Apocalypse Revealed #459
459. And idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood. This symbolically means that thus they engage in worship founded on nothing but falsities.
Idols in the Word symbolize falsities in worship, and therefore worshiping them symbolizes worship founded on falsities. Worshiping idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, then, symbolizes worship founded on falsities of every kind, and when taken in combination, worship founded on nothing but falsities. Moreover, the materials, figures, and garments of the idols among ancient peoples represented the falsities of religion on which they founded their worship. Idols of gold symbolized falsities regarding matters pertaining to God; idols of silver, falsities regarding matters pertaining to the spirit; idols of brass, falsities regarding charity; idols of stone, falsities regarding faith; and idols of wood, falsities regarding good works.
All of these falsities are held by people who do not repent, that is, who do not refrain from evils as being sins against God.
[2] Idols, which were carved and cast images, have this symbolic meaning in the spiritual sense in the following passages:
Everyone has been made stupid by knowledge; every metalsmith is has been put to shame by a carved image; for his cast image is a falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are futile, a work of errors; in the time of their visitation they shall perish. (Jeremiah 10:14-15; 51:17-18)
(Carved images are) the work of the hands of the workman... They do not speak... They are both foolish and stupid; the wood is a worthless teacher... They are all the work of skillful men. (Jeremiah 10:3-5, 8-10)
What profit is the carved image, that its maker has carved it, ...and a teacher of lies, that the maker of the lie trusts in it...? ...in it there is no breath. (Habakkuk 2:18-19)
In that day a man will cast away to the moles and bats his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship... (Isaiah 2:18, 20)
...they made for themselves cast images of their silver, idols according to their skill, all of it the work of craftsmen. (Hosea 13:2)
I will sprinkle clean water on you, that you may be cleansed... from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. (Ezekiel 36:25)
Clean waters are truths; idols are falsities in worship.
You shall judge unclean the covering of your graven images of silver, and the attire of your cast images of gold. You will throw them away as a menstrual cloth; you will call it excrement. (Isaiah 30:22)
[3] Falsities in religion and thus in worship are precisely what are symbolically meant by the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone that Belshazzar, king of Babylon, praised (i.e., worshiped) when with his great men, wives and concubines he drank wine from the vessels of gold and silver taken from the temple in Jerusalem, on which account he was driven from mankind and became as a beast (Daniel 5:1-5ff.).
And so also in many other places, as in Isaiah 10:10-11; 21:9; 31:7; 40:19-20; 41:29; 42:17; 48:5, Leviticus 26:30.
Properly speaking, idols symbolize falsities in worship springing from people's own intelligence. How a person fashions them and afterward adapts them so that they appear to be true is fully described in Isaiah 44:9-20.
Jeremiah 52
1
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
2
He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3
For through the anger of Yahweh did it happen in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
4
It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.
5
So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
6
In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
7
Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around;) and they went toward the Arabah.
8
But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.
9
Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment on him.
10
The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he killed also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
11
He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.
12
Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem:
13
and he burned the house of Yahweh, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire.
14
All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.
15
Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude.
16
But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers.
17
The pillars of brass that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh, did the Chaldeans break in pieces, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon.
18
The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered, took they away.
19
The cups, and the fire pans, and the basins, and the pots, and the lampstands, and the spoons, and the bowls--that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver,--the captain of the guard took away.
20
The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh. The brass of all these vessels was without weight.
21
As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits did compass it; and its thickness was four fingers: it was hollow.
22
A capital of brass was on it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of brass: and the second pillar also had like these, and pomegranates.
23
There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were one hundred on the network all around.
24
The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold:
25
and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king's face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the city.
26
Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.
27
The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.
28
This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand twenty-three Jews;
29
in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons;
30
in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty-five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.
31
It happened in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the [first] year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison;
32
and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon,
33
and changed his prison garments. [Jehoiachin] ate bread before him continually all the days of his life:
34
and for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.
