Isaiahchapter 46
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Speaks with:Psalms 71×2Isaiah 40×2Isaiah 45×2Isaiah 21×1Jeremiah 51×1Jeremiah 50×1
Summary
Chapter summary
Bel bows and Nebo stoops: Babylon's gods are loaded as burdens onto weary beasts and carried into captivity, unable to deliver even themselves. Against this image Jehovah sets the reverse: he has carried the house of Jacob from birth and will carry Israel to old age and gray hairs: "I have made, and I will bear." The idol-manufacture scene repeats in miniature: gold lavished from the bag, silver weighed, a goldsmith hired, the finished god borne on shoulders and set in its place, where it cannot move or answer. Jehovah's counter-claim is predictive sovereignty: "declaring the end from the beginning," his counsel standing, summoning a "ravenous bird from the east," the man of his counsel from a far country. The chapter closes with righteousness brought near and salvation placed in Zion for Israel.
Context
Prophecy · Isaiah — Isaiah overview
- A. 1–7 Bel Bows Down: Gods Carried, or a God Who Carries
- B. 8–13 Declaring the End from the Beginning
The outline
A.Bel Bows Down: Gods Carried, or a God Who Carriesvv. 1 to 7
Read vv. 1 to 7 →B.Declaring the End from the Beginningvv. 8 to 13
Read vv. 8 to 13 →
The world behind this chapter
Isaiah 46The history
Bel and Nebo are named because they were the two great images of Babylon. Bel is the title of Marduk, the city's chief god; Nebo, his son, was the god of writing and destiny — the name is inside Nebuchadnezzar's own. Each New Year their statues were carried in procession along the paved Processional Way and through the great gate, on carts and on the shoulders of priests, with the whole city watching. It was the most impressive religious event in the world.
Isaiah takes that exact scene and runs it backwards. Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their images are loaded on animals and cattle; the things you carried about are a burden, a load for the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together, they could not save the load, and they themselves have gone into captivity. Conquerors did carry off the gods of a defeated city, which was the ultimate proof of whose god had won — and it happened to Babylon's own.
The contrast is stated as a straight comparison of logistics. Those gods have to be carried. Israel's God says: you have been carried by me from birth, from the womb; and even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry, and will deliver.
The commissioning of an idol is described as a business transaction. They lavish gold out of the bag and weigh silver on the scales, and hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; then they fall down and worship. They carry it on the shoulder, they set it in its place and it stands; from its place it does not move. One will cry to it, and it cannot answer or save him out of his trouble.
What it meant to them
For exiles asking which God had actually won, this chapter answered by pointing at the parade route. The gods being celebrated could not walk to their own festival.
And the claim that follows is the one that had to be true for any of the rest to matter: I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.
Sources cited
- Walton, Matthews & Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Herodotus, The Histories
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Isaiah 46. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.