Idolatry amounts to anything which is competitive with our affection for God (YHWH)

“Things we make with our own hands & trust in” (Josh24:14)

Israel’s history of their thinking as it relates to idolatry ―
The Progression:
• There are many gods, YHWH is one of them
• Other nations have their gods, but YHWH is the only God we worship
• No, YHWH alone is THE God, others are non-entities (lo-eloha + lo el, not gods, not divine). Ref – OPPENHEIM
NOT GODS – Gal 4:6-7, 2 Kings 19:18, 2 Chr 13:9, Jer 16:20, Acts 19:22.

Deut 32:16 “demons” only twice (Heb “shed”) powerless spirits. Ref TWOT pg. 305)
“Shed” is connected to Babylonian “shedu”. Ref “Ancient Mesopotamia”, Oppenheim, pg 201.
Kaufmann, “The Religion of Israel” pg 65 says “shedun” does not mean they are evil spirits but insubstantial shades, or “no gods”, neither divine or demonic functions.

From YHWH perspective they are to be nothing, as in “nothing compares to YHWH” or even in the same category, as in “THE God”. Deut4:35
Not until Isaiah 40-55 did anyone in Israel, in so many words, say “no other God but YHWH.” Only then did they visualize there is only One House with only, and exclusively only One Occupant – YHWH. (Richard Bauckham “Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation)
C.J.S. Wright, “Mission of God”, “are other gods a something or a nothing? They are nothing in relation to YWHW; they are something in relation to their worshippers.”

1Cor 8:4-6 Idols and gods do exist but they have no divinity. Is41:21-24 (Mockingly) Bring your proof of divinity and worthiness to be called “god”.

Implying our God, YHWH will save us, and in Is44:9-20, false god can’t save worshippers and worshippers must save themselves. Pointless to have a god who will not save but must be saved. Dagon, unless was nailed down, just fell over. Baal was always absent when he was needed, etc.

Deut 4:39, 10:14, 10:17, 32:39
Other gods were basically completely ineffective divinities (Deut 32:17-21)
Deut.32:17 “not god”, what is no god, “lo’ eloha” (לֹא אֱלוֹהַּ), Deut 32:21 “not divine”, “lo’ el” (לֹא אֵל) who are followed by “not, not my people”, “lo’ lo’ ami” (לֹא עַם לֹא). NOT GODS – Gal 4:6-7, 2 Kings 19:18, 2 Chr 13:9, Jer 16:20, Acts 19:22.

They are nothing to God, but “they”, the “not gods” are a something to men. (C.Wright, pg144, Hoffman pg 70-71)

Deut4:15-21 is the reverse of created order. Is40-55 Israel returns from exile but as they did, when in Egypt, they returned with a few false gods… again.

From Job9:6: H4656 from ->H6426, with H4656 being “a horrid thing” and H6426 meaning to tremble or shudder, and the idea is of “a trembling or shuddering horror”, as in “The Object of Fear”.
H205 Trouble, wickedness
H6089 Pain, sorrow, toil, hardship, grief of mind. Both H205 and H6089 are connected with the eventual degenerating human condition as it relates to Israel and idolatry.

FIRST MENTION is in 1Kings 15:13, and it’s a “horrid thing”, H4656, pronounce “mif-leh’-tseth”, a terror. i wonder if there’s a connection between present day temple of “set” and the last syllable “tseth”, with the temple of set being the satanic temple and “house of idolatry”?
2Chron33:15 uses H5566, pronounced “say’-mel”, spelled samech, mem, lamed, being “an image to resemble”. This is not the typical word for “idol”. Why the need to spell it different? The different spelling gives the word “idol” a different slant. Why?
2Kings21:3-6, Manasseh added worship of stars to “the other gods”.

Ezekiel 8:16 was shown people in the courts of YHWH bowed to the sun with their butts to YWHW. Giving God their backside instead of their face and attention was like the ultimate insult and disdain for all things YHWH.
Isaiah 40:26, he calls Israel to account, as in “who created all this?” Not gods nor the stars who are not all powerful, nor do they control destiny of nations? Not gods at all, only one and one alone and all is under the authority of YWHW alone.

Ps106:19-20 sarcasm? “You exchanged YHWH glory for a thing which eats grass!”
Ps106:28-29 “you ate sacrifices to dead ones and dead things, and YHWH allowed plaque to break out.” They did it to themselves, YHWH didn’t “do it to them” He simply stopped protecting and allowed them to have the results of their actions. This is an important insight for us today. YHWH simply lifts His hand of protection and allows us to have the results of our actions, and iniquity, transgression, and sin do have results, not active judgement but passive judgement.

PS106:35-38 Israel followed the practices of Caananites.
Ps96:5, not “demons”, but “elilim” H457 (special note: notice the double yoke, אֱלִיל, lamed yod lamed), H457 as something worthless, weak, powerless, of no value. H457 translated as “idols” in Is2:8, 20, Is 19:1. Also implied to “physicians of no value” in Job 13:4; a “worthless shepherd” in Zechariah 11:17). It carries a deliberate theological judgment of futility. Reference: https://www.bibliatodo.com/en/strong-concordance/hebrew/457

Hab2:18, “idols” used twice. (special note: again, notice the double yoke)
1 – H6459, “graven images”, that which is made with our hands which are trusted in. We make up words for them to say, claim “the idol spoke” and then believe it is true. TWOT, pg729.
2 – H457, אֱלִיל‎, (special note: notice the double yoke) something of the heart, more than our hands but of hands, head, and heart which the person has wholly bought into, again, something worthless. Lev19:4, 26:1 uses the same word as it applies to any work of man’s hands as an object of trust and worship, yet it has no thoughts, does not hear, does not see, can NOT act, no power, no divinity. Lev26:1 most specifically “idols” H457, as in “graven image”, a carved thing as an “idol”, a “standing image”, an “idol” made stationary like a post or “idol”, or an “image”, meaning even a picture as an “idol” to be revered and bowed down to and honored, ascribed power and guidance even. Finishing the verse with “I AM the Lord your God”, with “I AM” being present in the tense of past, and present, and future, together all at once, with no beginning and unending, world without end.

Is10:10-11. In Isaiah’s day Jerusalem and Samaria were described as “kingdoms of idols”, a people who worshipped a vain thing (the people imagined a vain thing, Ps2:1) TWOT, pg 46.
Scripture itself repeatedly treats idolatry as something that seizes, enslaves, and chokes the people who practice it:
• It “fills the land” (Isaiah 2:8) and becomes the object of trust that cannot deliver.
• It dulls the senses and hardens the heart (Isaiah 44:18–20; Psalm 115:4–8).
• It is portrayed as spiritual adultery and bondage (Hosea; Jeremiah 2–3; Ezekiel 16, 23).
• The New Testament continues the theme with language of being “enslaved to those that by nature are not gods” (Galatians 4:8) and the warning that “whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19)
REV9:20 pairs the work of their hands with worshipping demons (Gr. 1140, “daimonion”)

READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU READ ANYTHING ELSE:
REPENT — “Burn down the house” / REPENT
The call to repentance in the prophets and in Jesus often includes the radical dismantling of the structures that house and sustain idolatry:
“Burn the Asherah poles… tear down the high places… smash the sacred stones” (Deuteronomy 12; 2 Kings 23; etc.).
Jesus’ language about the temple (“Destroy this temple…”) and about cutting off the hand or plucking out the eye that causes sin (Matthew 5:29–30) carries the same severity: the “house” (whether literal temple, personal life, or communal system) that shelters the strangling thing must be dismantled or purified. “REPENT” is spelled shin vav bet (right to left). it is pronounced Shuv although we would spell it shub. We all can look up meanings of Hebrew letters and see that shin is teeth, change, fire, etc., and vav is usually a nail, a peg, a connecting device like a hinge possible. and bet is predominantly the house – the inside and out. but after a little reading stuff written by people way smarter than me I’ve begun to realize that the use of the word for repent in Old Testament was different than “come home” or even better, “return”. (The “repent-return” sequence: 1 Kings 8:47-48, and 2 Chronicles 6:37-38, with “repent-return” and “repent-return”) The whole idea of the word REPENT initially and probably even till today is more about God addressing idolatry and the carved images people made, then invented things for the images to say, then claim it spoke to them. a literal pictographically perspective of the word repent is fire plus a nail plus the house, fire nailed to the house, quite literally meaning burn the house down. Tear the house apart. Change the heart of the house inside and out. meaning get rid of your idol temples, tear the houses down of your false gods, BURN THE HOUSE DOWN, and allow me to change your heart and person inside and out. I was most intrigued with “burn the house down” and it was almost like I see God influencing Israel to burn the idol houses down with their own hands, have no other gods before me, and he’s flipping matches at the idol temples.
I think of our idolatry today and how subtle but even more widespread it has become. it is not nearly as obvious as it was back then maybe, but it is idolatry nonetheless, glaring, overbearing, insinuating itself into all of our actions and thinking. I’m sure you can think of a long list of modern idolatry items. and now these idols even talk to us for real like the AI talks to us on our phones influencing billions.

Paul’s “you are God’s temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17; 6:19) intensifies the point—idolatry is an invasion of the very dwelling place of God, so the only proper response is decisive expulsion.
(Ref: https://www.abarim-publications.com/
(Ref: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Dictionary/)
SEE 1Corinthians 10:20-21 1 “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.”

(Gr.1140 “daimonion”), This leads us to the magic literature. Here are reflected both the myths and figures of the official cult and also popular ideas. Prescriptions are given against
δαιμονῶντες (“dimonontes” – those who are possessed),
δαιμονιζόμενοι (“daimonizomenoi” – those who are demon possessessed, the demoniacs, under the power of evil spirits,
δαιμονιόπληκτοι (“daimonióplēktoi” – those who are struck/smitten by a demon, or demon struck),
and δαιμονοτάκται (“daimonotáktai” – rulers of demons or commanders of demons).

Their main content is the conjuring of a demon, god, κύριος or similar spirit who with the help of magic formulae and practices, or through the power of a higher name and can be impressed into service (K.Preisdanz. “Papyri Graecae Magicae, 1928 Zaub., V, 164 ff). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, pg 8 – Theological Dictionary of the New Testament – Volume II.

1Thess1:9 – demons & idols, demons: things which consume, idols: things copied as in a statue.
Habakkuk 2:18-19 “Idol” H6459 (noun masculine), a thing made from H6458 (verb), a lying vanity, See Deut27:15, H779, different word from regular “curse”, this is worse than “curse” (Qalal), but to “detest utterly, to execrate.”
Habakkuk 2:18-19, LDS made doctrine thru their own reasoning and trust in it. Ps115:4-8, 135:15-18. We often mock what we do not understand. Legaspi “Opposition To Idolatry in the Book of Habakkuk”, and John Barton “The Work of Human Hands”.

Is46:1-2, idol gods can not even save themselves much less anyone else. Idols are not the gods themselves, only images of something “up there”, somewhere else, and the statue is “down here”. “Mission Of God”, C.J.H. Wright

It is ludicrous nonsense of a god who needs defending when THEY should be the ones defending you. Judges 6:30-31, Baal was AWOL, 1Kings18:27. 1Sam5:2-4, Dagon was useless. Couldn’t keep himself upright. A worthless thing.

Idols were all human constructs, no divinity, no reality, no power. Just because worshippers believed they had those attributes, they had no reality. There was not even an alternate reality source. Barton, “Work of Human Hands”, pg63-72, all were within the “created order”.
In worshipping “them”, we give allegiance, attribute power and authority to submit to something we have created. Is44:9-20, Is46:7. In Is46:8-11 YHWH declares idols are no more powerful than those who made them, they are the ultimate deification of pride. Our doctrine, which we think is so right, without searching out the matter from God’s Word, can be an idol, a thing we have invented and we trust in, pledging allegiance to. (5 points of Calvinism, giving no thought beyond what we’re told.)
Often Kings and gods are interchangeable (U.S. Govt, Chinese Govt?)
See 2Kings 19:15-16, Hezekiah points to One God and King and there is not another.

Habakkuk describes in detail the arrogance, violence, and worthlessness of Assyria’s god and scoffs at their powerlessness, Hab2:3-17, and vs18 – 20. Vs18 hits all the main words, covering carved things, molded things, teachers of lies, those who trust in nothing-gods, and the sheer foolishness to trust in not-speaking, not-hearing worthless things which men have made with their own hands, and that includes an obsession with our doctrine which we have invented to suit our own agenda, not reflecting the heart of the Lord but reflecting the lying heart of the creators of lies and trust, blindly, that they are right, more right, most right above others. In Hab2-3-20 there were two most pointedly, 1) the worship of other gods, who were no gods at all with no divinity, and 2) the worship of idols who represented the “not gods” who are “up there somewhere”.
The problem is that we, as people, tend to identify with and carry the characteristics of the idols and false gods we worship. YHWH said, “be like Me, not like them. Don’t do it like “they do it” but like “I Do It”.

Ps80:8

Hosea 9:10, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time: but (but = with exception) they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and (Romans 1:28-29) their abominations were according as they loved.” What “they” loved became their obsession and a thing to worship, indirectly saying they loved themselves as their own mother and father, their own first and last, their own beginning and end, and they pray to themselves and they answer themselves and it is sufficient, and they did not see the need for God.
Numbers 25:1-3, Israel whores with Moab, and “whores with” is not about infidelity, but about a willingness to jump over God’s standards and to basically “take another lover”, someone who agreed with them. “I just wish I could find people who agree with me. That’s what I’m looking for.”, said a man to me who said he’d been a believer for many years, and when i asked him “what do you want”, that was his reply. i’m still aghast, to this day!
Amos 5:26 pointedly makes mention of the “star god”. People even invented intelligence, power, authority, and even gave words (from themselves) to the stars and claimed “the stars have spoken). The point was Israel’s apostasy from YHWH, not the wrongness of other cultures. Israel says: “the Chaldeans did it like thus and such”, YHWH says: “I’m not talking about them, I’m talking to you about YOU!”

Jeremiah 6:15, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nooooo! (“No” is sarcastically accented in Hebrew), they were not at all ashamed (accented with wide eyed accusation), neither could they blush (accented metaphor pointing out the brazen blindness, lack of conscience and accountability): therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.”
See John Day “Hosea and the Baal Cult” Publisher: T&T Clark, Published: 2014, ISBN-139780567299369