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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Isaiah 46:7 - 46:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
They bear him upon the shoulder - and set him in his place - This is the way in which the Hindoos carry their gods; and indeed so exact a picture is this of the idolatrous procession of this people, that the prophet might almost be supposed to have been sitting among the Hindoos when he delivered this prophecy. - Ward’S Customs.
Pindar has treated with a just and very elegant ridicule the work of the statuary even in comparison with his own poetry, from this circumstance of its being fixed to a certain station. “The friends of Pytheas,” says the Scholiast, “came to the poet, desiring him to write an ode on his victory. Pindar demanded three drachms, (minae, I suppose it should be), for the ode. No, say they, we can have a brazen statue for that money, which will be better than a poem. However, changing their minds afterwards, they came and offered him what he had demanded.” This gave him the hint of the following ingenious esordium of his ode: -
Ουκ ανδριαντοποιος ειμ’
Ὡστ’ ελινυσσοντα μ’ εργαζε-
σθαι αγαλματ’ επ’ αυτας βαθμιδος
Ἑσταοτ. Αλλ’ επι πασας
Ὁλκαδος εν τ’ ακατῳ γλυκει’ αοιδα
Στειχ’ απ’ Αιγινας διαγγελ-
lois’ ὁτι Λαμπωνος ὑιος
Πυθεας ευρυσθενης
Νικῃ Νεμειοις παγκρατιου στεφανον.
Nem. v.
Thus elegantly translated by Mr. Francis in a note to Hor. Carm. 4:2. 19.
“It is not mine with forming hand
To bid a lifeless image stand
For ever on its base:
But fly, my verses, and proclaim
To distant realms, with deathless fame,
That Pytheas conquered in the rapid race.”
Jeremiah, Jer 10:3-5, seems to be indebted to Isaiah for most of the following passage: -
“The practices of the people are altogether vanity:
For they cut down a tree from the forest;
The work of the artificer’s hand with the axe;
With silver and with gold it is adorned;
With nails and with hammers it is fastened, that it may not totter.
Like the palm-tree they stand stiff, and cannot speak;
They are carried about, for they cannot go:
Fear them not, for they cannot do harm;
Neither is it in them to do good.”