Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
They stoop - Bel, and Nebo, and all the Babylonian gods (see Isaiah 46:1).
They could not deliver the burden - The word ' burden' here, probably means the load of metal, wood, and stone, of which the idols were composed. The gods whom the Babylonians worshipped had not even power to protect the images which were made to represent them, and which had now become a heavy burden to the animals and wains which were carrying them away. They could not rescue them from the hands of the conqueror; and how unable were they, therefore, to defend those who put their trust in them. The Vulgate renders this, ' They could not deliver him that bare them.' The Septuagint, ' You are carrying them like a burden bound on the weary, faint, and hungry; who are all without strength, and unable to escape from battle; and as for them, they are carried away captives!'
But themselves - Margin, as Hebrew, ' Their soul.' The sense is, that the gods thus worshipped, so far from being able to defend those who worshipped them, had themselves become captive, and were borne to a distant land.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Isaiah 46:2:
Isaiah 44:7
Isaiah 46:5
Isaiah 54:16
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