Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods;
Ver. 7. Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels] For example to others, et iussit, et gessit, he did himself what he commanded to be done, and so became a living law, a walking statute. So Justinian would not put the vessels of the Temple (taken by Titus, and recovered from Gensericus) into the public treasury, but restored them.
Which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth] With profane and sacrilegious hands some of these sacred vessels and utensils of the Temple he had cut in pieces, 2 Kings 24:13, and others he carried away, 2 Chronicles 36:7, whole and entire. This he did out of covetousness (that auri sacra fames) and in scorn of all religion (rather than hatred of the Jewish superstition, or to avenge the quarrel of God's covenant), like as for the same reason his successor Cambyses destroyed the Egyptian idols, Isaiah 10:26 .
And had put them] There was a sweet providence in that; to the end that being there reserved, they might in due time be restored (as here they are) to the house of God at Jerusalem. And although that was a most unfit place to keep them in (for "what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" 2Co 6:16), and Belshazzar most profanely abused them, Daniel 5:2, in that drunken feast of his (hence he is called the festival king, Eze 21:5-6), yet being sanctified again, and dedicated to the true and first owner, the God of Israel, they might lawfully be made use of. Not only things indifferent abused may yet be used in the service of God (as those six waterpots were by our Saviour John 2:6,7, though they had been superstitiously abused for private purification), but also idolatrous things and places. As Gideon took the bullock appointed for Baal and the grove, and offered the bullock with that wood in sacrifice to the Lord, Judges 6:26. The like the Bethshemites did by the Philistines' cart and kine. The Mount of Olives was shamefully abused to idolatry by Solomon and others, so that it was called the mount of corruption, 2 Kings 23:13, and yet was it our Saviour's usual oratory or place of prayer.
In the house of his gods] Bel and Nebo, Isaiah 46:1. These were Babylon's chief gods. The original of Bel is said to be this: Ninus having made an image of his father Belus, all that came to see it were pardoned for all their offences; whence in time that image came to be worshipped, and then afterwards a multitude more; insomuch as that in Hesiod's time the number of heathenish gods was grown to thirty thousand, πρις γαρ μυριοι εισιν. And in China at this day some tell us that there are no fewer than a hundred thousand idols.
“ O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! ”
Gods these idols are called here, not because they were so (for there is one God only, said Pythagoras, and other heathens, Eις μονος εστι θεος, &c.), but because Nebuchadnezzar falsely held them so. Like as elsewhere the gods of Damascus are said to have smitten Ahaz, who therefore sacrificed to them, 2 Chronicles 28:23, not as if those idols were anything in the world, or could do anything at all to him, Jeremiah 10:5 1 Corinthians 8:4; but only that he conceited so, and that the devil (who is ειδωλοχαρης, as Synesius truly saith) abused his credulity.