What good ¹  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ²  What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ³  Why would its creator place his trust in it ⁴  and make ⁵  such mute, worthless things?

biblegateway Hab 2:18

"What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork When he fashions speechless idols.

What use is a carved idol after its craftsman carves it? It is only a cast image, a teacher of lies. For the one who crafts its shape trusts in it and makes idols that cannot speak.

"What benefit is there in a carved idol when its maker has carved it? What benefit is there in a molded statue, a teacher of lies, when its maker has molded it? The one who formed it trusts himself to make worthless idols that cannot speak.

biblegateway Hab 2:18

"Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

"What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!

bibleoremus Hab 2:18

What use is an idol once its maker has shaped it—a cast image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in what has been made, though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!

What use is an idol after its maker has shaped it? It is only an image, a source of lies! What use is it when the maker trusts what he has made? He is only making dumb idols!

biblegateway Hab 2:18

"What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, The molded image, a teacher of lies, That the maker of its mold should trust in it, To make mute idols?

What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

biblegateway Hab 2:18

What good ¹  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ²  What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ³  Why would its creator place his trust in it ⁴  and make ⁵  such mute, worthless things?

¹ tn Or “of what value.”

² tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.

³ tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.

⁴ tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.

⁵ tn Heb “to make.”