Habakkuk 2:18
“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?”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →What use is a carved or cast idol — a teacher of lies — that its own maker trusts, fashioning gods that cannot speak?
What Does Habakkuk 2:18 Mean?
The fifth and final woe turns to idolatry, and it opens with a piercing question. What profit is there in a graven or molten image? The craftsman shapes it, then trusts it — yet it is only "a teacher of lies," a mute idol that can do nothing. The absurdity is laid bare: a person worships what his own hands have made.
This exposes the emptiness at the root of Babylon's whole way of life. To trust in lifeless images is to trust in nothing, to be taught falsehood by something that cannot even speak. The verse gently presses every heart to ask what it relies on. Anything we fashion and then look to for security — whether carved of wood or built of wealth and power — is a dumb idol that profits nothing. Only the living God, who speaks and saves, is worthy of our trust.
In the Original Language
pesel (פֶּסֶל), 'graven image' — an idol carved by human hands, here called a teacher of lies that cannot speak.