Wisdom of Solomon — Chapter 14
The making of idols and its consequences
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Greek-source study and notes · III. Wisdom
Wood that serves life and wood called a god
14:1 Again, someone preparing for a voyage and about to traverse wild waves
calls upon a piece of wood more rotten than the ship carrying him.
14:2 For the desire for gain devised that ship,
and wisdom, the artisan, fashioned it;
14:3 but Your providence, Father, steers it,
for You gave a way even in the sea
and a safe path among the waves,
14:4 showing that You can save from every danger,
so that even someone without skill may embark.
14:5 You will that the works of Your wisdom should not be idle;
therefore human beings entrust their lives even to a very small piece of wood,
and, crossing the surge on a raft, they were brought safely through.
14:6 For even at the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing,
the hope of the world took refuge on a raft
and left to the age a seed for generation, steered by Your hand.
14:7 For blessed is wood through which righteousness comes about;
14:8 but the handmade object is accursed, both it and its maker:
the one because he made it,
and the other because, though corruptible, it was named a god.
14:9 For equally hateful to God are the ungodly person and his ungodliness;
14:10 for what was done will be punished together with the one who did it.
14:11 Therefore there will also be a visitation upon the nations’ idols,
because within God’s creation they became an abomination,
stumbling blocks to human souls,
and a snare for the feet of fools.
Grief, rulers, and artistic flattery
14:12 For the devising of idols is the beginning of sexual immorality,
and their invention the corruption of life.
14:13 For they did not exist from the beginning,
nor will they exist forever;
14:14 through human vainglory they entered the world,
and therefore a swift end was planned for them.
14:15 For a father worn down by untimely grief,
having made an image of a child swiftly taken away,
now honored as a god the one who had once been a dead human being,
and handed on mysteries and rites to those under him.
14:16 Then, strengthened over time, the ungodly custom was kept as law.
14:17 And carved images were worshiped at rulers’ commands;
when people could not honor them face to face because they lived far away,
they reproduced their distant appearance
and made a visible image of the honored king,
so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though present.
14:18 The artist’s ambition urged even those who did not know the king
toward an intensification of worship;
14:19 for, perhaps wishing to please the ruler,
he used his art to force the likeness toward greater beauty.
14:20 The multitude, drawn by the charm of the workmanship,
now reckoned as an object of worship the human being whom they had honored a little before.
14:21 And this became an ambush for life,
because human beings, enslaved either to misfortune or to royal power,
bestowed upon stones and pieces of wood the name that cannot be shared.
False worship and the corruption of life
14:22 Then it was not enough to go astray about the knowledge of God;
living in the great war of ignorance,
they also call such great evils peace.
14:23 For while celebrating rites that murder children, or secret mysteries,
or frenzied revelries with strange customs,
14:24 they no longer keep either lives or marriages pure;
one kills another by ambush or grieves him by adultery.
14:25 Bloodshed and murder, theft and deceit, hold everything in confusion,
corruption, unfaithfulness, disturbance, perjury,
14:26 confusion of good things, forgetfulness of favor,
defilement of souls, alteration of natural relations,
disorder in marriages, adultery, and licentiousness.
14:27 For worship of nameless idols
is the beginning, cause, and end of every evil.
14:28 For they either go mad in their merrymaking, or prophesy lies,
or live unjustly, or readily swear falsely.
14:29 For trusting in lifeless idols,
they do not expect to be harmed when they swear wrongly.
14:30 But just consequences will pursue them for both things:
because they thought wrongly about God by attending to idols,
and swore unjustly in deceit, despising holiness.
14:31 For it is not the power of those by whom they swear,
but the justice due to sinners,
that always pursues the transgression of the unrighteous.
Source and editorial notes
Working translation preserved from the recovered manuscript of 8 September 2026. Declared source: Septuaginta, Rahlfs–Hanhart, 2006, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, publisher’s Greek main text. Independent linguistic and critical-apparatus review remains outstanding. Source-access and reception claims in the inherited notes have not been freshly revalidated. Chapter and section headings are editorial.
Source numbering retained: chapter 17 ends at 17:20.
14:1 The comparative exposes the contrast between a useful vessel and the object invoked for help.
14:2 The feminine artisan description continues the vocabulary applied to wisdom; the immediate work is shipbuilding.
14:3 Direct address resumes. The title Father is explicit.
14:4 ‘Danger’ supplies the contextual object of ‘from everything’; no guarantee about a specific modern voyage is added.
14:5 The shift from present entrusting to past deliverance is retained.
14:6 The source explicitly says giants and raft. The unnamed survivor is described as the world’s hope; a familiar personal name or ark label is not substituted.
14:7 The immediate contrast is between wood used for a righteous purpose and the handmade object called a god in the next verse.
14:8 The two grounds correspond to maker and object.
14:9 The statement about person and conduct is explicit; neither member is omitted.
14:11 Ἐπισκοπή has a punitive force here; the source’s same visitation vocabulary has favorable force elsewhere.
14:12 Πορνεία is rendered sexual immorality in the ensuing moral critique; associations with religious unfaithfulness are not inserted as a replacement.
14:15 This is the author’s account of a route to image worship; no independently verified historical origin is claimed by the translation.
14:17 The first plural refers to rulers; the account then focuses on an honored king. The absent/present contrast is retained.
14:18 ‘The king’ supplies the understood object of not knowing in the preceding royal-image context.
14:19 The qualifying ‘perhaps’ is explicit. The crafted likeness is made more attractive than its model.
14:21 The unshareable name is the divine designation in the argument; the text does not here supply a particular proper name.
14:22 The war/peace opposition belongs to the author’s moral description.
14:23 The alternatives remain separate; the sentence’s main assertion follows.
14:25 The catalogue continues in the next verse; its individual terms are retained.
14:26 Γενέσεως ἐναλλαγή is literally a change or interchange of generation/birth. ‘Alteration of natural relations’ is provisional in this sexual and familial catalogue; the exact sense remains for lexical review and is not equated with a named modern identity.
14:27 All three terms—beginning, cause, end—are explicit.
14:29 The expectation of impunity is attributed to the worshipers.
14:30 The two grounds of judgment are distinguished.
14:31 The punishment is not attributed to the idols’ actual power; the source expressly denies that.
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