Isaiah46chapter 46

Isaiah 46:1-4

Babylon's chief gods, Bel and Nebo, are pictured as cargo: their idols ride upon beasts of burden that stagger under the load, the very carriages become a weary animal's burden. The bench reads the scene as satire timed to a coming conquest, gods that must be evacuated rather than gods that deliver. Against that picture the Lord turns the verb around, I have made, and I will bear, even I will carry, and will deliver you, the God who carries his people from the womb to old age rather than being carried by them. The contrast between beasts hauling idols and the Lord bearing Israel runs the whole chapter.

Isaiah 46:5-7

The trial language turns direct, to whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like? The answer is the idol factory itself, gold poured from a bag, silver weighed on a scale, a goldsmith hired to fashion a god that must then be carried into position and set on its feet. Once set, it cannot move from its place, and when a worshipper cries to it in trouble it cannot answer or save, a helplessness the older writers set beside the living God's opening question. Gill and Henry both press the mockery, a god men make and carry stands against a God who makes and carries his people, the chapter's whole argument in one comparison.

Isaiah 46:8-11

Remember this, and shew yourselves men, bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors, opens the chapter's second argument, a trial of prediction rather than of craftsmanship. The Lord declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, naming a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country, which the traditional reading ties to Cyrus, named later at 44:28 and 45:1. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure stakes the whole claim on fulfilment rather than assertion, the same trial-of-the-gods pattern the surrounding chapters carry. Barnes and Delitzsch both carry the historical identification of the bird of prey while naming it a figure the text itself does not spell out further.

Isaiah 46:12-13

Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness, addresses those who doubt the promise rather than those who worship idols, and the chapter turns from mockery to comfort in its last two verses. I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry answers that doubt with a promise already approaching. The final line, I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory, keeps Zion as the promise's own address, and the older writers read Israel my glory as the credit for a covenant kept rather than earned. Calvin and Henry both note the turn from the trial's evidence to its comfort, the pattern the whole section follows.