The Idols of the Heathen

BY HENRI PAUL MOTTE, A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH ARTIST.

+

"They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not.”—Psalm 115, 5.

T

HE psalms from the hundred and tenth through the hundred and eighteenth are all chants of praise,

brief but overflowing with joy, outcries of exaltation. The hundred and fifteenth takes as its special theme, the contrast of God with the idols of the heathen; for the Hebrews had learned by grim experience the horrors of human sacrifice offered to the idols of Baal and Moloch, victims placed in the arms of the huge brazen statue which was then heated so that they burned to death. "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

"They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:

"They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:

"They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. "They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them."

After this comes the comparison with God, whose pure worship blesses men. "O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: he is their help and their shield."

ISAIAH VII-ISAIAH COUNSELS AHAZ

1135

and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Chapter 7

1 Ahaz, being troubled with fear of Rezin and Pekah is comforted by Isaiah. 10 Ahaz, having liberty to choose a sign, and refusing it, hath for a sign, Christ promised. 17 His judgment is prophesied to come by Assyria.

ND it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

up

3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;

4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal.1 7 Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be

established.

10 ¶ Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,

11 Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

"This "son of Tabeal" is to-day unknown. It has been conjectured that he was Rezin of Damascus