Isaiah 46:4 – “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.”
In this scripture, the foolhardiness of those who made idols and prayed to them, is exposed. The names of these idols were taken to form the names of their princes, Bel into Belshazzar’s, Nebo into Nebuchadnezzar’s and Nebuzaradan’s, etc. God told them through the prophets how senseless and helpless idols are. They were made and adorned with silver or gold. So when they were attacked by their enemies the first thing the enemies did was to break down their idols and plunder the wealth that were on the idols. It’s the same for God’s people. One cannot put things on pedestals and devote time to things that take them away from the time they spend with God. This is also idolatry. The service of sin always costs a great deal.
God reminds the people from Jacob’s family and people from Israel that contrary to the people who carried the idols of various gods, the Lord our true God will carry His people. God supported Israel since birth as a nation. He formed them into a people and gave them their constitution. God took them under special protection. When Moses had no patience to carry them as the nursing father does the sucking child, God bore them and their manners. God carried them in His powerful arms of love and bore them as upon eagles’ wings. God will not cast them off now, He will not fail them when their strength fails; He is still their God and will carry them in the same everlasting arms that were laid under them in Moses’s time. He has made them and owns His interest in them, and therefore He will bear them – with their infirmities, and under their afflictions: God will graciously support and comfort his faithful servants, even in their old age.
This promise is relevant to us through our faith in Jesus. God carried us from before our birth, and He promises to continue to carry us even to our gray hairs! How many of us can promise another something till they turn gray? ‘Carry’ signifies looking after. God promises to look after us like He did before we were born, according to His plan for us. Even when we grow old. Man! What a promise to cling to! Jesus said “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” When we understand who has made us, and who we are valuable to, then we can trust Him to carry us. We have been: in the constant care of God’s kind providence, carried in the arms of His might and in His bosom of love and pity. Our spiritual life is maintained by God’s grace just as our natural life is kept by God’s constant providence. God has promised to never leave us. We may change as we grow older, but God is the same. God has promised to carry us, to bear us up and out of trouble, to carry us along our way, and to carry us home at last.
