The idle man lives not to himself with any more ad- vantage than he lives to the world. Though he imag-
IDOL
ines that he leaves to others the drudgery of life, and betakes himself to enjoyment and ease, yet he enjoys no true pleasure. He shuts the door against improvement of every kind, whether of mind, body, or fortune. Sloth enfeebles equally the bodily and the mental powers. His character falls into contempt. His fortune is con- sumed. Disorder, confusion, and embarrassment mark his whole situation. Idleness is the inlet to licentious- ness, vice, and immorality. It destroys the principles of religion, and opens a door to sin and wickedness. Ev- ery man who recollects his conduct must know that his hours of idleness always proved the hours most danger- ous to virtue. It was then that criminal desires arose, guilty passions were suggested, and designs were formed, which, in their issue, disquiet and embitter his whole life. Habitual idleness, by a silent and secret progress, undermines every virtue in the soul. More violent pas- sions run their course and terminate. They are like rapid torrents, which foam, and swell, and bear down ev- erything before them ; but, after having overflowed their banks, their impetuosity subsides, and they return, by degrees, into their natural channel. Sloth resembles the slowly -flowing putrid stream, which stagnates in the marsh, produces venomous animals and poisonous plants, and infects with pestilential vapors the whole surrounding country. Having once tainted the soul, it leaves no part of it sound, and, at the same time, it gives not to conscience those alarms which the erup- tions of bolder and fiercer emotions often occasion. Nothing is so great an enemy to the lively and spirited enjoyment of life as a relaxed and indolent habit of mind. He who knows not what it is to labor, knows not what it is to enjoy. The happiness of human life depends on the regular prosecution of some laudable purpose or object, which keeps awake and enlivens all our powers. Rest is agreeable, but it is only from pre- ceding labors that rest acquires its true relish. When the mind is suffered to remain in continued inaction, all its powers decay : it soon languishes and sickens ; and the pleasures which it proposed to obtain from rest ter- minate in tediousness and insipidity. See Blair, Ser- mom, Sermon xxxix; 'Warne.r, System of Divimtij and M^iiranti/, iii, 151 ; Logan, Sermons, Sermon iv; Robin- Sdii, Thci'lixjkal Dictionary, s. v.
Idol, properly an outward object adored as divine, or as the symbol of deity. See Idolatrv.
I. Classification of Scripturcd terms having physical reference to such objects. — As a large number of different Hebrew words have been rendered in the A.V. either by idol or image, and that by no means uniformly (be- sides one or more in Greek more uniformly translated), it wiU be of some advantage to attempt to discriminate between them, and assign, as nearly as the two lan- guages will allow, the English equivalents for each. See Imagk.
(I.) Abstract terms, which, with a deep moral signifi- cance, express the degradation associated with idolatry, and stand out as a protest of the language against its enormities.
(i.) General terms of c/omJ^/m^ signification. — 1. 3"^5N, elW, is thought by some to have a sense akin to that of Ipd, she'ker, " falsehood," with which it stands in par- allelism in Job xiii, 4, and would therefore much resem- ble dven, as applied to an idol. It is generally derived from the unused root bbx, to be empty or vain. De- litzsch (on Hab. ii, 18) derives it from the negative par- ticle bx, al, "die Nichtigen;" but according to Fiirst (llandzc. s. v.) it is a diminutive of bx, " god," the addi- tional syllable indicating the greatest contempt. In this case the signification above mentioned is a sub- sidiary one. The same authority asserts that the word denotes a small image of the god, which was consulted as an oracle among the Egyptians and Phoenicians (Isa. xix, 3; Jer. xiv, 14). It is certainly used of the idols of Noph or Memphis (Ezek. xxx, 13). In strong con- trast with Jehovah, it appears in Psa. xc, 5 ; xcvii, 7, the
IDOL
468
IDOL
contrast probably being heightened by the resemblance between Milim and eldhim. A somewhat similar play upon words is observable in Hab. ii, 18, C^^X n"'b"'bx, elUim illemim, A.Y. " dumb idols." See El.
2. nip^l^S, (jillulim', also a term of contempt, of un- certain origin (Ezek. xxx, 13), but probably derived from ^bs, to roll, as dung, hence refuse. The Rabbinical authorities, referring to such passages as Ezek. iv, 2 ; Zeph. i, 1", have favored the interpretation given in the margin of the A. V. to Deut. xxix, 17, " dungy gods" (Yulg. '-sordes," "sordes idolorum," 1 Kings xv, 12). Jahn, connecting it with hh^,ffdlal, "to roU," appHes it to the stocks of trees of which idols were made, and in mockery called [/illulim, " rolluig things" (a volvendo, he says, though it is difficult to see the point of his remark). Gesenius, repudiating the derivation from the Arabic jcdla, " to be great, illustrious," gives his preference to the rendering " stones, stone gods," thus deriving it from bi<, gcd, '• a heap of stones ;" and in this he is followed by Flirst, who translates ffillul by the German " Steinhaufe." The expression is applied, principally in Ezekiel, to false gods and their sjiiibols (Deut. xxix, 17 ; Ezek. viii, 10, etc.). It stands side by side with other contemptuous terms in Ezek. xvi, 36 ; xx, 8, as, for example, YP,'CJ, skekets, "filth," " abomination" (Ezek. viii, 10), and cog- nate terms. See Dung. May not D"^P^b3 mean scara- b(ei, the commonest of Egyptian idols? The sense of dung is appropriate to the dung-beetle ; that of rolling is doubtful, for, if the meaning of the verb be retained, we should, in this form, rather expect a passive sense, '•a thing rolled;" but it may be observed that these grammatical rules of the sense of derivatives are not al- ways to be strictly insisted on, for Sidon, 'TT^^, though held to signify " the place of fishing," is, in the list of the Noachians, the name of a man, " the fisherman," ^AXievc, of Philo of Byblus. That a specialty-applicable word is used may perhaps be conjectured from the oc- currence of D^b''bx, which, if meaning little gods, would aptly describe the pigmy pteh-seker-hesar, Ptah- Sokari- Osiris, of Memphis. Ezekiel uses the terra D'^blba of the idols of Egj^it which the Israelites were commanded to put a^vay at or about the time of the Exodus, but did not, and seem to have carried into the Desert, for the same word is used, imqnalified by the mention of any countrj-, of those v/orshipped by them in the Desert (xx, 7, 8, 16, 18, 24) ; it is, however, appa- rently employed also for all the idols worshipped in Canaan by the Israelites (ver. 31 ; xxiii, 37). Scarabsei were so abundant among the Egyptians and Phoenicians that there is no reason wliy they may not have been employed also in the -worship of the Canaanitish false gods ; but it cannot be safely supposed, without further evidence, that the idols of Canaan were virtually termed scarabffii. See Beetle.