Isaiah 44:11

Idolatry Is Foolishness

9 ^aThose who make an image, all of them are useless,
And their precious things shall not profit;
They are their own witnesses;
^bThey neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed.

10 Who would form a god or mold an image
^aThat profits him nothing?

11 Surely all his companions would be ^aashamed;
And the workmen, they are mere men.
Let them all be gathered together,
Let them stand up;
Yet they shall fear,
They shall be ashamed together.

12 ^aThe blacksmith with the tongs works one in the coals,
Fashions it with hammers,
And works it with the strength of his arms.
Even so, he is hungry, and his strength fails;
He drinks no water and is faint.

13 The craftsman stretches out his rule,
He marks one out with chalk;
He fashions it with a plane,
He marks it out with the compass,
And makes it like the figure of a man,
According to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house.

Commentaries:

Adam Clarke

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Isaiah 44:11

His fellows - chaberaiv : but abadaiv , his servants or worshippers, is the reading of one of De Rossi' s MSS., and of the Chaldee.

And the workmen, they are of men "Even the workmen themselves shall blush" - I do not know that any one has ever yet interpreted these words to any tolerably good sense: vecharashim hemmah meadam . The Vulgate and our translators, have rendered them very fairly, as they are written and pointed in the text: Fabri enim sunt ex hominibus . "And the workmen they are of men." Out of which the commentators have not been able to extract any thing worthy of the prophet. I have given another explanation of the place; agreeable enough to the context, if it can be deduced from the words themselves. I presume that adam , rubuit , may signify erubuit , to be red through shame, as well as from any other cause; though I cannot produce any example of it in that particular sense; and the word in the text I would point meoddam ; or if any one should object to the irregularity of the number, I would read meoddamim . But I rather think that the irregularity of the construction has been the cause of the obscurity, and has given occasion to the mistaken punctuation. The singular is sometimes put for the plural. See Psalms 68:31; and the participle for the future tense, see Isaiah 40:11. - L.

**Other Adam Clarke entries containing Isaiah 44:11:**

Jeremiah 10:14
Jeremiah 10:14

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