Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: 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.

Isaiah 46.1f

These two verse are the only verses that mention the idol Bel (cf. Inner Wheels > The Idols Stoop!). They also are linked by the relatively rare word (Etsab, Idol) which appears only three times in Isaiah and Jeremiah combined, with two of those occurrences being found in the linked verses above. All of this is amplified by the identity:

This is discussed at length in the Holographic Decalogue > Second Commandment.

Now this is the mystery of the Bible. As I was writing this article, I noticed this entry in my database:

Out of curiosity, I searched the Bible for all occurrences of the root. It is appears six times in all Scripture and exactly once in Isaiah - in the same passage where the rare word Etsab occurs! Its highlighted in red in the verse above.

I also was wondering about the connection with Benjamin. Then I recalled Genesis 44.20 when Judah unwittingly speaks with his brother Joseph, concerning their youngest brother:

Then Judah came near unto him, and said, Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant: for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age [Benjamin!], a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him.

The word used is Zaqun, the masculine cognate of Ziqnah. It feels like there are a number of threads intertwining here, but I haven't had time to trace them all out yet.

The Vision of Obadiah

The Book of Obadaiah has 21 verses, rather like Revelation 22. The first verse is linked to the last via the value of the first and last phrases in the litte Book. We have the pair of identities:

Cf. Obadiah: Verse-by-Verse.

Factors: 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3

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