Bible Strands
Isaiah 46:2
The gods cower; they crouch together, unable to relieve the burden; but they themselves go into captivity.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses the house of Jacob, contrasting the powerless foreign deities described in the preceding verse with the God who sustains His people from birth.
The words — The Hebrew verbs קָרְס֤וּ (ka.re.Su) and כָֽרְעוּ֙ (kha.re.'U) literally mean "they have stooped low" and "they have bowed down," depicting physical collapse. The noun מַשָּׂ֑א (ma.Sa') means "a burden," which the gods cannot rescue (יָכְל֖וּ לֹ֥א מַלֵּ֣ט) from carrying.
The thread — This pattern of captured deities going into exile with their worshippers appears in Jeremiah 48:7 regarding Chemosh, while the seizure of household idols is documented in Judges 18:17 and 18:24.
Why it lands — The text states that the gods collapse and go into captivity because they cannot remove the burden they carry, requiring the reader to acknowledge that claimed saviors are themselves helpless and destined for defeat.
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
They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 48:7 Because you trust in your works and treasures, you too will be captured, and Chemosh will go into exile with his priests and officials.
- Judges 18:17 And the five men who had gone to spy out the land went inside and took the graven image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molten idol, while the priest stood at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred armed men.
- Judges 18:24 He replied, “You took the gods I had made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have? How can you say to me, ‘What is the matter with you?’”
- 2 Samuel 5:21 There the Philistines abandoned their idols, and David and his men carried them away.
- Jeremiah 43:12 I will kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar will burn those temples and take their gods as captives. So he will wrap himself with the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself in his garment, and he will depart from there unscathed.
- Isaiah 36:18 Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
- Isaiah 37:12 Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?
- Isaiah 37:19 They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.
- Isaiah 44:17 From the rest he makes a god, his graven image. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.”
- Isaiah 45:20 Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.