Isaiah 46King James Version
The gods of Babylon, Bel and Nebo, are being carried away on weary animals. They cannot save the beasts that carry them. But God has carried his people from the womb. 'Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.'
Bel and Nebo, the great gods of Babylon, stoop and bow, carried on weary animals into captivity. They cannot save themselves, let alone their worshippers. By contrast, God has carried Israel from birth and will carry them to old age. He declares the end from the beginning. Cyrus is called from the east like a bird of prey. Salvation is coming.
Gods that need carrying cannot carry you. The God who has carried his people from the womb carries them still.
verse: "And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you", the arc from birth to white hair is the span of a lifetime, and God claims all of it.
Babylon's processional streets during the Akitu festival, where the great cult statues of Marduk (Bel) and his son Nabu (Nebo) were carried in elaborate procession. Isaiah imagines those same statues being loaded onto oxcarts not for festival triumph but for military evacuation as Cyrus approaches.
Bel and Nebo, the chief gods of Babylon, personified as heavy statues being loaded onto animals for evacuation. God as the one who carried Israel from the womb. Cyrus as the bird of prey from the east, coming to execute God's purpose.
The image of the Babylonian gods being carried away in defeat while Israel's God carried his people from birth is one of the most rhetorically effective contrasts in prophetic literature. The declare-the-end-from-the-beginning verse (v. 10) is the key text in arguments for divine foreknowledge as the mark of true deity.
For when you feel you are carrying too much and everything is heavy. The contrast between gods that must be carried and a God who carries is experiential, not abstract.
1Bel 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.
2They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity.
3Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb:
4And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
5To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?
6They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea, they worship.
7They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.
8Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.
9Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
12Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
13I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.