The Value of Bible Pictures
Isaiah 2:16
And on all the ships of Tarshish, and on all pleasant pictures.


I refer to your memory and mine when I ask if your knowledge of the Holy Scriptures has not been mightily augmented by the woodcuts or engravings in the old family Bible, which father and mother read out of, and laid on the table in the old homestead when you were boys and girls. The Bible scenes which we all carry in our minds were not gotten from the Bible typology, but from the Bible pictures. To prove the truth of it in my own case, the other day I took up the old family Bible which I inherited. Sure enough, what I have carried in my mind of Jacob's ladder was exactly the Bible engraving of Jacob's ladder; and so with Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza; Elisha restoring the Shunamite son; the massacre of the innocents; Christ blessing little children; the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment. My idea of all these is that of the old Bible engravings which I scanned before I could read a word.

(T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

WEB: For all the ships of Tarshish, and for all pleasant imagery.




The Prostitution of Art
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