Are Other Gods Only Idols?
At a few points, the Scriptures of Israel equate other gods with idols. A prime example appears in 2 Chronicles 32. As the Assyrians are besieging Jerusalem, the servants of Sennacherib attempt to terrify the city’s inhabitants. The Chronicler (the scholarly term for the author of Chronicles) says that the Assyrians “spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the [other] peoples of the earth, which are the work of human hands” (2 Chron 32:19). Most modern readers interpret statements like these to mean that the so-called “gods” of the nations do not really exist—they are nothing but idols that their worshipers have fashioned with their own hands. However, since the broader context of 2 Chronicles distinguishes between gods and their idols, Scripture specifies that the other gods exist apart from the statutes with which they are closely associated.
It is true that the Bible identifies a close relationship between foreign gods and idols. For instance, in 2 Kings 19:18, Hezekiah tells the God of Israel that the Assyrians have conquered various nations and “cast their gods (אֱלֹהֵיהֶם; elohehem) into the fire, though they were not gods (לֹא אֱלֹהִים; lo elohim) but the work of human hands” (2 Kings 19:18). Based on this verse alone, it would be easy to assume that other gods are themselves mere idols. Yet the context of this statement nuances this simple conclusion. In the ancient Near East, the belief was that heavenly gods inhabited earthly idols; therefore, to destroy an idol was to eliminate a god’s access to, and authority within, the human realm. A major difference between the Most High God of Israel and these lower gods is that the Lord does not reside in wood or stone. Instead, as Hezekiah says in prayer, the “Lord God of Israel [is] enthroned above the cherubim” (2 Kings 19:15); therefore, the Lord is “the God” (הָאֱלֹהִים; ha’elohim)—completely “alone” in majesty (19:15). Unlike the gods who inhabit handmade statutes, the God of Israel cannot be destroyed when idols of wood or stone are cast into fire.
Second Chronicles 32 follows 2 Kings 19 in its assertion that other “gods” are the “work of human hands” (2 Chron 32:19). This point is true insofar as the continued existence of these lesser gods in the human realm is contingent upon the existence of their graven images—but the broader context shows that “gods” and “idols” are not the same entities. The following chapter notes that, after Manasseh repented, “he took away the foreign gods (אֱלֹהֵי הַנֵּכָר; elohey ha’nekhar) and theidol (הַסֶּמֶל; ha’semel, or “carved image”) from the house of the Lord” (2 Chron 33:15). Since the gods of other nations are so closely associated with their physical images, to take away the idol is to take away the deity (at least for a time). Yet these biblical texts do not suggest that only one god exists in the universe; rather, they affirm that the God of Israel—the only God who is not bound to any earthly idol—is the true Lord of heaven and earth.
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