Carving

Carving is the shaping of wood, stone, and metal into named forms by a workman's hand. The same craft serves two opposite ends in scripture. Inside the tabernacle and the temple it produces cherubim, palm-trees, open flowers, and engraved stones — works ordered by a divine pattern and executed by named, skilled men. Outside the sanctuary it produces the graven and molten image — a god shaped by sculptor, coppersmith, silversmith, and potter, mute and breathless when the work is done. The craftsman is the same kind of workman in either case; what differs is what he is told to make.

The craft and its workmen

Cain's line first names the trades: Jubal "the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe," and Tubal-cain, "the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron" (Ge 4:21-22). The craft of working in iron and the craft of striking music are placed together at the start. Carpentry is set down for Noah's ark (Ge 6:14-16) and the breadth of the named trades — apothecary, baker, mason, potter, refiner, stonecutter, weaver — fills out the picture of skilled labor in the OT (Ex 30:25; 2Sa 5:11; Isa 64:8; Job 28:2). Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is molten out of the stone (Job 28:2).

Sirach gives the engraver his place inside this catalog of trades. "Likewise the engraver and craftsman, Who passes his time by night as by day; They cut gravings of signets, And his diligence is to make variety, He sets his heart to make his likeness true, And his anxiety is to finish his work" (Sir 38:27). The signet-cutter, like the smith and the potter named beside him, is shown by the labor he gives to make the likeness true.

Bezalel and the tabernacle

The first carving in scripture under direct divine commission is given to Bezalel. Yahweh fills him "with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship... and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship" (Ex 31:5). Carving wood and cutting stones for setting are named as discrete competencies of one Spirit-filled man. With him is set Oholiab, "the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a skillful workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen" (Ex 38:23). Of the two together: "He has filled them with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of workmanship, of the engraver, and of the skillful workman, and of the embroiderer... and of the weaver, even of those who do any workmanship, and of those who devise skillful works" (Ex 35:35).

The tabernacle they raise is itself a carved and woven work. Its ten curtains are "of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim the work of the skillful workman" (Ex 26:1). The cherubim of the mercy-seat are not carved but hammered: "you will make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work you will make them, at the two ends of the mercy-seat" (Ex 25:18). One cherub at each end, "of one piece with the mercy-seat" (Ex 25:19), their wings spread out on high, "covering the mercy-seat with their wings, with their faces one to another" (Ex 37:9). The whole was made not from the workman's invention but "after their pattern, which has been shown to you in the mount" (Ex 25:40); the tabernacle was reared up "according to the fashion of it which has been shown to you in the mount" (Ex 26:30). The author of Hebrews repeats this: Moses is warned, "See, he says, that you make all things according to the pattern that was shown to you in the mount" (He 8:5). The carving is real labor, but the form is not the workman's.

The breastplate, the ephod, and the engraved stones

The priest's vestments concentrate engraving in a single garment. Bezalel takes "two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel" (Ex 28:9), six names on each stone, "according to their birth" (Ex 28:10). The work is named precisely: "With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, you will engrave the two stones, according to the names of the sons of Israel: you will make them to be enclosed in settings of gold" (Ex 28:11). The breastplate of judgment is the work of "the skillful workman" (Ex 28:15), and on it four rows of stones are set — sardius, topaz, and carbuncle; emerald, sapphire, and diamond; jacinth, agate, and amethyst; beryl, onyx, and jasper (Ex 28:17-20; reproduced under Bezalel's hand in Ex 39:10-13). The stones are "according to the names of the sons of Israel, twelve, according to their names; like the engravings of a signet, every one according to his name, for the twelve tribes" (Ex 39:14; cf. Ex 28:21). The ephod's onyx stones are "wrought... enclosed in settings of gold, engraved with the engravings of a signet, according to the names of the sons of Israel" (Ex 39:6). Last, the high priest's plate: "you will make a plate of pure gold, and engrave on it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLY TO YAHWEH" (Ex 28:36; Ex 39:30). Engraving, in this priestly garment, fixes names onto stone and gold so that the priest carries the tribes and the sanctuary's holiness on his body.

Hiram and the temple of Solomon

Solomon's temple draws its master craftsman from outside Israel. "King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with the wisdom and the understanding and the knowledge to work all works in bronze. And he came to King Solomon, and wrought all his work" (1Ki 7:13-14). The Tyrian king's letter describes the same man as "endued with understanding, of Huram my father's, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson, also to engrave any manner of engraving, and to devise any device" (2Ch 2:13-14). Solomon's request is identical in shape to the wisdom Bezalel was given: a "skillful man to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and who knows how to engrave [all manner of] engravings" (2Ch 2:7).

Carving fills the building. The cedar inside is "carved with knops and open flowers: all was cedar; there was no stone seen" (1Ki 6:18). The walls are decorated edge to edge: "he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers, inside and outside" (1Ki 6:29). The doors of olive-wood receive the same hand: "he carved on them carvings of cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread the gold on the cherubim, and on the palm-trees" (1Ki 6:32). The fir doors of the outer house in turn: "he carved [on it] cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers; and he overlaid them with gold fitted on the graven work" (1Ki 6:35). Inside the most holy place stand two cherubim "of molten work" overlaid with gold (2Ch 3:10), with wings of twenty cubits, each wing of five cubits reaching to the wall (2Ch 3:11). Both cherubim are "of one measure and one form" (1Ki 6:25). The carved figures cover both the wood and the bronze: on the bases Hiram "engraved cherubim, lions, and palm-trees, according to the space of each, with wreaths round about" (1Ki 7:36).

The bronze furniture is itself sculptural. Two pillars of bronze, eighteen cubits high apiece, with a line of twelve cubits round (1Ki 7:15); capitals of "molten bronze" five cubits tall (1Ki 7:16); "nets of checker-work, and wreaths of chain-work" for the capitals (1Ki 7:17); "lily-work" on the porch capitals, four cubits (1Ki 7:19); two hundred pomegranates in rows on each capital (1Ki 7:20); the pillars set up at the porch and named Jachin and Boaz (1Ki 7:21). The molten sea is "of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in a circle, and its height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits encircled it round about" (1Ki 7:23), with knops "in two rows, cast when it was cast" (1Ki 7:24), standing on twelve oxen oriented to the four points of the compass (1Ki 7:25), its brim "wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily" (1Ki 7:26). On the bases' panels were "lions, oxen, and cherubim" (1Ki 7:29). On their mouths were "gravings, and their panels were foursquare, not round" (1Ki 7:31). The basins, shovels, the golden altar, the table for showbread, the lampstands "five on the right side, and five on the left, before the oracle, of pure gold; and the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs, of gold" (1Ki 7:48-49) — all of it bronze and gold worked into named forms. The bronze was cast "in the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan" (1Ki 7:46). The David of 1 Chronicles had already prepared "wood for the [things of] wood; onyx stones, and [stones] to be set, stones for inlaid work, and of diverse colors, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance" (1Ch 29:2). His pattern for the chariot of the cherubim was "refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the chariot, [even] the cherubim, that spread out [their wings], and covered the ark of the covenant of Yahweh" (1Ch 28:18). All of this, like the tabernacle's pattern, was given to David "by the Spirit, for the courts of the house of Yahweh, and for all the chambers round about" (1Ch 28:12), and "all this... I have been made to understand in writing from the hand of Yahweh, even all the works of this pattern" (1Ch 28:19).

The desolation of that carved work is named precisely. Asaph's psalm of the temple's ruin reports the enemies' work in the workman's own vocabulary: "And now all its carved work They break down with hatchet and hammers" (Ps 74:6).

Engraving as covenant inscription

A carving idiom serves outside the sanctuary too. Zechariah hears Yahweh of hosts say of one stone before Joshua: "on one stone are seven eyes: look, I will engrave its engraving, says Yahweh of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day" (Zec 3:9). The signet image becomes Yahweh's own act. In Exodus the tablets of the law are written and graven on stone — the service of death "written, [and] engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory of his face" (2Co 3:7). Jeremiah inverts the figure for Judah's sin: "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, [and] with the point of a diamond: it is graven on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your⁺ altars" (Jer 17:1). In all three cases — Joshua's stone, the tablets, the human heart — engraving stands for what is fixed and unerasable.

The graving tool turned to idols

The same instruments that carved cherubim on the temple walls produce the molten calf at Sinai. Aaron "received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it [into] a molten calf" (Ex 32:4). The tool of the engraver is named explicitly; the catechetical commandment that follows him through Israel's history takes that tool as its target. "You will not make for yourself a graven image, nor any likeness [of any thing] that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Ex 20:4). "You⁺ will not make yourselves idols, neither will you⁺ rear yourselves up a graven image, or a pillar, neither will you⁺ place any figured stone in your⁺ land, to bow down to it" (Le 26:1). "You will make yourself no molten gods" (Ex 34:17).

The reproof recurs at every relapse. The wilderness generation: "you⁺ had made yourselves a molten calf: you⁺ had turned aside quickly out of the way which [the Speech of] Yahweh had commanded you⁺" (De 9:16); "they made a calf in Horeb, And worshiped a molten image" (Ps 106:19); "they had made themselves a molten calf, and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt" (Ne 9:18). Micah's mother takes "two hundred [shekels] of silver, and gave them to the goldsmith, who made of it a graven image and a molten image: and it was in the house of Micah" (Jg 17:4); the Danite scouts later find at the same house "an ephod, and talismans, and a graven image, and a molten image" (Jg 18:14). The northern kings "made themselves molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah" (2Ki 17:16); Ahaz "made molten images for the Baalim" (2Ch 28:2); Ephraim "made for themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let man who sacrifices kiss the calves" (Ho 13:2). Of all such gods at large: "their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands" (Ps 115:4); "all the gods of the peoples are idols: But Yahweh made the heavens" (1Ch 16:26); "their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made" (Isa 2:8).

The prophets on the craftsman's idol

Isaiah gives the carving idol its sustained portrait. The forge first: "The blacksmith [makes] an ax, and works in the coals, and fashions it with hammers, and works it with his strong arm: yes, he is hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water, and is faint" (Isa 44:12). Then the carpenter: "he stretches out a line; he marks it out with a pencil; he shapes it with planes, and he marks it out with the compasses, and shapes it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of man, to dwell in a house" (Isa 44:13). The wood is taken from the same forest the man warms himself by — "He cuts down cedars, and takes the holm-tree and the oak, and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest: he plants a fir-tree, and the rain nourishes it" (Isa 44:14). Half is used for fuel: "Then it will be for man to burn; and he takes of it, and warms himself; yes, he kindles it, and bakes bread: yes, he makes a god, and worships it; he makes it a graven image, and falls down to it" (Isa 44:15). "He burns part of it in the fire; with part of it he eats flesh; he roasts roast, and is satisfied; yes, he warms himself, and says, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire" (Isa 44:16). "And its remnant he makes a god, even his graven image; he falls down to it and worships, and prays to it, and says, Deliver me; for you are my god" (Isa 44:17). Of those who fashion the thing: "Those who fashion a graven image are all of them vanity; and the things that they delight in will not profit; and their own witnesses don't see, nor know" (Isa 44:9); "Who has fashioned a god, or molten an image that is profitable for nothing?" (Isa 44:10); the workmen will "fear, they will be put to shame together" (Isa 44:11). The mockery of the procession: "they have no knowledge who carry the wood of their graven image, and pray to a god that can't save" (Isa 45:20). The sequence of operations at the goldsmith's stall: "The image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains" (Isa 40:19); "He who is too impoverished for [such] an oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks to him a skillful workman to set up a graven image, that will not be moved" (Isa 40:20); "Such as lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, they hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; they fall down, yes, they worship" (Isa 46:6). And the Yahweh-claim against any of it: "I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images" (Isa 42:8).

Jeremiah keeps the pictures close. "The customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax" (Jer 10:3). Babylon is "a land of graven images, and they are mad over idols" (Jer 50:38). Of every man on whom the analysis lands: "Everyone among man has become brutish [and is] without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them" (Jer 51:17). Habakkuk lays down the matter on the same axis: "What does it profit the graven image, that its maker has graven it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?" (Hab 2:18). And the form of address that follows: "Woe to him who says to the wood, 'Awake; Arise!' [And] to the mute stone, 'It will teach.' Look, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it" (Hab 2:19). Hosea adds the political register: "of their silver and their gold they have made for themselves idols, that they may be cut off" (Ho 8:4). Micah hears Yahweh say "I will cut off your graven images and your pillars out of the midst of you; and you will no more worship the work of your hands" (Mi 5:13).

The Greek catalogues the same crafts in summary. "Are not all these of corruptible matter? Are they not all made by iron and fire? Did not the sculptor form one, the coppersmith another, the silversmith a third, and the potter a fourth? Before they were fashioned into these forms by the arts of those men, was not each of them transformed, and that even now, by its respective craftsman? Could not the vessels which now are of the same matter, if they met with the same craftsmen, be made like such as these?" (Gr 2:3). The argument is the same one Isaiah made about wood and Habakkuk made about gold and stone, redrawn through four named trades.

Reform: the carved image broken

Where the prophets argue, the reformers act. Moses "took the calf which they had made, and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it on the water, and made the sons of Israel drink of it" (Ex 32:20). The covenant land is to receive the same treatment: "you⁺ will deal with them: you⁺ will break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and cut down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire" (De 7:5); "the graven images of their gods you⁺ will burn with fire: you will not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it to you, or else you will be snared in it; for it is disgusting to Yahweh your God" (De 7:25). The reforming kings perform exactly this. Jacob first: he gathers the foreign gods of his household and buries them at Shechem (Ge 35:2-4). Gideon pulls down the altar of Baal (Jg 6:28-32). David burns the abandoned Philistine images (1Ch 14:12; 2Sa 5:21). Jehu pulls down the pillars of Baal "and broke down the house of Baal" (2Ki 10:26-28). Jehoiada breaks the house of Baal in Jerusalem (2Ki 11:18). Hezekiah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, the people under Hezekiah, Manasseh after his repentance, and Josiah work through the carved idol-objects in turn (2Ki 18:3-6; 2Ch 14:3-5; 2Ch 15:8-16; 2Ch 17:6; 2Ch 19:3; 2Ch 30:14; 2Ch 33:15; 2Ki 23:4-20). And Yahweh through Zechariah promises the end of the matter: "I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will no more be remembered" (Zec 13:2).

The mute idol and its end

Across both Testaments the carved image is named for what it is and is not. "[My] little children, guard yourselves from idols" (1Jn 5:21). The believer "knows that no idol is [anything] in the world, and that there is no God but one" (1Co 8:4). "When you⁺ were Gentiles [you⁺ were] led away to those mute idols, however you⁺ might be led" (1Co 12:2). And the picture closes on a Babylon and a humanity that have not learned: even after the plagues, men "did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of bronze, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk" (Re 9:20). The list is the carving inventory once more — gold, silver, bronze, stone, wood — and the mute and motionless verdict that has run through the whole prophetic line.