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 22
1
Thus saith the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
2
And say, Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter by these gates:
3
Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver him that is laid waste out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.
4
For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter, by the gates of this house, kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
5
But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.
6
For thus saith the LORD to the king's house of Judah; Thou art Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon; yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
7
And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
8
And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Why hath the LORD done thus to this great city?
9
Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
10
Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but Weep bitterly for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
11
For thus saith the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went forth from this place; He shall not return thither any more:
12
But he shall die in the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.
13
Woe to him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;
14
That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
15
Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?
16
He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the LORD.
17
But thy eyes and thy heart are only for thy covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
18
Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!
19
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up thy voice in Bashan, and cry from the passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed.
21
I spoke to thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidest, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou hast not obeyed my voice.
22
The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
23
O inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain as of a woman in travail!
24
As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;
25
And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26
And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bore thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die.
27
But to the land to which they desire to return, thither shall they not return.
28
Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel in which is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
29
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
30
Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.
