Jeremiah 16:20

Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?

Jeremiah 16:20 (KJV)

Context

Jeremiah 16:20 is a rhetorical question that exposes the absurdity of idolatry. The prophet speaks during a time when Judah has turned from the Lord to worship idols, and the surrounding verses describe the nations acknowledging that Israel’s ancestors inherited lies and worthless things. In this setting, the question is an indignant protest against the very idea of a creature attempting to create its creator.

Meaning

The verse confronts the irrational logic of worshiping creations made by created beings. A man, who is himself not divine, cannot impart deity to an object made of wood, stone, gold, or silver. The idols remain lifeless creations of human hands, incapable of hearing prayers or exercising any divine power or authority. The true God is self-existent, independent, and transcendent. He does not look to any other source for His meaning or being, nor is He dependent upon humanity to counsel, teach, or sustain Him. By His very nature, God is the uncreated Creator, whereas the idols fashioned by humanity are lifeless, powerless, and entirely dependent on their makers for their very existence.

Throughout history, when humans shape a belief system according to their own design, it does not naturally elevate toward the worship of the one true, holy God. Instead, it inevitably devolves toward syncretism, animism, and the multiplication of false deities. Man-made religion tends to project human limitations, desires, and flaws onto the divine. In stark contrast, the biblical revelation of God portrays a Being so holy, immutable, omniscient, and inflexibly just that no human mind could have spontaneously invented Him. Such a majestic delineation of Deity is entirely beyond human conception and cannot be replicated by human craft or philosophy.

Biblical connections

This teaching is consistent with other prophetic condemnations of idolatry. Jeremiah 2:11 asks whether a nation has ever changed its gods, even though they are no gods, and Jeremiah 10:11 declares that the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish. The following verse, Jeremiah 16:21, states that God will make the people know His hand and His might, so that they will know that His name is the LORD. This is God’s incommunicable name, and applying it to idols would be blasphemy.

Application

The act of making gods unto oneself is not merely a historical phenomenon; it serves as a profound spiritual warning for all ages. When people reject divine revelation, they invariably substitute the Creator with something of their own making. These modern idols may not be carved from wood or stone, but they are equally as empty—ideologies, self-reliance, wealth, or personalized versions of spirituality that demand no true surrender. A god fashioned by human hands or human imagination remains subject to human control, whereas the living God calls humanity to submit to His supreme authority.

God’s revelation of Himself is a pure act of sovereign grace. True worship is never the result of human philosophical progression; it is the necessary and rightful response to God’s divine self-disclosure. To substitute the unchangeable glory of the living God for a lifeless idol—whether physical or conceptual—is to trade infinite truth for a powerless lie. Believers are called to strip away any self-made concepts of God, align their understanding solely with how He has revealed Himself in Scripture, and give Him the absolute awe and reverence that only the true Creator deserves.

Reflection

The question in Jeremiah 16:20 also implies that those who make idols are themselves foolish and void of understanding, as they worship the work of their own hands. The verse calls for a recognition of the fundamental difference between the Creator and the creature, and a turning away from idols to the living God. It reminds us that true worship is directed to the one and only true God, who alone is worthy of our devotion.