What Does Isaiah 40:19 Mean in the King James?
The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
What can look like a divine presence here is a human-shaped object dressed in gold and fitted with silver chains.
THE MEANING
The image’s form, shine, and fittings all come from human hands. Its costly finish changes its appearance, but every part still depends on the maker who shapes and adorns it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that something costly or impressive must possess power in itself.
THE ROOT
פֶּסֶל
pesel
GROWS FROM
פסל
p-s-l
To hew or carve into shape.
“graven image” in this verse is pesel. The word for the image carries the act that makes it: this is something cut into form by a human hand. The verse keeps that making visible beneath the finished appearance.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To hew or cut into shape.
פָּסַל
The same root names the shaping work behind the image.
pesel: A carved image or idol.
פֶּסֶל
This is the shaped object in the verse, still bearing its maker’s work within its name.
רְתֻקוֹת
retuqot
GROWS FROM
רתק
r-t-q
To bind or fasten.
The chains are not a natural part of the image; they are additional fashioned pieces bound to it. The verse’s silver fittings extend the work of human hands around an object already made by them.
ALSO GROWS
rataq: To bind or fasten.
רָתַק
The verb reveals the binding action carried by the chains’ root.
retuqah: A chain or fetter.
רְתֻקָה
The singular form names the kind of fastening that appears here in plural.
יְרַקְּעֶנּוּ
yeraqqe'ennu
GROWS FROM
רקע
r-q-ʿ
To beat out or spread flat.
“spreadeth it over” in this verse is yeraqqe'ennu. The gold’s display is made by beating metal thin and spreading it over the image. A related word names the expanse, something spread out; here that same action lays a gleaming surface over a human-made form.
ALSO GROWS
raqaʿ: To beat out or spread flat.
רָקַע
This verb names the action used to cover the image with gold.
raqiaʿ: An expanse or firmament.
רָקִיעַ
This related word carries the idea of something spread out, linking the goldsmith’s work to a broader image of extension.
THE PATTERN
A human-made image does not gain living power through costly materials or careful fastening.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.THE THREAD
Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?The phrase “graven image” uses the same Hebrew word, פֶּסֶל (pesel), meaning a carved image. This verse makes the shaping visible; the next question asks what such a made object can actually provide.
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