Jeremias 10:4
He hath decked it with silver and gold: he hath put it together with nails and hammers, that it may not fall asunder.
Open Jeremias 10:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- argento et auro decoravit illud : clavis et malleis compegit, ut non dissolvatur :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἀργυρίῳ καὶ χρυσίῳ κεκαλλωπισμένα· ἐν σφύραις καὶ ἥλοις ἐστερέωσαν αὐτά·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- בְּכֶ֥סֶף וּבְזָהָ֖ב יְיַפֵּ֑הוּ בְּמַסְמְר֧וֹת וּבְמַקָּב֛וֹת יְחַזְּק֖וּם וְל֥וֹא יָפִֽיק
Haydock's commentary
Asunder. Isaias xliv. 8., Baruch vi. 3., and Wisdom xiii. 11. The pagans themselves laughed at such folly. (Calmet)
If such things were gods, the makers and tools deserved more adoration: Fabri deorum vel parentes numinum, says Prudentius. The vanity of such idols was more easily discerned than that of the stars. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony LIX
In the Wisdom of Solomon: “All the idols of the nations they counted gods, which neither have the use of their eyes for seeing, nor their nostrils to receive breath, nor their ears for hearing, nor the fingers on their hands for handling; but their feet also are slow to walk. For man made them; and he who has borrowed his breath, he fashioned them. But no man will be able to fashion a god like to himself. For since he is mortal, he fashioneth a dead thing with wicked hands. …