What Does Isaiah 44:15 Mean in the King James?
Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
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
The tree that warms the maker and bakes his bread also supplies the wood he shapes into a god and bows before.
THE MEANING
The verse places ordinary use beside the act of bowing: wood warms a body and bakes bread, while wood from the same tree becomes an image that receives a bow. The maker’s hands remain visible in what he treats as divine. The material’s source stays the same as its use changes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an object becomes divine simply because people bow before it: here the maker shapes the image before bowing down to it.
THE ROOT
יִפְעַל־אֵל
yif'al-el
GROWS FROM
פעל
pa'al
To do, work, or perform.
“maketh a god” in this verse is yif'al-el. The Hebrew verb for making a god comes from the ordinary root of doing and working. The maker’s labor stays visible in the object he then bows before.
ALSO GROWS
pa'al: To do, work, or act.
פָּעַל
This basic verb carries the same everyday sense of human action found in the making of the god.
pe'ullah: Work, deed, task; also wages.
פְּעֻלָּה
This noun keeps the idea of a product tied to the work that produced it.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
adam
Human, linked by name to adamah, ground or soil, and also associated with redness.
“a man” in this verse is adam. The person using the wood is named adam, the ground-being, linked to adamah, ground. The human who shapes material from the earth into an object of reverence is himself part of that material world.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
This related word gives the human name its ground-born resonance.
adom: Red, ruddy.
אָדֹם
This related form preserves the root’s association with the color of earth.
פֶּסֶל
pesel
GROWS FROM
פסל
pasal
To hew, carve, or shape by cutting.
“graven image” in this verse is pesel. The image is called pesel, a hewn form; its name carries the carving that made it. The thing bowed before remains visibly the work of human hands.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To hew or carve.
פָּסַל
This verb names the shaping action behind the graven image.
pesil: A carved image.
פְּסִיל
This related noun names another figure formed by carving.
THE PATTERN
People can treat a human-made object as the source of the life its maker first drew from the material.
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.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
They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.Isaiah 44:9 uses the same word פֶּסֶל (pesel), “graven image,” from פָּסַל (pasal), “hew, carve.” It names the maker’s work as vanity; verse 15 shows the sequence, as useful wood becomes a carved image before which its maker bows.
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