Isaias 46:1
Bel is broken, Nebo is destroyed: their idols are put upon beasts and cattle, your burdens of heavy weight even unto weariness.
Open Isaias 46:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Confractus est Bel, contritus est Nabo ; facta sunt simulacra eorum bestiis et jumentis, onera vestra gravi pondere usque ad lassitudinem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἔπεσε Βήλ, συνετρίβη Ναβώ, ἐγένετο τὰ γλυπτὰ αὐτῶν εἰς θηρία καὶ τὰ κτήνη· αἴρετε αὐτὰ καταδεδεμένα ὡς φορτίον κοπιῶντι,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כָּרַ֥ע בֵּל֙ קֹרֵ֣ס נְב֔וֹ הָיוּ֙ עֲצַבֵּיהֶ֔ם לַחַיָּ֖ה וְלַבְּהֵמָ֑ה נְשֻׂאֹתֵיכֶ֣ם עֲמוּס֔וֹת מַשָּׂ֖א לַעֲיֵפָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Bel; perhaps Nimrod, (Calmet) or Saturn, to whom they sacrificed their children. (Worthington)
Nabo, "the oracle" of Belus. The Chaldeans adored statues and beasts. But the Persians worshipped the elements. (Calmet)
Xerxes destroyed the tomb of Belus, after his expedition into Greece. (Arrian vii.) He had there demolished the temples, (Herodotus viii. 109.) pretending (Haydock) that "the world is the house of the gods." (Cicero, Leg. ii.)
Weariness. The priests affected to be weighed down, as if the god were present. (Baruch vi. 25.) (St. Cyril)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony LIX
In the Wisdom of Solomon: “All the idols of the nations they counted gods, which neither have the use of their eyes for seeing, nor their nostrils to receive breath, nor their ears for hearing, nor the fingers on their hands for handling; but their feet also are slow to walk. For man made them; and he who has borrowed his breath, he fashioned them. But no man will be able to fashion a god like to himself. For since he is mortal, he fashioneth a dead thing with wicked hands. …