Making and animating gods

How were cult statues made and brought to life in the ancient Near East, and how do the prophets' satires of idol-making compare?

What the relationship labels mean

Possible historical contact: The cultures were in contact, so one tradition could have known the other.
Shared literary world: The stories appear to share older roots or a common cultural setting.
Similar human experience: Different peoples responding to similar realities, such as river floods.
Resemblance only: A real similarity worth noticing; no historical connection has been established.
Modern speculative theory: A modern interpretation, not an ancient source. Not supported by authenticated evidence.

Babylonian and Assyrian · Mesopotamia

Mouth-washing and mouth-opening ritual (mis pi / pit pi)

Possible historical contact

Composed: 1st millennium BC (older roots)
Earliest surviving copy: Ritual tablets from Nineveh (7th c. BC) and Babylon (later copies); edited by C. Walker and M. Dick (2001)

A new statue made in the temple workshop is purified and "born" in a night-and-day ritual of washing and opening the mouth, then led to its shrine. The craftsmen's tools are thrown into the river, their hands are symbolically cut off with a wooden sword, and they swear they did not make the god: the craft gods did.

Similar

Statues of wood plated with precious metal made by named crafts
The god must be carried and installed

Different

The ritual denies the human making that Isaiah insists on
The worshipers understood the statue as a god's dwelling and body, not as mere wood
A documented ritual practice, not a text Isaiah is shown to quote: nothing in Isaiah reproduces the ritual's wording

Egyptian · Egypt

Opening of the Mouth ritual

Resemblance only

Composed: From the 3rd millennium BC
Earliest surviving copy: Pyramid Texts; New Kingdom tomb scenes and papyri

Priests touch the mouth of a statue or mummy with ritual tools so that it can eat, breathe and speak.

Similar

A made image ritually animated

Different

Used for statues and for the dead

Babylonian · Babylon and Borsippa

The New Year (akitu) festival and the journeys of Marduk and Nabu

Possible historical contact

Composed: 1st millennium BC
Earliest surviving copy: Seleucid-period ritual tablets; references in chronicles

Nabu's statue travels from Borsippa to Babylon and the gods process through the city; the Nabonidus Chronicle notes years when "Nabu did not come to Babylon, Bel did not come out."

Similar

Bel and Nebo carried in procession (Isaiah 46:1)

Different

A festival of renewal, not a defeat

Assyrian · Assyria and Babylon

Esarhaddon's renewal of the gods of Babylon

Possible historical contact

Composed: c. 680–669 BC
Earliest surviving copy: Royal inscriptions (Assur-Babylon texts)

Esarhaddon describes making new statues for Babylon's gods in workshops, with divine approval sought by oracle, after Sennacherib's sack of the city (reported).

Similar

Kings commissioning god-statues

Different

Presented as the gods' own will and birth

Back to the story

Isaiah 40: Comfort Ye My People →A new voice: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people… her warfare is accomplished" (40:1–2). A voice cries: prepare the LORD's way in the wilderness; every valley raised, every mountain lowered; all flesh shall see his glory (vv. 3–5). Another voice: "All flesh is grass… but the word of our God shall stand for ever" (vv. 6–8). Zion, herald of good news, announces: "Behold your God!", who comes with power and feeds his flock like a shepherd (vv. 9–11). Who measured the waters in his hand? The nations are a drop in a bucket; to whom will you liken God? An idol has to be made so that it will not totter (vv. 12–20). He sits above the circle of the earth, names every star, gives strength to the weary: "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles" (vv. 21–31).
Isaiah 44: I Am the First and the Last →God will pour water on the thirsty and his Spirit on Jacob's offspring; people will write "The LORD's" on their hands (44:1–5). "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God… ye are even my witnesses" (vv. 6–8). A satire: the blacksmith grows faint making a god; the carpenter cuts a cedar, burns half to bake bread and warm himself, and bows down to the rest: "Deliver me; for thou art my god" (vv. 9–20). "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions": heavens and mountains sing (vv. 21–23). The God who made all things says of Jerusalem, "Thou shalt be inhabited," and of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure… to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid" (vv. 24–28).
Isaiah 46: Bel Boweth Down →"Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth": Babylon's gods are loaded on weary animals, unable to save their own carriers, and go into captivity (46:1–2). But God has carried Israel from the womb and will carry them to gray hairs (vv. 3–4). People pay a goldsmith to make a god, carry it, set it down; it cannot move or answer (vv. 5–7). "Remember the former things… declaring the end from the beginning… calling a ravenous bird from the east"; salvation will not delay (vv. 8–13).
Investigation: From Babylon to Cyrus →Isaiah 40–48 speaks to Judeans in Babylon, announces Babylon's fall, and twice names Cyrus of Persia as the LORD's shepherd and anointed. The Babylonian sources (the Nabonidus Chronicle, the Cyrus Cylinder, the Verse Account of Nabonidus) and Greek historians describe how Cyrus actually took Babylon in 539 BC. This investigation sets the events in order, compares what Isaiah says with what the sources say, and lays out the four main ways of explaining a prophecy that names a king: long-range prediction, composition in the 540s, later editorial insertion of the name, and literary unity.