'Molten Image' in the Bible
then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you and destroy all their sculpted images, and destroy all their cast idols and completely eliminate all their [idolatrous] high places,
Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made (cast) a molten image for themselves.’
‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved or cast image (idol), a repulsive thing to the Lord, the work of the hands of the artisan, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
He returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and she said, “I had truly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son (in his name) to make an image [carved from wood and plated with silver] and a cast image [of solid silver]; so now, I will return it to you.”
So when he returned the silver to his mother, she took two hundred pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith who made of it an image [of silver-plated wood] and a cast image [of solid silver]; and they were in the house of Micah.
Then the five men who had gone to scout the country of Laish said to their relatives, “Do you know that there are in these houses an ephod, teraphim, an image [of silver-plated wood], and a cast image [of solid silver]? Now therefore, consider what you should do.”
Now the five men who had gone to scout the land went up and entered the house and took the image [of silver-plated wood], the ephod, the teraphim, and the cast image [of solid silver], while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war.
When these [five men] went into Micah’s house and took the [plated] image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the cast image, the priest asked them, “What are you doing?”
but have done more evil than all [the kings] who were before you; for you have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back—
They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; and they made an Asherah [idol] and worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served Baal.
Instead he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made cast images for the Baals.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young (sixteen), he began to seek after and inquire of the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and cast images.
They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were high above them; he also smashed the Asherim and the carved images and the cast images to pieces, and ground them to dust and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
And you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver, and your cast images plated with gold. You will scatter them like a bloodstained cloth, and will say to them, “Be gone!”
“In fact, all of these [pagan prophets and priests] are false;Their works are worthless,Their cast images are [merely] wind and emptiness.
Those who trust in carved idols will be turned back,And utterly put to shame,Who say to cast images,“You are our gods.”
I have declared them to you long ago;Before they came to pass I announced them to you,So that you could not say, ‘My idol has done them,And my carved image and my cast image have commanded them.’
Every man has become [like a brute] irrational and stupid, without knowledge [of God];Every goldsmith is shamed by his carved idols;For his molten images are frauds and lies,And there is no breath in them.
Also he will carry off to Egypt their [Syrian] gods with their cast images and their precious and costly treasure of silver and of gold, and he will refrain from waging war against the king of the North for some years.
And now they sin more and more,And make for themselves molten images,Idols skillfully made from their silver [as it pleased them],All of them the work of the craftsmen.They say of these [very works of their hands], “Let those who sacrifice kiss and show respect to the calves [as if they were living gods]!”
The Lord has given a command concerning you [O king of Nineveh]:“Your name will no longer be perpetuated.I will cut off the carved idols and cast imagesFrom the temple of your gods;I will prepare your grave,For you are vile and unworthy.”
“What profit is the carved image when its maker has formed it?It is only a cast image, and a teacher of lies.For its maker trusts in his own creation [as his god]When he makes speechless idols.