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“A table for Fortune, bowls for Destiny”

Isaiah 65:11
Foreign wordSettledGod
But you who forsake the LORD, who forget My holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, (Isaiah 65:11 BSB)
* 'Fortune' and 'Destiny' translate the names of two pagan gods, Gad (luck) and Meni (fate). Spreading a table and mixing wine for them was a ritual feast laid out for the deities of Luck and Fate, a direct rival to trusting the LORD.

What it sounds like today

A vague warning against chasing luck and fate.

The cultural key

In English 'Fortune' and 'Destiny' look like abstractions, so the verse reads like a caution against fatalism. They are actually proper names of gods. 'Fortune' is Gad and 'Destiny' is Meni, Semitic deities of good luck and allotted fate worshiped in the region. To 'set a table' and 'fill bowls of mixed wine' for them describes a specific pagan rite: laying out a banquet for the gods, a meal spread before their images so the worshipers could dine with the deities of chance and secure their favor. So the charge is concrete idolatry, God's people hedging their bets by feasting with the gods of Luck and Fate instead of trusting Him. It belongs with the warning that Israel 'sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known' (Deuteronomy 32:17). Once you know Gad and Meni are gods, the line sharpens from a proverb about superstition into an indictment of literal table-fellowship with idols.

Recovered meaning

'Fortune' and 'Destiny' are the pagan gods Gad and Meni, and setting a table and mixing wine for them was a ritual banquet laid out for the deities of luck and fate. The verse condemns literal idolatry, trusting those gods rather than the LORD.

Parallels: Deuteronomy 32:17
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