Expostulates with backsliding Israel — Expostulates with backsliding Israel
Idolatry · Objects of described as: Nothing — Objects of described as: Nothing

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).

Isaiah 41:24

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 41:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 41:24

John Gill on Isaiah 41:24

John Calvin on Isaiah 41:24

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Isaiah 41:24

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 41:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 41:24

John Gill on Isaiah 41:24

John Calvin on Isaiah 41:24

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 41:24

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Isaiah 41:21-29

Rashi on Isaiah 41:24