Isaiah 41:1-29 (5)

Isaiah 41:1-29 (5)

Their works are a failure. He gives the name of “works” both to the images which superstitious men make for themselves, and to all false worship, which has no end or measure, and in which every person desires to be a master and teacher of religion. He pronounces all of them to be a “failure,” that is, of no value. He declares this still more plainly, when he says, that they are wind and chaos, that is, confusion; for I explain תהו (tohu) in the same sense that it has in the first chapter of Genesis, where Moses says that

“the earth was at first shapeless and confused.”
(Genesis 1:2.)

This passage against idolaters ought to be carefully studied; for they think that images were appointed to preserve religion, and that minds are kindled by the sight of them, as by the visible presence of God. They think that they are the books of the ignorant and unlearned, who cannot be instructed by the reading of the Scriptures. But the Spirit of God here declares that it is a confused and shapeless thing, that is, because it disturbs and retains in superstition the minds of men; and indeed all true knowledge that exists among men is choked and quenched by this worship of idols. In short, he teaches that all images, and the homage that is paid to them, and they who have made and follow them, are mere vanity, and that we may safely condemn them.