John Gill Commentary Isaiah 41:24

"Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work is of nought; an abomination is he that chooseth you." — Isaiah 41:24 (ASV)

Behold, you are of nothing. Not as to the matter of them, for they were made of gold, silver, brass but as to the divinity of them: there was none in them, they were of no worth and value; they could do nothing, either good or evil, either help their friends, or hurt their enemies; yea, they were less than nothing; for the words may be rendered by way of comparison, "behold, you are less than nothing"; {a}. (See Gill on Isaiah 40:17);

and your work of nought; the workmanship bestowed on them, in casting or carving them, was all to no purpose, and answered no end; or the work they did, or pretended to do, their feigned oracles, and false predictions: or, "worse than nothing": some render it, "worse than a viper" ^F2 ; a word like this is used for one, (Isaiah 49:5) and so denotes the poisonous and pernicious effects of idolatry:

an abomination is he that chooses you; as the object of his worship; he is not only abominable, but an abomination itself to God, and to all men of sense and religion; for the choice he makes of an idol to be his god shows him to be a man void of common sense and reason, and destitute of all true religion and godliness, and must be a stupid sottish creature. The Targum is, ``an abomination is that which you have chosen for yourselves, or in which you delight;'' meaning their idols. This is the final issue of the controversy, and the judgment passed both upon the idols and their worshippers.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (epam) "pejus [opere] viperae", Junius & Tremellius; "pejus [est opere] basilisci", Piscator.