Jeremiah 10:4

4 He decorates it with silver and gold, they strengthen it with nails and hammers, so that it does not stagger.

Jeremiah 10:4 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 10:4

They deck it with silver and with gold
Cover it with plates of silver and gold, for the sake of ornament, that it may look grand, majestic, and venerable; and by this means draw the eye and attention, and so the devotion of people to it: they fasten it with nails and hammers, that it move not.
The sense is, either that the idol was fastened to some post or pillar, or in some certain place on a pedestal, that it might not fall, it not being able otherwise to support itself; or the plates of silver and gold, as Kimchi thinks, were fastened to the idol with nails and hammers, that so they might not be taken away from it; for, were it not for the nails, the god would not be able to keep his silver and golden deckings.

Jeremiah 10:4 In-Context

2 Thus says Yahweh: "You must not learn the way of the nations, and you must not be dismayed by the signs of the heavens, for the nations are dismayed by them.

3 For the statutes of the peoples [are] vanity, for it [is] a tree cut down from [the] forest, [the] work of [the] hands of a craftsman with the tool.

4 He decorates it with silver and gold, they strengthen it with nails and hammers, so that it does not stagger.

5 They [are] like scarecrows in a cucumber field, they cannot speak. Indeed, they must be carried, for they cannot march. You must not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil; furthermore, to do good [is] not in them."

6 There is none like you, [O] Yahweh, you [are] great and your name [is] great in might.