Isaiah 2:20 describes a coming day when people will throw away the idols they have made for themselves, the silver and gold objects they once bowed before, and give them up to the moles and bats. The verse is a prophetic picture of human pride and false worship collapsing before the living God. It was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, a messenger of the LORD in Jerusalem and Judah during the eighth century BC, and it was addressed to a people who had turned to wealth and religious objects for security.
In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats…
Isaiah 2:20 (WEB)
What Isaiah 2:20 Means
The phrase “In that day” points forward to the time when the LORD will act decisively in history. Isaiah has been describing the “day of the LORD,” a moment when human arrogance is humbled and God alone is lifted up. The verse is not a rule for the reader to follow in a single afternoon. It is a vision of what will happen when God’s authority is finally made plain.
“Idols of silver” and “idols of gold” describe images people crafted from precious metal and then treated as sources of protection, guidance, or blessing. The word “idols” names anything we place in the position that belongs to God alone. The verse says these things were “made for themselves to worship,” which emphasizes that they were human inventions, not divine realities. The image of them being thrown “to the moles and to the bats” is deliberately humiliating. The things people once treasured end up in the dark, among creatures that cannot value them.
What the verse does not promise is a neat, peaceful transition. It describes a dramatic and frightening event. It also does not teach that gold and silver are evil in themselves. The problem Isaiah names is what people do with those things when they make them into gods.
The Context of Isaiah 2:20
The book of Isaiah is traditionally attributed to the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, who ministered in Judah during the reigns of several kings, including Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Chapter 2 opens with a vision of nations streaming toward Jerusalem to learn God’s ways, and then turns to a warning about Judah’s own pride. The people had filled their land with wealth, horses, chariots, and idols, and Isaiah confronts them with the claim that all of it is coming to nothing.
The verses just before and after Isaiah 2:20 make the meaning clearer. Verse 17 says that human haughtiness will be brought low and that the LORD alone will be exalted. Verses 21 and 22 describe people fleeing into caves and rock clefts from the terror of the LORD, and then urge the reader to stop trusting in mortal man, “whose breath is in his nostrils.” Read together, verse 20 is not an isolated image of idols being discarded. It is part of a sustained argument that human power, wealth, and religious substitutes all fail when the LORD rises to shake the earth.
Key Phrases in Isaiah 2:20
Psalm 115:4-8
4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 5 They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. 6 They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. 7 They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. 8 Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.
(WEB)
This psalm mocks idols made of silver and gold, pointing out that they have mouths but cannot speak and eyes but cannot see. It reinforces Isaiah’s argument that those who make and trust such objects become like them, empty and powerless.
Jeremiah 10:14-15
14 Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 15 They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.
(WEB)
Jeremiah describes idols as worthless and deceptive, the work of craftsmen with no breath in them. Like Isaiah, he presents God’s judgment as the moment when these false works are exposed and perish.
A Short Prayer From Isaiah 2:20
Lord, you are the only one worthy of my worship and trust. I confess the ways I have set other things in your place, whether success, approval, comfort, or security. Show me where I have made idols of my own choosing, and give me the courage to let them go. Lift up my eyes from the things that cannot save and help me see your greatness clearly.
Thank you that you are not a god made by human hands, but the living God who rules over every day and every nation. Teach me to rest in your faithfulness and to find my identity in you alone. Amen.
