Jon Collins

Right.

So already you're taking the letters of the word God, and then you're adding two more letters, and you're making a joke out of it.

Because aleel means useless or worth nothing, related to a Semitic root from Akkadian ulalu, which is like a nothingness or an insult.

And actually you can use this word aleel in Hebrew to describe...

many different things that are useless.

So Job...

Once he realizes his three friends that presumably came to comfort him are just there to lecture him about God and his life.

Apparently they know more about his life than he does.

So he calls them useless doctors who have come to a man who's sick.

So in Job 13, he calls them physicians or doctors of Eliel.

Doctors of nothing, no value.

Value-less doctors.

It's fighting words.

Totally.

So back to Habakkuk 2.18, when it's used to describe idols, he says, what value is a pestle when its carver has pestled it?

A molten, there's maseka, a molten idol that teaches lies.

Because the one who fashioned his creation trusts in it, even though it is a mute allele.

Useless, can't talk.

Why are you trusting something that doesn't even talk to save you?

So this is used 20 times in the Hebrew Bible to refer to idols.