Isaiah 40:18 - Meaning and Application

The prophet rebukes two kinds of people. First, those who represent God by created things and so turn his truth into a lie and his glory into shame. They make images, then say those images look like God, and they honor them as if they did. Second, those who put created things in God’s place, fearing them more than God, as if they were equal to him, or loving them more than God, as if they could rival him.

This challenge appears twice, “To whom will you compare God?” (Isaiah 40:18, Isaiah 40:25). The Holy One himself says, “To whom will you liken me?” This shows the foolishness of physical idolatry, the worship of visible images of the invisible God. It is also a strong warning against spiritual idolatry, which means giving any creature the love, fear, trust, or hope that belongs to God alone. Proud people make themselves equal with God. Greedy people make money equal with God. Whatever we value more than God becomes, in effect, a rival god, which is a terrible insult to the One who is God over all.

To show how foolish idolatry is, the prophet first describes idols as shameful and deserving contempt (Isaiah 40:19, Isaiah 40:20). Look at the better kind, the ones rich people set up and worship. They are made from cheap metal, cast into whatever shape the maker wants, then covered with gold so they can seem valuable. But they are still made things, because the craftsman made them, so they cannot be God (Hosea 8:6). Their whole value depends on the maker’s choice, including their shape.

They are also a fraud. They may look like gold on the outside, but inside they are lead or copper. In that way, they resemble the false gods themselves, which were not what they seemed and deceived their worshipers. If that is true of the richer idols, how much more shameful are the poor man’s gods? A person who can barely afford an offering may still want a god of his own. If he cannot get one of bronze or stone, he chooses wood, picking a tree that will last a long time, and has it carved into an image.

Both the rich and the poor take care to fasten their idols securely so they will not be stolen. The richer ones are fixed with silver chains, and even a wooden image is carefully secured so it will not be moved. Think about the shame idolaters bring on themselves. They trust their own hands to make gods that can help them. “Nehushtans,” pieces of brass or logs of wood, are treated as if they could save. Their thinking is so empty, and their hearts are so dark.

At the same time, their behavior puts us to shame, since we worship the only living and true God. They spared no expense on their idols, while we often think it is waste to spend much in God’s service. They guarded their idols so they would not be moved, while we often act in ways that drive our God away.

The prophet then sets God before us as infinitely great and worthy of the highest honor, so there can be no real comparison between him and idols. To prove God’s greatness, he appeals first to what people have heard throughout history, and to the common witness of all ages and nations (Isaiah 40:21). “Have you not known?” he asks, by the light of nature itself. “Has it not been told you” by your fathers and teachers, from the beginning? These truths about God are as old as the world. “Have you not understood?” from the foundation of the earth, that God is a great God and a great King above all gods?

This truth has been widely admitted: there is an infinite Being who is the source of all being. It is not only known from the beginning of the world, but from the beginning of the universe itself. It stands, as it were, on the foundation of the earth. God’s invisible qualities are clearly seen in what he has made (Romans 1:20). You may ask your father, and he will tell you this, and your elders too (Deuteronomy 32:7). Ask the first person you meet, and he will say the same. Some read these words as a rebuke: “Will you not know? Will you not hear?” Those who do not know this are often choosing not to know it. The light shines right before them, but they shut their eyes.

What is said here of God is this: he rules all creation. The heavens and the earth are under his care. “He sits above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22). He has his special glory in the upper world, yet he rules this lower world too. He gives it its laws and directs all its movements for his own glory. He sits unmoved over the earth and so keeps it firm. He keeps stretching out the heavens by his power and providence, and he will do so until the day they are rolled up like a scroll. He spreads them out as easily as we draw a curtain open in the morning and close it again at night.

The heavens are to the earth like a tent for dwelling, a covering stretched over our heads. They surround the whole world. He also shows his greatness by the smallness of human beings before him. The many people on earth are like grasshoppers in his sight, so tiny and so little in worth, so easily crushed. Proud people may lift themselves up, but it is only like a grasshopper’s jump. In an instant, they must bow back down to the ground. If the spies thought they were like grasshoppers before the sons of Anak, the giant descendants of Anak (Numbers 13:33), what are we before the great God?

Grasshoppers live only a short time, and they live carelessly, unlike the ant. So it is with most people. Those who rise against God, however fearsome they may seem to others, will surely be brought low by his mighty hand (Isaiah 40:23, Isaiah 40:24). Princes and judges may have great power, and they may use it to support oppression and injustice. They may treat those around them as nothing and, as for their enemies, “puff at them” in contempt (Psalm 10:5; Psalm 12:5). But when the great God deals with them, he brings them to nothing. He humbles them, breaks their pride, and makes them like nothing, no longer feared or loved. He leaves them unable to stand before his judgments, which will either keep them from ever settling into power, or strip them of it once they have it. They shall not be planted, and they shall not be sown, the two ways by which plants are passed on, either by seed or by cuttings.

Even if wicked people gain a little power and seem to be planted or sown, their success will not last. They will not take root in the earth, and they will not remain in power for long. Eliphaz, one of Job’s friends, saw the foolish taking root, but then their homes were suddenly cursed. A fig tree can wither quickly, and so can those who seem secure for a time.

God can also ruin them when they think they are firmly settled. He only needs to blow on them, and they will wither and come to nothing. Then the whirlwind of his judgment will carry them away like stubble. At first, God’s anger may seem like only a light breeze, but it can quickly become a strong whirlwind. When God judges, he will win. Those who refuse to bow before him cannot stand before him.

The prophet then points to what everyone can see in the sky: “Lift up your eyes on high” (Isaiah 40:26). We should not keep staring only at the earth. We should also look up and consider the bright lights of heaven, and then ask who made them. They did not create themselves, and they did not arrange themselves. So there must be a God who gave them their being, their power, and their motion.

What we see in creation should lead us to the Creator. Idolaters looked up at the stars and, being ruled by what they saw, went no farther. They worshiped the heavenly bodies instead of the One who made them (Deuteronomy 4:19; Job 31:26). So the prophet calls us to use both reason and sight. We should consider who created the stars and give our worship to him alone.

We should honor God for his rule over them. He brings out their host one by one, like a commander drawing his troops into rank. He knows each one by name, according to its place and work (Psalm 147:4). He also uses them exactly as he wills. When he calls them to serve, they obey so fully that not one fails. Like the stars that fought against Sisera, every one does the task assigned to it.

So it is wrong to make these creatures rivals with God. They are only ready servants of his, and to treat them as gods is an insult to them as well as to him.