Isaiah 46

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 46:3

Which are borne by me from the belly "Ye that have been borne by me from the birth" - The prophet very ingeniously, and with great force, contrasts the power of God, and his tender goodness effectually exerted towards his people, with the inability of the false gods of the heathen. He like an indulgent father had carried his people in his arms, "as a man carrieth his son," Deuteronomy 1:31 . He had protected them, and delivered them from their distresses: whereas the idols of the heathen... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 46:7

They bear him upon the shoulder - and set him in his place - This is the way in which the Hindoos carry their gods; and indeed so exact a picture is this of the idolatrous procession of this people, that the prophet might almost be supposed to have been sitting among the Hindoos when he delivered this prophecy. - Ward'S Customs. Pindar has treated with a just and very elegant ridicule the work of the statuary even in comparison with his own poetry, from this circumstance of its being fixed... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 46:8

Show yourselves men - התאששו hithoshashu . This word is rather of doubtful derivation and signification. It occurs only in this place: and some of the ancient interpreters seem to have had something different in their copies. The Vulgate read התבששו hithbosheshu , take shame to yourselves; the Syriac התבוננו hithbonenu , consider with yourselves; the Septuagint στεναξετε· perhaps התאבלו hithabbelu , groan or mourn, within yourselves. Several MSS. read התאוששו hithosheshu... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 46:11

Calling a ravenous bird from the east "Calling from the east the eagle" - A very proper emblem for Cyrus, as in other respects, so particularly because the ensign of Cyrus was a golden eagle, ΑΕΤΟΣ χρυσους , the very word עיט ayit , which the prophet uses here, expressed as near as may be in Greek letters. Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. 7 sub. init. Kimchi says his father understood this, not of Cyrus, but of the Messiah. From a far country "From a land far distant" - Two MSS. add the... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 46:12

Hearken unto me, ye stout-hearted - This is an address to the Babylonians, stubbornly bent on the practice of injustice towards the Israelites. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 46:1

Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth . In the later Babylonian period, to which Isaiah's prophetic vision transports him, Bel and Nebo (if we understand by Bel, Bel-Merodach) were decidedly the two principal gods. Of the seven kings of the last dynasty, three had names in which Nebo, and two names in which Bel or Merodach, wad an element. Bel-Merodach and Nebo are the chief gods worshipped by Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar. Bel, Nebo, and Merodach are the only three Babylonian gods that receive... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 46:1-2

THE FALL OF THE GODS OF BABYLON . Among the direct consequences of the victories of Cyrus will be the downfall, in a certain sense, of the Babylonian idolatry. The prophet expresses the downfall by material imagery, graphically describing the fate of the idols themselves. But we must regard him as exulting mainly in the thought of the blow that would be dealt to idolatry in general, and to the Babylonian fond of it in particular, by the substitution of the non-idolatrous and... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 46:1-4

Men bearing gods, and God bearing his people. The pitiable and even ludicrous insufficiency of idolatry is admirably drawn in this picture. We see the beasts bowed down with the images of the helpless deities of Chaldea In what striking and glowing contrast does the relation of Jehovah to his people appear! From the very infancy of Israel God had borne them in the arms of his faithfulness and power; and his tender kindness in the past would extend to the furthest future. Even to old age he... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 46:1-11

The effect of God's temporal judgments upon nations on the religious history of the world. In the ancient world, where religions had no revealed or historic basis, but had been evolved by degrees from the thought or imagination of each people, the fate of a religion depended greatly upon the course of secular history, and the success or failure that attended upon the arms of the nation professing it. As no people could have a rational, or, consequently, a firm belief in a system based upon... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 46:1-13

The religion of Jehovah contrasted with idolatry. I. THE HUMILIATION OF BEL AND NEBO . These were the tutelar gods of Babylon and its suburb, Borsippa. Merodach, or Marduk ( Jeremiah 50:2 ), is another name of a being closely related to or identical with Bel. The idols of the Chaldeans are given up to the beasts, and the images once carried in solemn procession by the priests and nobles are put upon the backs of beasts of burden. Herodotus and Diodorus tell us of the golden... read more

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