Isaiah 2:20

Isa 2:20 forms the commencement to the fourth strophe: "In that day will a man cast away his idols of gold and his idols of silver, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats." The traditional text separates lachpor peroth into two words, (Note: Abulwali=d Parchon and others regard the double word as the singular of a substantive, applied to a particular bird (possibly a woodpecker), as a pecker of fruit (peroth). Kimchi would rather take lachpor as an infinitive (as in Jos 2:2), to dig pits; and compares with it the talmudic word pēr, a pit or grave. No one adopts the rendering "into mouse-holes," simply because pērah, a mouse (from an Arabic word fa'ara, to dig, or root up), was not a Hebrew word at all, but was adopted at a later period from the Arabic (hence the Hebraeo-Arabic purah, a mousetrap).) though without its being possible to discover what they are supposed to mean. The reason for the separation was simply the fact that plurilitera were at one time altogether misunderstood and regarded as Composita: for other plurilitera, written as two words, compare Isa 61:1; Hos 4:18; Jer 46:20. The prophet certainly pronounced the word lachparpâroth (Ewald, 157, c); and Chapharpârâh is apparently a mole (lit. thrower up of the soil), talpa, as it is rendered by Jerome and interpreted by Rashi. Gesenius and Knobel, however, have raised this objection, that the mole is never found in houses. But are we necessarily to assume that they would throw their idols into lumber-rooms, and not hide them in holes and crevices out of doors? The mole, the shrew-mouse, and the bat, whose name (atalleph) is regarded by Schultens as a compound word (atal-eph, night-bird), are generically related, according to both ancient and modern naturalists. Bats are to bir…

With this chapter begins a new sermon, which is continued in the two following chapters. The subject of this discourse is Judah and Jerusalem (Isa 2:1). In this chapter the prophet speaks, I. Of the glory of the Christians, Jerusalem, the gospel-church in the latter days, in the accession of many to it (Isa 2:2, Isa 2:3), and the great peace it should introduce into the world (Isa 2:4), whence he infers the duty of the house of Jacob (Isa 2:5). II. Of the shame of the Jews, Jerusalem, as it then was, and as it would be after its rejection of the gospel and being rejected of God. 1. Their sin was their shame (Isa 2:6-9). 2. God by his judgments would humble them and put them to shame (Isa 2:10-17). 3. They should themselves be ashamed of their confidence in their idols and in an arm of flesh (Isa 2:18-22). And now which of these Jerusalems will we be the inhabitants of - that which is full of the knowledge of God, which will be our everlasting honour, or that which is full of horses and chariots, and silver and gold, and such idols, which will in the end be our shame?

2:20-21 Animals such as rodents and bats lead a shadowy, subterranean existence. Those who worship idols will become like them in attempting to escape the Lord’s judgment.