Soldering

Soldering appears once in scripture, in Isaiah's mockery of idol-making. The term names the joining of metal pieces in the fabrication of an image — a step in the workshop sequence the prophet describes to expose the absurdity of a god that has to be assembled and braced.

In Idol-Making

Isaiah pictures the trades collaborating on the construction of an idol, each craftsman cheering the next: "So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith, [and] he who smoothes with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good; and he fastens it with nails, that it should not be moved" (Isa 41:7). The soldering is approved as sound, the seam is judged good, and the finished piece is then nailed in place so it will not topple — a cumulative picture of effort that ends not in a god who can speak but in an object held upright by fasteners.