Exodus 20:1-17, Good Terms for Idols (1)

We recently spent a few weeks on the “Names of God.”  I promise not to spend near the time on this subject, which essentially is, “names of idols.”  You may wonder, why spend any time at all on such a terrible subject?  The simple answer is, these words are inspired by God and the texts are profitable (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  And the other simple answer is, just wait until you see what we’re talking about.

Having given a passage to read each day, we’re going to begin with some verses that have multiple descriptive words for idols.  We will record the verse so you can read it without another trip to your Bible (as if that were a problem).  Then we will share thoughts from the particular verse(s).

“Declare among the nations, Proclaim, and ^[a]set up a standard;
Proclaim—do not conceal it— Say, ‘Babylon is taken, Bel is shamed.
^[b]Merodach is broken in pieces; Her idols are humiliated,
Her images are broken in pieces.’ (Jer. 50:2)

·       “Bel” and “Merodach” were the names given to their gods by the Babylonians.  We are not considering those names, just so you know.

·       “Idols” is the Heb. atzob.  It basically means an “image.”  As Psalm 135:15 says, The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

·       “Images” is the Heb. gilluwl, and again has the idea of an image.  However, the root meaning is “to roll.”  So the use of this term is derision, that the gods of Babylon are like logs or tree trunks (they were often made of wood) that could be rolled where they were needed.  Thirty-nine of the forty-eight uses of this term occur in Ezekiel, who was writing from Babylon.

7 He even set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; 15 He took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city. (2 Chronicles 33:7,15)

·       The “he” in these verses is Manasseh, the wicked son of Hezekiah and king of Judah.  He set up an idol in the temple area.  Then God chastened him, and he responded by removing the foreign gods.

·       The “carved image” is the Heb. pecel. It refers to an image that has been made, an image that depicts what the maker believes the god to look like.  This is the term used in the Ten Commandments, in Ex. 20:4.  The first two commands, in the way we usually understand it, forbids any other gods, and then specifically forbids images that are supposed to represent the true God.