Here’s how the chapter begins:
1 Bel and Nebo, the gods of Babylon, bow as they are lowered to the ground. They are being hauled away on ox carts. The poor beasts stagger under the weight.
2 Both the idols and their owners are bowed down. The gods cannot protect the people, and the people cannot protect the gods.
They go off into captivity together.
To cling to anything but the eternal God is a burden.
In fact, I’ve known the temptation to cling to religion or culture or tradition or what-I-want, and then to CALL THAT “God”, and then to gripe that God is burdensome, that following Him “doesn’t work”, that the whole thing is a joke. Easiest of all is to take the role of critic and target others who appear to have given into this temptation. We think we’re making brilliant points about how faith is irrelevant, when really we’re just confirming what God shared with Isaiah 2500 years ago…
To cling to anything but the eternal God IS a burden.
And that’s a valuable line to live with, in a world overflowing with burdens, for its only the free who can bring freedom to the rest.