Isaiah 10:10 - Exposition

As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols. "Found" here means "reached," "punished … subjugated." It is quite in accordance with Assyrian ideas that the conquered countries should be called "kingdoms of the idols" (literally, "no gods"). The Assyrian monarchs regarded their own gods as alone really deserving of the name, and made war very much with the object of proving the superiority of their deities over those of their neighbors. Hence their practice of carrying off the idols from the various cities which they conquered, or else of inscribing on them "the praises of Asshur." And whose graven images ; rather, and their graven images . Did excel . In preciousness of material or in workmanship, or both. The Assyrians went near to identifying the idols with the gods themselves. Those of Jerusalem and of Samaria . The chief Samaritan idols were the golden calves at Dan and Bethel; but, in addition to these, "images and groves were set up in every high hill and under every green tree" ( 2 Kings 17:10 ), images of Baal, and Ashtoreth, and perhaps Beltis, and Chemosh, and Moloch. Even in Judah and in Jerusalem itself there were idols. Ahaz "made molten images for Baalim" ( 2 Chronicles 28:2 ). The brazen serpent was worshipped as an idol at Jerusalem until Hezekiah destroyed it; and probably, even after the reformation of Hezekiah ( 2 Kings 18:4 ), many Jews retained privately the images, which he required them to destroy ( 2 Chronicles 31:1 ). Isaiah had already declared, speaking of Judah rather than of Israel, "Their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made" ( Isaiah 2:8 ).