Isaiah Chapter 40 verse 19 Holy Bible
The image, a workman hath cast `it', and the goldsmith overlayeth it with gold, and casteth `for it' silver chains.
read chapter 40 in ASV
The workman makes an image, and the gold-worker puts gold plates over it, and makes silver bands for it.
read chapter 40 in BBE
The workman casteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains [for it].
read chapter 40 in DARBY
The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
read chapter 40 in KJV
read chapter 40 in WBT
The image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains.
read chapter 40 in WEB
The graven image poured out hath a artizan, And a refiner with gold spreadeth it over, And chains of silver he is refining.
read chapter 40 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - The workman melteth a graven image; rather, the workman casteth an image (comp. Isaiah 41:7; Isaiah 44:9-17; Isaiah 46:6, 7). Israel's tendency to idolatry has been touched on in the earlier prophecies once or twice (Isaiah 2:8, 20; Isaiah 31:7); but in the later chapters idolatry is assailed with a frequency, a pungency, and a vigour that are new, and that imply a change, either in the prophet's circumstances or in his standpoint. Perhaps it is enough to suppose that, placing himself ideally among the captives, Isaiah sees that the Babylonian idolatry will be, or at any rate may be, a snare to them, and provides an antidote against the subtle poison. The special antidote which he employs is ridicule, and the first ground of his ridicule is the genesis or formation of an image. It is made by man himself, out of known material substances. Either a figure is cast in some inferior metal, and then coated with gold and finished with the graving tool, or a mere block of wood is taken and cut into shape. Can it be supposed that such things are "likenesses" of God, or that he is comparable to them? Casteth silver chains; as ornaments to be worn by the images, which were often dressed (see Thucyd., 2:13; Baruch 6:9-12).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) The workman melteth . . .--The reign of Ahaz, not to speak of that of Manasseh, must have supplied the prophet with his picture of the idol factory not less fully than if he had lived in Babylon or Nineveh.Spreadeth it over with gold.--The image of lead was covered over, as in the well-known story of Phidias's "Zeus," with plates of gold. The "silver chains" fastened it to the wall.
