Rather, "They are vanity, a work of mockery," deserving only ridicule and contempt.

They are vanity,.... They are the fruit of the vain imagination of men; to worship them shows the vanity of the human mind; and they are vain things to trust to:

and the work of errors; of erroneous men, and which lead men into errors; and are worthy to be laughed at, as the Targum paraphrases it.

In the time of their visitation they shall perish; or in the time that I shall visit upon them their sins, as the Targum; that is, when Babylon should be destroyed by the Medes and Persians, as Kimchi interprets it; when their idols were destroyed also; see Isaiah 46:1.

They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

10:15 Visitation - When God shall come to reckon with Babylon and her idols.

15. errors-deceptions; from a Hebrew root, "to stutter"; then meaning "to mock."

their visitation they-When God shall punish the idol-worshippers (namely, by Cyrus), the idols themselves shall be destroyed [Rosenmuller] (Jer 10:11).

10:1-16 The prophet shows the glory of Israel's God, and exposes the folly of idolaters. Charms and other attempts to obtain supernatural help, or to pry into futurity, are copied from the wicked customs of the heathen. Let us stand in awe, and not dare provoke God, by giving that glory to another which is due to him alone. He is ready to forgive, and save all who repent and believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ. Faith learns these blessed truths from the word of God; but all knowledge not from that source, leads to doctrines of vanity.