Matthew Poole and continuators on Habakkuk 2:18

18 ¶ What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath graven it: the molten image and a teacher of lies t, that the maker of his work trusteth therein to make him dumb idols?

Here the Prophet removes the confidences of Babylon, she would boast of her gods, and depend on them, but this will be vain and unprofitable, it is not imaginable that these Idols should help these persons.

Carved in Wood, or Stone, for of such materials did these Idol makers sometimes make their Gods.

It is brutish folly in any one to value, or desire to be helpt, by such lifeless Idols, but 'tis greatest folly for him that-makes the image, that remembers how it was hewed, plained, tumbled about, and all this without the least degree of sense, or feeling of what it suffered, and can that be sensible of my sorrows which feels not any thing it self?

Idols made of Gold or Silver, or any other fusile mettal were framed out of the mettal first melted, and are therefore called molten images.

But whether graven or molten, yet all such images are but teachers of lies, Ier. 10.8, 14. They withdraw the mind from God our true, and onely helper, and bewitch men to trust to Idols in which is no help, which ever proved lies to all that trusted on them.

Who knows, for he saw that there was no Life Strength or Wisdom in one or other, it is shameless in any, but most in him that made the Idol to worship his own work and rely upon that which he knows hath no eyes, or hands, or ears, but what his tool framed for it.

His own work and yet his God! The product of his art, and yet the hope of his Soul! O brutish folly. Self contradiction!

Resteth confident of defence, and rescue from evil by it.

Which neither can answer a question, nor give a direction in a streight, can neither promise good to a Friend, nor denounce a threat against an Enemy,

Marginal references: Zech. [illegible: 2 letters].; Heb. [illegible: 1 span].