In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he had made for himself to adore, moles and bats.

In that day men will put their images of silver and of gold, which they made for worship, in the keeping of the beasts of the dark places;

In that day, man shall cast aside his idols of silver and his images of gold, which he had made for himself, as if to reverence the moles and the bats.

In die illa projiciet homo idola sua argentea, et idola sua aurea, quae fecerunt ei ad adorandum, in cavernam talparum et vespertilionum;

In that day a man will cast away his idols Idolaters are amazingly delighted with their own superstitions and ungodly worship; for although they abound in enormities and crimes, still they betake themselves to this refuge, that they imagine that their worship appeases God. Just as in the present day, if we should represent the crimes and lawless passions of every kind which abound among the papists, they certainly will not be able to deny our statements, but will flatter themselves on this ground, that they have a plausible form of worship, and will believe that this vail covers all their crimes. Accordingly, the Prophet deprives idolaters of this cloak, and threatens that they will no longer be able to conceal their pollution; for the Lord will compel them to throw away their idols, that they may acknowledge that they had no good reason for placing their hope and confidence in them. In short, they will be ashamed of their foolishness; for in prosperity they think that they enjoy the favor of God, as if he showed that he takes delight in their worship; and they cannot be convinced to the contrary, until God actually make evident how greatly he abhors them. It is only when they are brought into adversity that they begin to acknowledge their wickedness, as Hosea strikingly illustrates by comparing them to whores, who do not acknowledge their wickedness so long as they make gain, and live in splendor, but who, when they are deprived of those enjoyments, and forsaken by their lovers, begin to think of their wretchedness and disgrace, and enter into the way of repentance, of which they had never thought while they enjoyed luxury. (Hosea 2:5.) The same thing almost always happens with idolaters, who are not ashamed of their wickedness, so as to cast away their idols, until they have been visited by very sore distress, and made almost to think that they are ruined. Which they made; that is, which were made for them by the agency of workmen. Nor was this all unnecessary addition; for he means that pretended gods are not entitled to adoration: and what sort of gods can they be that have been made by men, seeing that God exists from himself, and never had a beginning? It is therefore highly foolish, and contrary to reason, that men should worship the work of their own hands. So then by this expression, he aggravates their criminality, that idols, though they are composed of gold or silver, or some other perishable material, and have been manufactured by men, are yet worshipped instead of God; and at the same time he states the reason why they are displeasing to God: it is, because they are worshipped. On what pretense will the papists now excuse their ungodliness? for they cannot deny that they render adoration to images; and wherever such worship is performed, there ungodliness is clearly proved. Into the holes of the moles and of the bats By the holes of the moles he means any filthy places in which they are disgracefully concealed.

In that day - That is, in the time when God would come forth to inflict punishment. Probably the day to which the prophet refers here was the time of the captivity at Babylon.
A man shall cast - That is, "all" who have idols, or who have been trusting in them. Valuable as they may be - made of gold and silver; and much as he may "now" rely on them or worship them, yet he shall then see their vanity, and shall cast them into dark, obscure places, or holes, where are moles and bats.
To the moles - פרות לחפר lachepor pērôth. Probably this should be read as a single word, and it is usually interpreted "moles." Jerome interprets it as mice or moles, from חפר châphar, "to dig." The word is formed by doubling the radical letters to give "intensity." Similar instances of words being divided in the Hebrew, which are nevertheless to be read as one, occur in 2-Chronicles 24:6; Jeremiah 46:20; Lamentations 4:3; Ezekiel 27:6. The mole is a well-known animal, with exceedingly small eyes, that burrows under ground, lives in the dark, and subsists on roots. The bat lives in o d ruins, and behind the bark of trees, and flies only in the night. They "resemble" each other, and are used here in connection, because "both" dwell amidst ruins and in obscure places; both are regarded as animals of the lowest order; both are of the same genus, and both are almost blind. The sense is, therefore, that the idols which had before been so highly venerated, would now be despised, and cast into obscure places, and amidst ruins, as worthless; see Bochart's "Hieroz.," P. i., Lib. iii., p. 1032. Ed. 1663.
And to the bats - 'The East may be termed the country of bats; they hang by hundreds and thousands in caves, ruins, and under the roofs of large buildings. To enter such places, especially after rain, is "most" offensive. I have lived in rooms where it was sickening to remain, on account of the smell produced by those creatures, and whence it was almost impossible to expel them. What from the appearance of the creature, its sunken diminutive eye, its short legs (with which it cannot walk), its leather-like wings, its half-hairy, oily skin, its offensive ordure ever and anon dropping on the ground, its time for food and sport, darkness, makes it one of the most disgusting creatures to the people of the East. No wonder, then, that its name is used by the Hindoos (as by the prophet) for an epithet of contempt. When a house ceases to please the inhabitants, on account of being haunted, they say, Give it to the "bats." "Alas! alas! my wife and children are dead; my houses, my buildings, are all given to the bats." People ask, when passing a tenantless house, "Why is this habitation given to the bats?"' - "Roberts." The meaning is, that the man would throw his idols into such places as the bats occupy - he would so see their vanity, and so despise them, as to throw them into old ruins and dark places.

Which they made each one for himself to worship "Which they have made to worship" - The word לו lo, for himself, is omitted by two ancient MSS., and is unnecessary. It does not appear that any copy of the Septuagint has it, except MS. Pachom, and MS. 1. D. II., and they have ἑαυτοις, להם lahem, to themselves.
To the moles - They shall carry their idols with them into the dark caverns, old ruins, or desolate places, to which they shall flee for refuge; and so shall give them up, and relinquish them to the filthy animals that frequent such places, and have taken possession of them as their proper habitation. Bellonias, Greaves, P. Lucas, and many other travelers, speak of bats of an enormous size, as inhabiting the Great Pyramid. See Harmer, Obs., vol. ii., 455. Three MSS. express חפרפרות chapharperoth, the moles as one word.

In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made [each one] for himself to worship, (x) to the moles and to the bats;
(x) They will cast them into vile and filthy places when they perceive that they are not able to help them.

In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols o gold,.... Being frightened at the terrible shaking of the earth, and at the glory and majesty of Christ, which will be seen in his witnesses and people, at the time of his spiritual coming, and the destruction of antichrist; insomuch that they shall cast away their idols, and relinquish their idolatrous practices, and give glory to the God of heaven, Revelation 11:11,
which they made each one for himself to worship; everyone having their peculiar idol, the work of their own hands; which shows their gross ignorance and wretched stupidity:
to the moles, and to the bats; that is, either they shall leave them to persons as blind and ignorant as moles and bats; or rather they shall cast them into the holes which moles make, and bats have recourse unto. The Targum makes these the objects of worship, rendering the words,
"that they may worship the idols and images;''
and the Jewish writers interpret them of images worshipped in the form of moles and bats; though we never read of those creatures being worshipped, Moles were sacrificed to Neptune (w). Kimchi refers this text to the times of the Messiah; and some of their ancient writers (x) apply it to the Messiah, and to his arising and appearing in the land of Galilee.
(w) Phurnutus de Natura Deorum, p. 59. (x) Zohar in Exod. fol. 3. 3. &. in Numb. fol. 99. 3.

moles--Others translate "mice." The sense is, under ground, in darkness.
bats--unclean birds (Leviticus 11:19), living amidst tenantless ruins (Revelation 11:13).

Isaiah 2:20 forms the commencement to the fourth strophe: "In that day will a man cast away his idols of gold and his idols of silver, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats." The traditional text separates lachpor peroth into two words,
(Note: Abulwali=d Parchon and others regard the double word as the singular of a substantive, applied to a particular bird (possibly a woodpecker), as a pecker of fruit (peroth). Kimchi would rather take lachpor as an infinitive (as in Joshua 2:2), to dig pits; and compares with it the talmudic word pēr, a pit or grave. No one adopts the rendering "into mouse-holes," simply because pērah, a mouse (from an Arabic word fa'ara, to dig, or root up), was not a Hebrew word at all, but was adopted at a later period from the Arabic (hence the Hebraeo-Arabic purah, a mousetrap).)
though without its being possible to discover what they are supposed to mean. The reason for the separation was simply the fact that plurilitera were at one time altogether misunderstood and regarded as Composita: for other plurilitera, written as two words, compare Isaiah 61:1; Hosea 4:18; Jeremiah 46:20. The prophet certainly pronounced the word lachparpâroth (Ewald, 157, c); and Chapharpârâh is apparently a mole (lit. thrower up of the soil), talpa, as it is rendered by Jerome and interpreted by Rashi. Gesenius and Knobel, however, have raised this objection, that the mole is never found in houses. But are we necessarily to assume that they would throw their idols into lumber-rooms, and not hide them in holes and crevices out of doors? The mole, the shrew-mouse, and the bat, whose name (atalleph) is regarded by Schultens as a compound word (atal-eph, night-bird), are generically related, according to both ancient and modern naturalists. Bats are to birds what moles are to the smaller beasts of prey (vid., Levysohn, Zoologie des Talmud, p. 102). The lxx combine with these two words l'hishtachavoth (to worship). Malbim and Luzzatto adopt this rendering, and understand the words to mean that they would sink down to the most absurd descriptions of animal worship. But the accentuation, which does not divide the v. at עשׂוּ־לו, as we should expect if this were the meaning, is based upon the correct interpretation. The idolaters, convinced of the worthlessness of their idols through the judicial interposition of God, and enraged at the disastrous manner in which they had been deceived, would throw away with curses the images of gold and silver which artists' hands had made according to their instructions, and hide them in the holes of bats and in mole-hills, to conceal them from the eyes of the Judge, and then take refuge there themselves after ridding themselves of this useless and damnable burden.

Shall cast - Into the meanest and darkest places, in which moles and bats have their abode.