Isaiah 40:20

20 A wise craftsman choose(th) a strong tree, and unable to be rotten; he seeketh how he shall ordain a simulacrum, that shall not be moved.

Isaiah 40:20 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 40:20

He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation
Who is so poor that he cannot bring an offering to his God, yet he will have one; and though he cannot purchase a golden or silver one, or one that is gilt, and adorned with either; yet he will have a wooden one, as follows. Some render it, "he that is set over the oblation", which Aben Ezra mentions; that was over the treasury, where the oblations were; the Heathen priest, whose business it was from thence to procure idols to worship. Jerom takes the word (Nkom) to be the name of a tree that will not rot; and so the Targum renders it,

``he cuts down an ash:''

but the word is descriptive of an idol worshipper; and, according to Gussetius ^F24, signifies one that by custom and repeated acts has got skill in such things; and so Jarchi: hence he chooseth a tree that will not rot:
he goes to the forest, and chooses the best tree for his purpose he can find, even one that will not rot, as the cypress; and though he cannot get an idol made of metal, but is forced to have one of wood, yet he will get the best he can, that will last longest, an incorruptible deity, as he fancies: he seeketh unto him a cunning workman, to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved:
having decided upon his tree, and what sort of wood to make his god of, he looks out for an ingenious carpenter and carver, a good workman, to make it in the form of an image, and grave, or rather carve it, in the best manner he can, and then fasten it in a proper place, that it may not fall; a poor helpless deity, that cannot secure itself, and much less be of any service to its worshippers.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Ebr Comment. p. 558.

Isaiah 40:20 In-Context

18 To whom therefore made ye God like? either what image shall ye set to him (for comparison)?

19 Whether a smith shall weld together an image, either a goldsmith shall figure it in gold, and a worker in silver shall dight it with pieces of silver?

20 A wise craftsman choose(th) a strong tree, and unable to be rotten; he seeketh how he shall ordain a simulacrum, that shall not be moved.

21 Whether ye know not? whether ye heard not? whether it was not told to you from the beginning? whether ye understood not (from) the foundaments of [the] earth?

22 Which sitteth on the compass of [the] earth, and the dwellers thereof be as locusts; which stretcheth forth heavens as nought, and spreadeth abroad those as a tabernacle to dwell (in). (It is he who sitteth above, or over, the roundness of the earth, and its inhabitants be like grasshoppers; it is he who stretcheth forth the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them abroad like a tent to live in.)