To whom will ye liken me and make me equal, or compare me, that we may be like?
God has just described Himself as the One who carried Israel from birth to grey hairs. Babylon's gods were the opposite: weary animals had to carry them away. The question in verse 5 lands on that contrast: if that is what God is like, what could anyone possibly set beside Him?
The question is not asking for information. It shuts off every answer in advance. The verses that follow show why, by exposing what idol-worship involves.
So, as verse 5 declares, God stands out alone, beyond all comparison with any other. One more look at the follies built into idol-worship backs this up. Here are men bowing down and worshipping a god they shaped with their own hands. It is a fixed object, unable to move or speak or save. And here is the true God, who acts and speaks, and foretells things that then come to pass.
The verse piles up four verbs — liken, make equal, compare, be like. Each one needs two things of the same kind. One writer shows that idols fail at the first step.
Idols stand in contrast to Jehovah, but they cannot for one moment be compared with the true God. Jehovah is the Maker; an idol is something people have to make. Once it is made, it carries no one — it has to be carried. Set in its place, it cannot move. It cannot answer a cry of need, and it cannot save anyone from trouble.
The urge to picture God grows out of a real loss. Scripture warns against it because it ruins the person who tries.
It has been said that truth about things we do not know can reach us in two ways: by resemblance or by analogy. God made man in His own likeness at the start. The fall spoiled that likeness badly, and man lost the true knowledge of God. So men have groped after God and tried to gain some knowledge of Him through resemblances or likenesses — and it ruined them. That is why Scripture warns us not to liken God to anything, in passages such as Isaiah 40:18, 25; 46:5-7.
If nothing can stand beside God, then every rival can be put to the test. One writer draws two plain questions out of this passage.
The great test of our religion is twofold: Will it carry? Will it deliver? Every false religion breaks down under this simple test. A false religion, or a true one taken up falsely, has to be carried. True religion carries. A false religion cannot deliver; a true one must.
Nobody needs a carved image to fall into this. The things people set beside God today are harder to spot. They collapse just when you need them.
The contrast exists around us today. It is still a question worth asking — do you go your way, carrying the things you idolize, or does your God carry you? The idols of the modern English-speaking world are not images but more subtle things: money, pleasures, desires. Yet as life draws to its end they let you down. The God we know, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, carries us through to the finish. The love that will never let us go holds us.
The challenge comes with a call to think. God does not leave the question hanging; He tells the people who drifted into idols what to do next.
The transgressors — those in Israel who had turned aside to idols — are called to remember these things and to act like men. Let them remember what God has done in the past. Let them admit that there is no other God but Jehovah, and none like Him. He declares the end from the beginning. He brings His purposes about and carries out His plans.
- Carried. Babylon's gods had to be carried. God carries His people from birth to old age. That is the contrast the question rests on.
- Compared. Comparison needs two things of the same kind. An idol has to be made before it can do anything, while God is the Maker — so the two never stand on the same shelf.
- Corrupted. Man was made in God's likeness, but the fall ruined it. So every try at reaching God through a resemblance ends in loss. God is revealed in Jesus Christ, not reconstructed by us.
- Confronted. Two questions test any rival to God: will it carry you, and will it deliver you? Money, pleasure and desire are today's images, and they let people down at the end.
- Called. The challenge expects a verdict. Remember what God has done, admit there is none like Him, and act like people who have understood it.
-- They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance; they hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god they fall down, yea, they worship.
Isaiah 46 opens with Babylon's great gods, Bel and Nebo, loaded onto pack animals — a dead weight for the beasts that carry them. God then asks His people who they think He resembles. Verse 6 is His answer to His own question: here is how a god gets made, out of a purse and a set of scales.
This is not a one-off complaint. It runs through this whole part of the book. And God aims it at His own people, not at outsiders.
In the first division of this portion of Isaiah, we find references to idols in every chapter, and this in connection with Israel (see Isa. 40:18–25; Isa. 41:21–29; Isa. 42:17; Isa. 43:12; Isa. 44:9–20; Isa. 45:16; Isa. 46:1–7; Isa. 47:12–15; Isa. 48:5). So it becomes clear that the leading subject is God's controversy with Israel about their idolatry.
The verse follows straight on from a question about comparison. God asks who compares with Him, and the answer here is not an argument but an invoice.
Next comes the challenge: who would they compare the God of Israel to? As for the gods of Babylon, it was only a question of gold and silver. The goldsmith shaped them, and the people fell down and worshipped.
Two ordinary objects carry the whole scene. The first is the bag the gold comes out of — a common item elsewhere in Scripture.
A bag for money or weights. Prov. 1:14; Isa. 46:6; Luke 10:4; Luke 22:35-36; John 12:6.
The second is the weighing instrument, and the Hebrew word here is not the usual one for a pair of scales.
In Isa. 46:6 another Hebrew word appears, qaneh. It means a reed, rod or beam. This may refer to the beam of the scales, since there is no evidence that the steelyard was in use then.
Gold from a bag, silver on the beam, a fee to the craftsman — then the buyer kneels to what he ordered.
Put the two side by side and the absurdity shows. God makes; someone must make the idol. God carries His people; someone must carry the idol. And once it stands where its owner set it, nothing more happens.
Idols are set in contrast with Jehovah, but cannot for one moment be compared with the true God. Jehovah is the Maker, but an idol has to be made. Once made, it does not carry others; it has to be carried. And when it is set in its place, it cannot move. It cannot answer the cry of need, and it cannot save from trouble.
A simple test sorts out the true God from the manufactured one, and it is a test the idol of verse 6 fails at both ends.
The great test of our religion is twofold: Will it carry? Will it deliver? Every false religion breaks down under this simple test. A false religion, or a true one held in the wrong way, has to be carried. True religion carries. A false religion cannot deliver; a true one must.
The picture has not gone out of date. Only the shape of the idol has changed.
The contrast exists around us today. It is still a fair question — do you go your way, carrying the things that you idolize, or does your God carry you? The idols of the modern English-speaking world are not images. They are more subtle things, such as money, pleasures, lusts. Yet as life draws to its end they let you down. The God whom we know, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, carries us through to the finish. We are in the embrace of the love that will never let us go.
- Made — Jehovah is the Maker; the idol has to be made. That single difference settles the question God asks about comparison.
- Weighed — gold from the purse, silver on the beam of the scales, a goldsmith's fee: worship here starts as something you buy.
- Carried — what you pay for, you then have to lift and set in place; it cannot move from where you left it.
- Carrying — the true God does the opposite. He carries His people; they never carry Him.
- Tested — ask of anything you serve: will it carry, and will it deliver? Money, pleasure and lust fail the question at the end of life; Christ does not.
They bear him on the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place; there he standeth, he doth not remove from his place yea, one crieth unto him, and he answereth not; he saveth him not out of his trouble.
Isaiah 46 opens with Babylon's gods riding out on pack animals as the city falls. This verse follows that picture to its end and presses one question — who is carrying whom?
The verse turns on a reversal of roles. What the worshipper leans on is the thing he has to carry. Each phrase exposes the same helplessness: set in its place, unable to move, deaf to the cry for help.
Here the idols stand next to Jehovah, but they cannot for a moment be compared with the true God. Jehovah is the Maker, but an idol has to be made. Once made, instead of carrying others it has to be carried. Set in its place, it cannot move, cannot respond to the cry of need, and cannot save from trouble.
The setting sharpens the irony. Bel and Nebo were Babylon's leading gods, and they left the city as captives on the backs of animals.
Then comes the complete humiliation of Bel and Nebo, the chief idols of Babylon. They were clearly more powerless than the beasts that carried them: unable to save, and gone into captivity themselves.
The idol stays silent. The God of verse 5 speaks and moves. Verse 5 asks who can be likened to Him, and the answer here is that what He says and does puts Him beyond comparison.
So, as verse 5 declares, God stands alone, beyond comparison with anything else. This is backed up by another look at the follies built into idolatry. Here are men falling down and worshipping a god made by their own hands, a fixed object, unable to move or speak or save. And here is the true God, who acts and speaks, and foretells things that soon come to pass.
The chapter does not stop at mockery. Against the god that has to be carried it sets a God who carries, and for a whole lifetime.
The Babylonian gods had to be carried on the backs of weary animals, and it did no good. Here is One who would support and carry those who trusted Him, from birth to the grey hairs of old age. He would never let them down, but would deliver them. What a contrast!
The idol fails twice: it cannot move, and it cannot rescue. That gives a test anyone can apply to whatever they trust.
The great test of our religion is twofold: Will it carry? Will it deliver? Every false religion breaks down under this simple test. A false religion, or a true one taken up falsely, has to be carried. True religion carries. A false religion cannot deliver; a true one must.
Readers who own no statues are not off the hook. The same failure shows up in things nobody would call a god.
The contrast exists around us today. It is still a question worth asking — do you go your way carrying the things you idolize, or does your God carry you? The idols of the modern English-speaking world are not images. They are more subtle things, such as money, pleasures, lusts. Yet as life draws to its end they let you down.
One root lies behind both the carved image and the modern substitute.
The root of all idolatry is self-will. It is making a god of our own. It starts with self and fashions a god, not necessarily out of silver, and not necessarily with our hands. Yet there is a tool more cunning and skilful than the hands, and that is the mind of man. Wherever self takes the place of the will of God, you will find the human mind fashioning a god to please itself. And it does this in the name of the Lord, in the name of the true God.
- Made — the idol is the product, not the Maker: it has to be made before it can be worshipped, and Jehovah is the One who makes.
- Carried — once made, it cannot carry anyone. It is a load on weary animals, while God carries His people from birth to grey hairs.
- Stuck — set in its place, it cannot move; the true God speaks, acts, and foretells what soon happens.
- Silent — the cry for help gets no answer and no rescue. So test whatever you trust: will it carry? Will it deliver?
- Modern — today's idol is rarely carved. The mind shapes money, pleasure and self-will into gods, and they let you down at the end.