Isaiah 44:9
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.
Note d'étude
Study Note
The opening of Isaiah's great anti-idol polemic — 'they that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit' — initiates a sustained argument (44:9-20) that idol manufacture is a form of cognitive self-deception in which a craftsman uses half a log for fuel and the other half to make a god. The Hebrew 'tohu' (vanity, formlessness) applied to idol-makers echoes Genesis 1:2's pre-creation tohu-wabohu, suggesting idolatry is a return to cosmic chaos rather than an act of ordering devotion. The witnesses idols produce are blind and ignorant (v. 9b) — the idol cannot serve as legal witness to anything because it has no capacity for perception or speech. Paul draws extensively on this polemic in Romans 1:22-23 (exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for images) to characterise Gentile idolatry as cognitive and moral self-corruption.
Autres traductions
They that fashion a graven image are all of them vanity; and the things that they delight in shall not profit; and their own witnesses see not, nor know: that they may be put to shame.
Framers of a graven image <FI>are<Fi> all of them emptiness, And their desirable things do not profit, And their own witnesses they <FI>are<Fi> , They see not, nor know, that they may be ashamed.
Those who make a pictured image are all of them as nothing, and the things of their desire will be of no profit to them: and their servants see not, and have no knowledge; so they will be put to shame.
Références croisées
Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the …
Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal …
And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: …
Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them.
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each …
To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the …
Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries,