He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow.
Parallel translations
- WEB He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak, and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest. He plants a cypress tree, and the rain nourishes it.
- KJV He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.
- NKJV He cuts down cedars for himself, And takes the cypress and the oak; He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it.
- NASB He will cut cedars for himself, and he takes a holm-oak or another oak and lets it grow strong for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel tree, and the rain makes it grow.
- NLT He cuts down cedars; he selects the cypress and the oak; he plants the pine in the forest to be nourished by the rain.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The same man plants and grows the very trees he will later use, dependent on God's rain. It highlights how the idol-maker relies on God's provision even to make his false god.
Overview
The wood for the idol comes from trees that God's own rain nourished. The maker unknowingly depends on the true God to supply material for a false one. This deepens the absurdity of idolatry and points to the Creator who alone sustains all things, the God revealed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Isa 40:20To one bereft of an offering who chooses wood that will not rot, who seeks a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple?
- Hos 4:12My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.
- Hab 2:19Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”
- Jer 10:3–8For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 44:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.