Scripture Daily

Context No. 1127 of 4322 · Wisdom

Context · Reflection

Wisdom 14:1-16: in context

1Again, one preparing to sail, and about to journey over raging waves, calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the vessel that carries him. 2For the hunger for profit planned it, and wisdom was the craftsman who built it. 3Your providence, O Father, guides it along, because even in the sea you gave a way, and in the waves a sure path, 4showing that you can save out of every danger, that even a man without skill may put to sea. 5It is your will that the works of your wisdom should not be ineffective. Therefore men also entrust their lives to a little piece of wood, and passing through the surge on a raft come safely to land. 6For in the old time also, when proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, taking refuge on a raft, your hand guided the seed of generations of the race of men. 7For blessed is wood through which comes righteousness; 8but the idol made with hands is accursed, itself and he that made it; because his was the working, and the corruptible thing was called a god. 9For both the ungodly and his ungodliness are alike hateful to God; 10for truly the deed will be punished together with him who committed it. 11Therefore also there will be a visitation among the idols of the nation, because, though formed of things which God created, they were made an abomination, stumbling blocks to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the foolish. 12For the devising of idols was the beginning of fornication, and the invention of them the corruption of life. 13For they didn’t exist from the beginning, and they won’t exist forever. 14For by the boastfulness of men they entered into the world, and therefore a speedy end was planned for them. 15For a father worn with untimely grief, making an image of the child quickly taken away, now honored him as a god which was then a dead human being, and delivered to those that were under him mysteries and solemn rites. 16Afterward the ungodly custom, in process of time grown strong, was kept as a law, and the engraved images received worship by the commandments of princes.

The Wisdom of Solomon reflects on idolatry, and in the middle of praising God's providence over sailors on their fragile boats, it offers a striking account of where idols come from. Among its explanations is this: a father, worn down by grief for a child taken too soon, makes an image of the dead child, and begins to honor as a god what was only a dead human being, handing down rites and mysteries. Over time the custom hardens into law, and carved images come to be worshiped by royal decree.

What is unusual and perceptive here is that the passage traces idolatry to the human heart rather than to mere stupidity. The idol does not begin as a lie someone cynically invents; it begins, in this telling, as grief. A father cannot bear the loss of his child, makes an image to keep the beloved face near, and slowly the memorial becomes a god. Idolatry, the passage suggests, often grows out of real and understandable human longings, love, grief, the ache to hold onto what we have lost, that then get fastened onto the wrong object and calcify into worship of a thing. And once begun, custom and social pressure do the rest; what one grieving father started becomes law, enforced by princes, until everyone bows to the carved image. It is a sober insight into how our idols form, not usually by a deliberate decision to worship something false, but by good desires, grief and love and the longing for security, latching onto created things and hardening, over time, into devotion. The cure is to bring those very longings to the living God who alone can hold them.

What good longing of mine, grief or love or the need for security, might be quietly hardening into an idol, and can I bring that longing back to the living God who alone can hold it?

Sources