Everyone who makes an engraved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed. Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows will be disappointed; and the workmen are mere men. Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. They will fear. They will be put to shame together. The blacksmith takes an ax, works […]
⛓ Read Isaiah 44 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion5
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Isaiah's extended mockery of idol-makers who fashion lifeless gods is the deutero-Isaianic counterpart Paul presupposes in 'turned to God from idols.' The dead-idols vs. living-God antithesis is the engine of the verse; Recurrence of this polemic across Second-Temple Judaism strengthens the allusion.
High confidenceDemetrius's silversmiths make shrines of Artemis, and Paul has taught that gods made with hands are no gods; Isaiah's great satire on the craftsman who fashions an idol with his own hands and then worships it is the controlling OT polemic (Volume: strong, the made-with-hands idol-craftsman is the shared center; Recurrence: idol-polemic recurs across Isaiah and the Psalms which Luke knows; Coherence: very high, the economic self-interest of the idol-trade mirrors Isaiah's irony). Plausibility and satisfaction: this is the classic prophetic mockery of manufactured deity.
High confidenceIsaiah's extended mockery of the idol-maker who fashions a god from a leftover log establishes that an idol "is nothing in the world," the very phrase-idea Paul uses in v.4. This is the locus classicus of idol-nothingness in the prophets and coheres tightly with Paul's argument. Allusion rather than quotation since Paul presupposes its conclusion.
Medium confidenceThe craftsman who fashions a god from wood/metal stands behind v.29's rejection of images 'engraved by art and design of man.'
Medium confidenceClassic prophetic satire on idol-makers who become as senseless as their idols; 'became vain in their reasoning' and 'darkened heart' parallel Isaiah's blinded idolater. Moderate volume; recurrent idol-polemic.
Medium confidenceEcho3
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Isaiah's extended mockery of the craftsman who fashions a god stands behind both Paul's revulsion here and his later argument that the divine is not 'engraved by art'; sets up vv.29.
Medium confidenceIsaiah's extended satire on the craftsman who fashions a god from wood and metal that cannot save — the classic 'work of human hands' idol-mockery underlying 9:20's catalogue of materials. Thematic rather than verbatim; supports the dead-idol polemic.
Medium confidenceThe town clerk appeals to the image of Artemis that fell from heaven (Diopetes); Isaiah's satire that the idol is in truth a manufactured object stands in tension with the civic claim of a heaven-fallen image, underscoring the irony Luke wants the reader to feel. Faint here, fuller at 19:23-27. Contested.
Low confidence