Bible Strands
Isaiah 46:1
Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses the exiled community of Judah with a declaration of Yahweh's supremacy over the captured pantheon of Babylon. This announcement occurs during the period of impending exile when the apparent power of foreign empires threatens Israel's confidence in divine protection.
The words — The text employs כָּרַ֥ע (ka.Ra'), literally "he has bowed down," and קֹרֵ֣ס (ko.Res), literally "[is] stooping low," to describe the physical collapse of the deities Bel and Nebo. These verbs frame the idols not as active gods but as heavy, immobile objects that force their bearers to stoop under the weight.
The thread — The downfall of Babylon's gods is traced in Isaiah 21:9, Jeremiah 50:2, and Jeremiah 51:44, where the city's captivity and the judgment against Bel are repeatedly announced. These passages collectively establish a pattern where pagan deities are shown to be powerless to prevent their own removal or the deliverance of their people.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that claimed divine powers are merely burdensome objects incapable of relieving any load. It demands a practical shift of trust from visible idols to the one who actually carries and sustains.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 21:9 Look, here come the riders, horsemen in pairs.” And one answered, saying: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon! All the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”
- Jeremiah 51:44 I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.
- Jeremiah 50:2 “Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’
- Exodus 12:12 On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn male, both man and beast, and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
- 1 Samuel 5:3 When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.
- Isaiah 2:20 In that day men will cast away to the moles and bats their idols of silver and gold—the idols they made to worship.
- Isaiah 41:6 Each one helps the other and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
- Jeremiah 10:5 Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, and neither can they do any good.”
- Jeremiah 48:1 Concerning Moab, this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Woe to Nebo, for it will be devastated. Kiriathaim will be captured and disgraced; the fortress will be shattered and dismantled.
- Jeremiah 51:47 Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.