Isaiah 40:20

Read in context

Isaiah 40:18–22 · Berean Standard Bible

18 To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?

19 To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains?

20 To one bereft of an offering who chooses wood that will not rot, who seeks a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple?

21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the foundation of the earth?

22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Hebrew words

Data created by STEPBible.org based on work at Tyndale House Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

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Cross-references

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.

Isaiah 2:8

Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.

Isaiah 2:9

So mankind is brought low, and man is humbled— do not forgive them!

Isaiah 44:13

The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He fashions it in the likeness of man, like man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.

Isaiah 44:14

He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow.

Isaiah 44:15

It serves as fuel for man. He takes some of it to warm himself, and he kindles a fire and bakes his bread; he even fashions it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.

Isaiah 44:16

He burns half of it in the fire, and he roasts meat on that half. He eats the roast and is satisfied. Indeed, he warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”

Isaiah 44:17

From the rest he makes a god, his graven image. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.”

Isaiah 44:18

They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.

Isaiah 44:19

And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”

Jeremiah 10:3

For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.

Jeremiah 10:4

They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.

Daniel 5:23

Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.

Isaiah 41:7

The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who wields the hammer cheers him who strikes the anvil, saying of the welding, “It is good.” He nails it down so it will not be toppled.

Isaiah 46:7

They lift it to their shoulder and carry it along; they set it in its place, and there it stands, not budging from that spot. They cry out to it, but it does not answer; it saves no one from his troubles.

1 Samuel 5:3

When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.

1 Samuel 5:4

But when they got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD, with his head and his hands broken off and lying on the threshold. Only the torso remained.