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1Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around;
2then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth.a
3I will encamp against you all around you, and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will raise siege works against you.
4You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust.
5But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly.
6She will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and storm, and with the flame of a devouring fire.
7The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.
9Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10For the LORD has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.
11All vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is educated, saying, “Read this, please;” and he says, “I can’t, for it is sealed;”
12and the book is delivered to one who is not educated, saying, “Read this, please;” and he says, “I can’t read.”
13The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;
14therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”
15Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from the LORD, and whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”
16You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay, that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
17Isn’t it yet a very little while, and Lebanon will be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be regarded as a forest?
18In that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
19The humble also will increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20For the ruthless is brought to nothing, and the scoffer ceases, and all those who are alert to do evil are cut off—
21who cause a person to be indicted by a word, and lay a snare for one who reproves in the gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice with false testimony.
22Therefore the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no longer be ashamed, neither shall his face grow pale.
23But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the middle of him, they will sanctify my name. Yes, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24They also who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will receive instruction.”
Footnotes:
2 aor, Ariel
In the Potters Hands
By Steve Hill3.1K05:29PSA 139:13ISA 29:16ISA 64:8JHN 15:1ACT 9:15ROM 9:211CO 12:12EPH 2:102TI 2:21HEB 12:6This sermon emphasizes how God works uniquely in each of our lives according to His purpose, even when we struggle with the trials and challenges He allows. It highlights the analogy of God as the potter and us as the clay, being molded and shaped by Him in seclusion and through various life experiences. The message encourages surrendering to God's sovereignty and recognizing our individuality and unique roles within the body of Christ, all crafted by the mighty hands of God.
Life Story of Keith Green - Part 2
By Melody Green3.0K1:11:19Keith GreenISA 29:13HOS 10:12AMO 5:21MAT 19:16LUK 9:23EPH 4:30JAS 4:14In the sermon transcripts, Keith shares his burden for revival and the need for more people to come forward and experience a true transformation in their faith. He emphasizes the importance of putting our focus on Jesus Christ rather than on pastors or Christian music. Keith also talks about the urgency of using music to draw the lost and preach the gospel, highlighting the shortness of life and the responsibility of Christians to reach out to every nation. He concludes by discussing the lack of workers in the world compared to the abundance of the gospel in the United States, urging Christians to obey the command to go and make disciples.
K-053 Come Up and Be There
By Art Katz3.0K1:21:24RaptureEXO 24:15ISA 29:13MAT 27:35ACT 17:281CO 11:1EPH 3:20In this sermon, the preacher reflects on the power and wealth of the world compared to the power and reality found in the Word of God. He shares a personal experience of a ten-day fast and twenty-four hours of prayer, emphasizing the importance of waiting upon the Lord. The preacher highlights the brevity of God's words in the New Testament, particularly in the crucifixion of Jesus, and emphasizes the inseparability of the man and his message in the Gospel. The sermon also references the story of Moses going up into the mountain of God and the manifestation of God's glory in the cloud.
(In the Word) 06 - Hearing the Word of God
By Milton Green2.1K1:00:55ISA 29:13MAT 6:33MRK 7:6ROM 12:2COL 2:82TI 3:12JAS 5:14In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of following the Word of God rather than the traditions of men. They urge the listeners to listen to all the tapes in the series in numerical order to fully understand the teaching. The speaker also addresses the tactics of the powers of darkness to intimidate and discourage believers from embracing the Word of God. They highlight the need to stay firm in the face of pressure and fear, and not to water down the Word of God to suit personal preferences. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that God is the one who opens doors and works through believers, and that they should not strive to obtain things for God.
Shall the Dust Praise Thee?
By Carter Conlon1.8K40:41Fallen NatureISA 29:4ISA 52:1In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that many people in the body of Christ have misplaced focus and pursuit. They fail to live for the glory of God and do not understand the value of a soul. The preacher shares a powerful testimony of a violent man who experienced a transformation after encountering an older man on the street. The sermon also highlights the spiritual battle happening in the world, with the enemy ravaging cities and young people falling into darkness. However, God is rising up and declaring that He will have a church and a testimony in the earth. The preacher emphasizes the need for a visible people who will be a testimony of God's power and glory. The sermon concludes with the reminder that relying on natural strength and achievements will ultimately lead to emptiness, but God is calling His people to rise up and praise Him in this generation. The preacher references the book of Isaiah, where it is prophesied that in times of gross darkness, the glory of the Lord will rise upon the church. Kings will be silenced when they witness the manifestation of God's power in His people. The sermon also references the words of Solomon, who realized that all human labor leads to the same end, regardless of wealth or intelligence.
Utmost Folly
By Chuck Smith1.7K38:08FollyISA 29:15In this sermon, the speaker encourages the audience to read their Bibles regularly and emphasizes the importance of studying the Word of God. The speaker uses the analogy of a potter and a clay vase to illustrate the idea that creation requires a creator, highlighting the design and purpose behind everything. The sermon then focuses on Isaiah 29:15-16, where the prophet warns against those who try to hide their plans from the Lord and think they can go unnoticed. The speaker concludes by praying for God's intervention in the world, asking for His justice and for the nation to repent and seek His face.
Heart Surrender
By Steve Gallagher1.7K39:35SurrenderISA 29:13MAT 6:33In this sermon, the speaker addresses the issue of people honoring God with their words and outward actions, but neglecting to keep their hearts close to Him. He criticizes the prevalence of the prosperity gospel and the tendency to tell people what they want to hear. The speaker emphasizes the importance of seeking and embracing the truth, even if it is uncomfortable. He encourages listeners to examine their hearts and let go of any indulgences or fears that may be holding them back from fully surrendering to God. The sermon concludes with a call to return to God with all our hearts and engage in fasting as a means of drawing closer to Him.
Necessity of Reforming the Church 3 of 4 (1544)
By John Calvin1.7K1:31:07ISA 29:13JER 7:4JER 7:11In this sermon, the speaker addresses the primacy of the Romish sea, which refers to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The speaker acknowledges that the adversaries of the Church have good reason to maintain this primacy, as they believe their dependence lies in it. However, the speaker argues that this supremacy was established by the will of man, not divine authority. The speaker emphasizes the importance of unity in adhering to God and the Gospel as the only rule of a good and holy life. The speaker also addresses the accusation that the preaching of the Gospel leads to licentiousness, arguing that it is not the fault of the ministers of the Gospel but rather the result of individuals' rejection of God's authority.
(Through the Bible) Ezekiel 11-15
By Chuck Smith1.5K1:18:17PSA 115:4ISA 6:9ISA 29:13JER 5:21JER 38:17EZK 12:2ZEC 11:12In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that society today is not like the Victorian age or a puritan society. He warns against forsaking God's commandments and living like the people around us, as it will lead to destruction. The preacher shares a powerful example of a man falling dead while he was prophesying, illustrating that God will find ways to communicate His message to us. The sermon also references a prophecy of a coming famine and the desolation of the land due to the violence of the people. The preacher draws parallels to the nation of Israel and their failure to bear fruit, highlighting the importance of bringing forth fruit unto God. The sermon concludes with the preacher using dramatic actions to capture the attention of the people, as God seeks to communicate with them.
07 New Wine in New Wineskins - Jesus the Only Thing That Matters
By Sandeep Poonen1.5K1:01:23PSA 73:25ISA 29:13JHN 16:13ROM 12:11JN 5:3This sermon emphasizes the importance of making Jesus the sole focus of our lives, above all other desires and distractions. It highlights the journey from considering Jesus a great person to making Him the main priority, ultimately reaching a place where Jesus is everything, the sole passion and focus. The speaker challenges the audience to seek a deep, personal relationship with Jesus, surrendering all other worldly desires and distractions to find true satisfaction and fulfillment in Christ alone.
The Lord's Work Done the Lord's Way, Part One
By K.P. Yohannan1.5K25:59The Lord's WorkEXO 29:38ISA 29:13JHN 5:19JHN 8:38JHN 12:49JHN 14:10REV 2:5In this sermon, Brother K.P. Johannon discusses the problem of people doing things for themselves rather than for the Lord. He emphasizes the importance of seeking the Lord's direction and staying balanced in life. He shares the story of Jacob, who faced challenges and deception but ultimately trusted in God's plan. Brother K.P. highlights the difference between the old covenant, which focused on following rules, and the new covenant, which calls believers to be one with Christ and obey his commandments out of love and gratitude.
(The Word for Today) Isaiah 29:1 - Part 1
By Chuck Smith1.5K25:59ExpositionalISA 29:1MAT 15:8MAT 23:23MRK 12:30LUK 10:422TI 3:7HEB 12:29In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the importance of not just going through the motions of worship, but truly drawing near to God with our hearts. He emphasizes the need to remember the true meaning of Christmas and not get caught up in the busyness of the season. Pastor Smith also highlights the spiritual condition of the world and the need for people to wake up and recognize the moral decay and social problems we are facing. He calls for a sense of urgency and desperation in seeking God's help and guidance in these troubled times.
(The Word for Today) Isaiah 29:12 - Part 2
By Chuck Smith1.4K25:59ExpositionalISA 29:12MAT 11:2In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the illogical nature of denying the existence of God and the consequences of teaching false beliefs. He uses the analogy of teaching a child that 2 plus 2 equals 5, explaining that if this false premise is ingrained in the child's mind, they will be unable to understand or do math correctly. Pastor Chuck emphasizes the importance of understanding the true meaning of Christmas and the impact of Jesus Christ on the world. He also looks forward to the glorious future promised in the Bible, where righteousness will cover the earth and the words of the book will be heard by all.
(Through the Bible) Matthew 14-15
By Chuck Smith1.4K1:03:49ISA 29:13MAT 14:15MAT 15:1MAT 15:13MAT 15:17MRK 7:6In this sermon, the speaker shares two stories from the Bible to illustrate important lessons. The first story is about Jesus feeding the multitude with just a few loaves and fishes, showing the abundance that comes from sharing and the power of a child's example. The second story is about Jesus walking on water and Peter's attempt to do the same. It highlights the importance of keeping our focus on Jesus and not getting distracted by our circumstances. The speaker emphasizes the compassion and ministry of Jesus, even in moments when he sought solitude but was met with a multitude of people.
Discipline and Blessing Part 1
By Chuck Smith1.4K25:04BlessingPSA 73:11ISA 29:1ISA 29:14MAT 6:33MAT 15:8ROM 4:18In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the desperate times we are living in and the need for people to turn to God. He highlights the serious social and moral problems we are facing and the spiritual deterioration that is occurring. The preacher also discusses the lack of understanding and faith in the Word of God, causing people to stagger at His promises. He warns of the consequences of forsaking God and the impending destruction that will come upon Jerusalem. The sermon concludes with a call to wonder and cry out to God, as the people have been spiritually asleep and blinded to the truth.
I Saw the Lord!
By Steve Gallagher1.3K42:14IsaiahLEV 19:2ISA 1:12ISA 6:6ISA 29:13MAT 6:33In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of preparing one's heart to receive the word of God. He encourages listeners to consecrate themselves and not evade the reality of their spiritual condition. The preacher references biblical figures like Isaiah, Micaiah, Daniel, and John, who all had powerful encounters with God and saw Him as the great I am. He highlights the need for humility and true worship, emphasizing that worship is not just singing songs but bowing down before God.
Vanity, or Spirit and Truth?
By Chip Brogden1.3K27:47TruthISA 29:13MAT 15:7MRK 7:6ACT 9:1GAL 1:11PHP 3:10In this sermon, the speaker expresses his frustration with the traditional practices of the church and emphasizes the need for a genuine relationship with Jesus. He references the story of Saul on the way to Damascus, highlighting how Saul's encounter with Jesus transformed him from a religious teacher to a follower of Christ. The speaker emphasizes the importance of worshiping God in spirit and truth, rather than going through empty motions. He shares his personal experience of seeking the Lord for truth and how God revealed His Son in him.
(Matthew) ch.14:22-16:12
By Zac Poonen1.3K54:38ISA 29:13MAT 6:33MAT 14:19MAT 16:11TI 5:8In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the miracle of Peter walking on water towards Jesus as a parable for our lives. He emphasizes that just as Jesus overcame the law of gravity and walked on water, we too can overcome the law of sin and death. The preacher also highlights the importance of directing people's attention towards God rather than ourselves in our ministry. The sermon further discusses Jesus' compassion for the multitude and his willingness to provide for their needs, using the examples of the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand. The preacher encourages the audience to trust in God's ability to meet their needs, no matter how great they may be.
What Is Worship?
By Denny Kenaston1.3K39:42WorshipPSA 95:6ISA 29:13MAT 6:33JHN 4:20ROM 12:1HEB 12:28In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of true worship. He highlights that true worship is not just going through the motions or worshiping a God of our own imagination, but rather worshiping God according to his true nature and character. The preacher emphasizes that God seeks true worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth. He also mentions the desire for revival, where God's people can experience the reality of who God is in their lives. The sermon references John 4:23-24 and Genesis 22 to support these points.
False Complacency - Part 1
By Joshua Daniel1.2K25:40ISA 29:13MAT 5:21MAT 28:19JAS 4:17REV 3:14This sermon emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and spiritual precision in our walk with God, highlighting the need to accurately assess our spiritual state and not be lukewarm or self-satisfied. It challenges the listener to seek a deeper relationship with Jesus and avoid spiritual deadness by focusing on eternal matters. The message also touches on the significance of fulfilling the command to spread the good news and build the kingdom of God, rather than being complacent or feeling self-sufficient.
A Man of God - Part 7
By Leonard Ravenhill1.2K09:02ISA 29:13MAT 16:261CO 3:131CO 6:19JAS 4:6REV 20:12This sermon emphasizes the need for true repentance and revival, highlighting the story of a man who experienced a deep transformation after years of living in sin and denial of God's calling. It calls for a rediscovery of the value of each human soul, the importance of genuine repentance, and the understanding of key spiritual concepts like atonement, forgiveness, and justification. The speaker also addresses the consequences of living in arrogance and sin, urging a return to a sincere relationship with God and a recognition of the coming judgment.
Discipline and Blessing Part 2
By Chuck Smith1.2K25:04BlessingISA 29:13ISA 35:5ISA 41:10ISA 61:1MAT 6:33MAT 11:2REV 19:20In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the illogical premise that creation can exist without a creator. He argues that children are being taught this illogical premise from an early age, which leads them to believe that there is no real design behind the human body or the world. The preacher compares this teaching to a child being taught that 2 plus 2 equals 5, which would hinder their ability to understand and do math. The sermon also touches on the importance of recognizing Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the miracles he performed to confirm his identity.
Faith Rooted in Need
By Ian Murray1.2K50:24ISA 29:13MAT 15:1MAT 15:28ROM 3:10In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of true faith and the need for a genuine sense of need in order to truly understand and appreciate the gospel. He uses the example of a woman who broke through to Christ despite knowing very little about him, highlighting the power of faith that grows from a deep sense of need. The preacher also emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in convicting hearts and leading individuals to behold the greatness of Jesus Christ. He warns against superficiality and self-reliance, urging listeners to look away from themselves and towards the Savior. The sermon also mentions the truth that offends every person by nature - the realization that we are lost and have no claim or right in the presence of God. The preacher encourages listeners to cry out to the Lord for help, just as the woman in the passage did. The sermon concludes with the story of Robert Haldane, a Scottish nobleman who sought to see if Calvin's gospel was still being preached in Geneva, highlighting the importance of the doctrines of grace.
Discernment in the Church
By Vance Havner1.0K25:18ISA 29:13JHN 3:3ROM 8:81CO 1:181CO 2:14EPH 5:8COL 3:11TH 5:21HEB 5:14JAS 1:5This sermon emphasizes the importance of spiritual discernment in a time of confusion and uncertainty within the Church. It contrasts the clear, unwavering beliefs of past leaders like Spurgeon with the current trend of ambiguity and compromise. The speaker highlights the need for believers to have discernment to distinguish truth from falsehood, to understand the times, and to recognize the spirits at work. The sermon also addresses the shallowness of worship, the danger of idol worship, and the necessity of being spiritually reborn to truly grasp divine truth.
The Pure Heart #5
By Milton Green9611:01:05ISA 29:13MAT 13:11REV 14:1REV 17:5REV 18:4This sermon emphasizes the importance of repentance, turning away from idols and sins, and seeking God with a pure heart. It warns against following false teachings and doctrines of demons, highlighting the need to cleanse oneself from all rebellion and defilement. The message calls for a return to God, following His word, and being marked with His name on the forehead as a sign of purity and allegiance.
- Adam Clarke
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Matthew Henry
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Tyndale
Introduction
This chapter contains the substance of two letters sent by the prophet to the captives in Babylon. In the first he recommends to them patience and composure under their present circumstances, which were to endure for seventy years, Jer 29:1-14; in which, however, they should fare better than their brethren who remained behind, Jer 29:15-19. But, finding little credit given to this message, on account of the suggestions of the false prophets, Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, who flattered them with the hopes of a speedy end to their captivity, he sends a second, in which he denounces heavy judgments against those false prophets that deceived them, Jer 29:20-23; as he did afterwards against Shemaiah the Nehelamite, who had sent a letter of complaint against Jeremiah, in consequence of his message, Jer 29:24-32.
Introduction
COMING INVASION OF JERUSALEM: ITS FAILURE: UNBELIEF OF THE JEWS. (Isa. 29:1-24) Ariel--Jerusalem; Ariel means "Lion of God," that is, city rendered by God invincible: the lion is emblem of a mighty hero (Sa2 23:20). Otherwise "Hearth of God," that is, place where the altar-fire continually burns to God (Isa 31:9; Eze 43:15-16). add . . . year to year--ironically; suffer one year after another to glide on in the round of formal, heartless "sacrifices." Rather, "add yet another year" to the one just closed [MAURER]. Let a year elapse and a little more (Isa 32:10, Margin). let . . . kill sacrifices--rather, "let the beasts (of another year) go round" [MAURER]; that is, after the completion of a year "I will distress Ariel."
Verse 2
Yet--rather, "Then." heaviness . . . sorrow--rather, preserving the Hebrew paronomasia, "groaning" and "moaning." as Ariel--either, "the city shall be as a lion of God," that is, it shall emerge from its dangers unvanquished; or "it shall be as the altar of burnt offering," consuming with fire the besiegers (Isa 29:6; Isa 30:30; Isa 31:9; Lev 10:2); or best, as Isa 29:3 continues the threat, and the promise of deliverance does not come till Isa 29:4, "it shall be like a hearth of burning," that is, a scene of devastation by fire [G. V. SMITH]. The prophecy, probably, contemplates ultimately, besides the affliction and deliverance in Sennacherib's time, the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, the dispersion of the Jews, their restoration, the destruction of the enemies that besiege the city (Zac 14:2), and the final glory of Israel (Isa 29:17-24).
Verse 3
I--Jehovah, acting through the Assyrian, &c., His instruments (Isa 10:5). mount--an artificial mound formed to out-top high walls (Isa 37:33); else a station, namely, of warriors, for the siege. round about--not fully realized under Sennacherib, but in the Roman siege (Luk 19:43; Luk 21:20). forts--siege-towers (Deu 20:20).
Verse 4
Jerusalem shall be as a captive, humbled to the dust. Her voice shall come from the earth as that of the spirit-charmers or necromancers (Isa 8:19), faint and shrill, as the voice of the dead was supposed to be. Ventriloquism was doubtless the trick caused to make the voice appear to come from the earth (Isa 19:3). An appropriate retribution that Jerusalem, which consulted necromancers, should be made like them!
Verse 5
Moreover--rather, "Yet"; yet in this extremity help shall come, and the enemy be scattered. strangers--foreign enemies, invaders (Isa 25:2). it shall be--namely, the destruction of the enemy. at an instant--in a moment (Isa 30:23).
Verse 6
Thou--the Assyrian army. thunder, &c.--not literally, in the case of the Assyrians (Isa 37:36); but figuratively for an awful judgment (Isa 30:30; Isa 28:17). The ulterior fulfilment, in the case of the Jews' foes in the last days, may be more literal (see as to "earthquake," Zac 14:4).
Verse 7
munition--fortress.
Verse 8
Their disappointment in the very height of their confident expectation of taking Jerusalem shall be as great as that of the hungry man who in a dream fancies he eats, but awakes to hunger still (Psa 73:20); their dream shall be dissipated on the fatal morning (Isa 37:36). soul--simply his appetite: he is still thirsty.
Verse 9
Stay--rather, "Be astounded"; expressing the stupid and amazed incredulity with which the Jews received Isaiah's announcement. wonder--The second imperative, as often (Isa 8:9), is a threat; the first is a simple declaration of a fact, "Be astounded, since you choose to be so, at the prophecy, soon you will be amazed at the sight of the actual event" [MAURER]. cry . . . out . . . cry--rather, "Be ye blinded (since you choose to be so, though the light shines all round you), and soon ye shall be blinded" in good earnest to your sorrow [MAURER], (Isa 6:9-10). not with wine--but with spiritual paralysis (Isa 51:17, Isa 51:21). ye . . . they--The change from speaking to, to speaking of them, intimates that the prophet turns away from them to a greater distance, because of their stupid unbelief.
Verse 10
Jehovah gives them up judicially to their own hardness of heart (compare Zac 14:13). Quoted by Paul, with variations from the Septuagint, Rom 11:8. See Isa 6:10; Psa 69:23. eyes; the prophets, &c.--rather, "hath closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads (Margin; see also Isa 3:2), the seers, He hath covered." The Orientals cover the head to sleep; thus "covered" is parallel to "closed your eyes" (Jdg 4:19). Covering the face was also preparatory to execution (Est 7:8). This cannot apply to the time when Isaiah himself prophesied, but to subsequent times.
Verse 11
of all--rather, "the whole vision." "Vision" is the same here as "revelation," or "law"; in Isa 28:15, the same Hebrew word is translated, "covenant" [MAURER]. sealed-- (Isa 8:16), God seals up the truth so that even the learned, because they lack believing docility, cannot discern it (Mat 13:10-17; Mat 11:25). Prophecy remained comparatively a sealed volume (Dan 12:4, Dan 12:9), until Jesus, who "alone is worthy," "opened the seals" (Rev 5:1-5, Rev 5:9; Rev 6:1).
Verse 12
The unlearned succeed no better than the learned, not from want of human learning, as they fancy, but from not having the teaching of God (Isa 54:13; Jer 31:34; Joh 6:45; Co1 2:7-10; Jo1 2:20).
Verse 13
precept of men--instead of the precepts of God, given by His prophets; also worship external, and by rule, not heartfelt as God requires (Joh 4:24). Compare Christ's quotation of this verse from the Septuagint.
Verse 14
(Hab 1:5; Act 13:41). The "marvellous work" is one of unparalleled vengeance on the hypocrites: compare "strange work," Isa 28:21. The judgment, too, will visit the wise in that respect in which they most pride themselves; their wisdom shall be hid, that is, shall no longer appear, so as to help the nation in its distress (compare Co1 1:19).
Verse 15
seek deep to hide--rather, "That seek to hide deeply," &c. (compare Isa 30:1-2). The reference is to the secret plan which many of the Jewish nobles had of seeking Egyptian aid against Assyria, contrary to the advice of Isaiah. At the same time the hypocrite in general is described, who, under a plausible exterior, tries to hide his real character, not only from men, but even from God.
Verse 16
Rather, "Ah! your perverseness! just as if the potter should be esteemed as the clay!" [MAURER]. Or, "Ye invert (turn upside down) the order of things, putting yourselves instead of God," and vice versa, just as if the potter should be esteemed as the clay [HORSLEY], (Isa 45:9; Isa 64:8).
Verse 17
turned--as contrasted with your "turnings of things upside down" (Isa 29:16), there shall be other and better turnings or revolutions; the outpouring of the Spirit in the latter days (Isa 32:15); first on the Jews; which shall be followed by their national restoration (see on Isa 29:2; Zac 12:10) then on the Gentiles (Joe 2:28). fruitful field--literally, "a Carmel" (see on Isa 10:18). The moral change in the Jewish nation shall be as great as if the wooded Lebanon were to become a fruitful field, and vice versa. Compare Mat 11:12, Greek: "the kingdom of heaven forces itself," as it were, on man's acceptance; instead of men having to seek Messiah, as they had John, in a desert, He presents Himself before them with loving invitations; thus men's hearts, once a moral desert, are reclaimed so as to bear fruits of righteousness: vice versa, the ungodly who seemed prosperous, both in the moral and literal sense, shall be exhibited in their real barrenness.
Verse 18
deaf . . . blind--(Compare Mat 11:5). The spiritually blind, &c., are chiefly meant; "the book," as Revelation is called pre-eminently, shall be no longer "sealed," as is described (Isa 29:11), but the most unintelligent shall hear and see (Isa 35:5).
Verse 19
meek--rather, the afflicted godly: the idea is, virtuous suffering (Isa 61:1; Psa 25:9; Psa 37:11) [BARNES]. poor among men--that is, the poorest of men, namely, the pious poor. rejoice--when they see their oppressors punished (Isa 29:20-21), and Jehovah exhibited as their protector and rewarder (Isa 29:22-24; Isa 41:17; Jam 2:5).
Verse 20
terrible--namely, the persecutors among the Jewish nobles. scorner-- (Isa 28:14, Isa 28:22). watch for--not only commit iniquity, but watch for opportunities of committing it, and make it their whole study (see Mic 2:1; Mat 26:59; Mat 27:1).
Verse 21
Rather, "Who make a man guilty in his cause" [GESENIUS], that is, unjustly condemn him. "A man" is in the Hebrew a poor man, upon whom such unjust condemnations might be practiced with more impunity than on the rich; compare Isa 29:19, "the meek . . . the poor." him that reproveth--rather, "pleadeth"; one who has a suit at issue. gate--the place of concourse in a city, where courts of justice were held (Rut 4:11; Pro 31:23; Amo 5:10, Amo 5:12). just--one who has a just cause; or, Jesus Christ, "the Just One" [HORSLEY]. for a thing of naught--rather, "through falsehood," "by a decision that is null in justice" [BARNES]. Compare as to Christ, Pro 28:21; Mat 26:15; Act 3:13-14; Act 8:33.
Verse 22
Join "saith . . . concerning the house of Jacob." redeemed--out of Ur, a land of idolaters (Jos 24:3). not now--After the moral revolution described (Isa 29:17), the children of Jacob shall no longer give cause to their forefathers to blush for them. wax pale--with shame and disappointment at the wicked degeneracy of his posterity, and fear as to their punishment.
Verse 23
But--rather, "For." he--Jacob. work of mine hands--spiritually, as well as physically (Isa 19:25; Isa 60:21; Eph 2:10). By Jehovah's agency Israel shall be cleansed of its corruptions, and shall consist wholly of pious men (Isa 54:13-14; Isa 2:1; Isa 60:21). midst of him--that is, his land. Or else "His children" are the Gentiles adopted among the Israelites, his lineal descendants (Rom 9:26; Eph 3:6) [HORSLEY].
Verse 24
They . . . that erred-- (Isa 28:7). learn doctrine--rather, "shall receive discipline" or "instruction." "Murmuring" was the characteristic of Israel's rebellion against God (Exo 16:8; Psa 106:25). This shall be so no more. Chastisements, and, in HORSLEY'S view, the piety of the Gentiles provoking the Jews to holy jealousy (Rom 11:11, Rom 11:14), shall then produce the desired effect. Jewish ambassadors were now on their way to Egypt to seek aid against Assyria (Isa 30:2-6, Isa 30:15; Isa 31:1). Isaiah denounces this reliance on Egypt rather than on Jehovah. God had prohibited such alliances with heathen nations, and it was a leading part of Jewish polity that they should be a separate people (Exo 23:32; Deu 7:2). Next: Isaiah Chapter 30
Introduction
INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 29 This chapter contains a prophecy concerning the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem by the Romans; the character and condition of the people of the Jews, previous to it; the calling of the Gentiles, by the preaching of the Gospel; the ruin of antichrist, and the conversion of the Jews, in the latter day. The siege and destruction of Jerusalem are described in Isa 29:1 the disappointment of their enemies, notwithstanding their taking and destroying it, Isa 29:7 the stupidity, judicial blindness, and hardness of the Jews, which brought on their ruin, are predicted, Isa 29:9 the ignorance of their learned, as well as of their unlearned men, with respect to the Scripture, and the prophecies of it, Isa 29:11 their hypocrisy and formality in worship, Isa 29:13 a blast upon all their wisdom and prudence, who thought to be wiser than the Lord, and too many for him, whose folly and atheism are exposed, Isa 29:14, and a great change both in Judea and the Gentile world, by the removal of the Gospel from the one to the other, Isa 29:17 the effects of which are, deaf sinners hear the word, dark minds are enlightened, and joy increased among the meek and poor, Isa 29:18 the fall of the Jews, or else of antichrist, is foretold, Isa 29:20 and the chapter is closed with a promise and prophecy of the conversion of the seed of Abraham and Jacob, Isa 29:22.
Verse 1
Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt,.... Many Jewish writers by "Ariel" understand the altar of burnt offerings; and so the Targum, "woe, altar, altar, which was built in the city where David dwelt;'' and so it is called in Eze 43:15 it signifies "the lion of God"; and the reason why it is so called, the Jews say (i), is, because the fire lay upon it in the form of a lion; but rather the reason is, because it devoured the sacrifices that were laid upon it, as a lion does its prey; though others of them interpret it of the temple, which they say was built like a lion, narrow behind and broad before (k); but it seems better to understand it of the city of Jerusalem, in which David encamped, as the word (l) signifies; or "encamped against", as some; which he besieged, and took from the Jebusites, and fortified, and dwelt in; and which may be so called from its strength and fortifications, natural and artificial, and from its being the chief city of Judah, called a lion, Gen 49:9 whose standard had a lion on it, and from whence came the Messiah, the Lion of the tribe of Judah; or rather from its cruelty in shedding the blood of the prophets, and was, as the Lord says, as a lion unto him that cried against him, Jer 12:8 and so the words may be considered as of one calling to Jerusalem, and lamenting over it, as Christ did, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets", &c. Mat 23:37 and the mention of David's name, and of his dwelling in it, is not only to point out what city is meant, and the greatness and glory of it; but to show that this would not secure it from ruin and destruction (m): add ye year to year; which some understand of two precise years, at the end of which Jerusalem should be besieged by the army of Sennacherib; but that is not here meant. Cocceius thinks that large measure of time is meant, that one year is the length of time from David's dwelling in Jerusalem to the Babylonish captivity; and the other year from the time of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah to the destruction by the Romans, which is more likely; but rather the sense is, go on from year to year in your security and vain confidence; or keep your yearly feasts, and offer your yearly sacrifices; as follows: let them kill sacrifices; the daily and yearly sacrifices; let the people bring them, and the priests offer them, for the time is coming when an end will be put to them; "the feasts shall be cut off": so the words may be rendered; the festivals shall cease, and be no more observed; and so the Targum, "the festivities shall cease;'' or, feasts being put for lambs, so in Psa 118:27 as Ben Melech observes, the sense is, their heads should be cut off (n). (i) Yoma apud Jarchi in loc. (k) T. Bab. Middot, fol. 37. 1. (l) "castrametatus est", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius; "castra habuit", Piscator. (m) The words are rendered by Noldius, "woe to Ariel, to Ariel: to the city in which David encamped"; and he observes, that some supply the copulative "and; woe to Ariel, and to the city", &c.; So making them distinct, which seems best to agree with the accents, and may respect the destruction both of their ecclesiastic and civil state; the temple being designed by "Ariel", and "Jerusalem" by the city. See Concord. Ebr. Part. p. 183. No. 842. (n) "agni excervicabuntur", Montanus; "excidentur", Vatablus; "jugulentur", Munster.
Verse 2
Yet I will distress Ariel,.... Or "straiten" it, by causing it to be besieged; and this he would do, notwithstanding their yearly sacrifices, and their observance of their solemn feasts, and other ceremonies of the law, in which they placed their confidence, and neglected weightier matters: and there shall be heaviness and sorrow; on account of the siege; by reason of the devastations of the enemy without, made on all the cities and towns in Judea round about; and because of the famine and bloodshed in the city: and it shall be unto me as Ariel; the whole city shall be as the altar; as that was covered with the blood and carcasses of slain beasts, so this with the blood and carcasses of men; and so the Targum, "and I will distress the city where the altar is, and it shall be desolate and empty; and it shall be surrounded before me with the blood of the slain, as the altar is surrounded with the blood of the holy sacrifices on a solemn feast day all around;'' so Jarchi and Kimchi.
Verse 3
And I will camp against thee round about,.... Or as a "ball" or "globe" (o); a camp all around; the Lord is said to do that which the enemy should do, because it was by his will, and according to his order, and which he would succeed and prosper, and therefore the prophecy of it is the more terrible; and it might be concluded that it would certainly be fulfilled, as it was; see Luk 19:43, and will lay siege against thee with a mount: raised up for soldiers to get up upon, and cast their arrows into the city from, and scale the walls; Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it a wooden tower. This cannot be understood of Sennacherib's siege, for he was not suffered to raise a bank against the city, nor shoot an arrow into it, Isa 37:33 but well agrees with the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, as related by Josephus (p): and I will raise forts against thee; from whence to batter the city; the Romans had their battering rams. (o) "quasi pila", Piscator; "instar globi", Gataker. (p) Joseph. de Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 1. & c. 12. sect. 1, 2.
Verse 4
And thou shalt be brought down,.... To the ground, and laid level with it, even the city of Jerusalem, as it was by the Romans; and as it was predicted by Christ it would, Luk 19:44 though some understand this of the humbling of the inhabitants of it, by the appearance of Sennacherib's army before it, and of which they interpret the following clauses: and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust; which some explain of the submissive language of Hezekiah to Sennacherib, and of his messengers to Rabshakeh, Kg2 18:14 as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; but it is expressive of the great famine in Jerusalem, at the time of its siege by the Romans, when the inhabitants were so reduced by it, as that they were scarce able to speak as to be heard, and could not stand upon their legs, but fell to the ground, and lay in the dust, uttering from thence their speech, with a faint and feeble voice: and thy voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust: or peep and chirp, as little birds, as Jarchi and Kimchi, as those did that had familiar spirits; and as the Heathen oracles were delivered, as if they came out of the bellies of those that spoke, or out of caves and hollow places in the earth; and this was in just retaliation to these people, who imitated such practices, and made use of such spirits; see Isa 8:19.
Verse 5
Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust,.... Or "of those that fan thee" (q), as the Vulgate Latin Version; and so the Targum, "of those that scatter thee;'' or of thine enemies, as others; meaning the Romans, who were a strange people to them, who got the dominion over them, and scattered them abroad in the world: and the simile of "small dust", to which they are compared, is not used to express the weakness of them, but the greatness of their number, which was not to be counted, any more than the dust of the earth; see Num 23:10, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away; designing the same numerous army of the Romans as before, who were terrible to the Jews: nor does this metaphor signify any imbecility in them, and much less the ruin of them, but their swiftness in executing the judgments of God upon his people, who moved as quick as chaff, or any such light thing, before a mighty wind: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly; either the numerous army should be suddenly before Jerusalem, or the destruction of that city should be as it were in a moment; and though the siege of it lasted long, yet the last sack and ruin of it was suddenly, and in so short a time, that it might be said to be in an instant, in a moment, as it were. The Jewish writers interpret this of the sudden destruction of Sennacherib's army by the angel, Kg2 19:35 but the next words show that the destruction of Jerusalem is meant. (q) "ventilantium te", V. L. "dispergentium te", Vatablus, so Targum; "hostium tuorum", Pagninus, Cocceius.
Verse 6
Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise,.... That is, not the multitude of strangers and terrible ones, unless they could be understood of the wicked among the Jews; but thou Ariel, or Jerusalem, shalt be punished by the Lord of hosts; for this visitation or punishment was from him, for their sins and iniquities; the Romans were only the instruments he made use of, and the executioners of his vengeance; which was attended with thunder in the heavens, a shaking of the earth, and a great noise or voice heard in the temple, saying, let us depart hence; at which time comets were seen in the heavens, and chariots and armed men in the air, and one of the gates of the temple opened of itself (r): it is added, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire; with which the temple was burnt by the Roman army, when it came in like a storm and tempest, and carried all before it. (r) Joseph. de Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 5. sect. 5.
Verse 7
And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,.... The Roman army, which consisted of men of all nations, that fought against Jerusalem; the city in which was the altar, as the Targum paraphrases it: even all that fight against her, and her munition, and that distress her; that besieged it, and endeavoured to demolish its walls, towns, and fortifications, as they did: shall be as a dream of a night vision: meaning either that the Roman empire should quickly fall, and pass away, and come to nothing, like a dream in the night, as it soon began to decay after the destruction of Jerusalem, and also the Pagan religion in it; or that the Roman army would be disappointed at the taking of the city, expecting to find much riches, and a great spoil, and should not; and so be like a man that dreams, and fancies he is in the possession of what he craves, but, when he awakes, finds he has got nothing. This is more largely exemplified in the following verse Isa 29:8.
Verse 8
It shall be even as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth,.... That is, he dreams of food, and imagines it before him, and that he is really eating it: but he awaketh, and his soul is empty; his stomach is empty when he awakes, and he finds he has not ate anything at all: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh: who fancies that he has got a cup of liquor in his hand, and at his mouth, and is drinking it with a great deal of eagerness and pleasure: but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite; when he awakes, he is not at all refreshed with his imaginary drinking, but still desires liquor to revive his fainting spirits, and extinguish his thirst: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against Mount Zion; either shall quickly perish; or, having raised their expectations, and pleased themselves with the booty they should obtain, of which they thought themselves sure, shall find themselves mistaken, and all like an illusive dream. Some interpret this of the disappointment of Sennacherib's army; and others of the insatiable cruelty of the Chaldeans; but rather, if the above sense pleases not, it would be better to understand it of the Jews, who, amidst their greatest danger, flattered themselves with the hope of deliverance, which was all a dream and an illusion; and to which sense the following words seem to incline.
Verse 9
Stay yourselves, and wonder,.... Stop a while, pause a little, consider within yourselves the case and circumstances of these people, and wonder at their stupidity. Kimchi thinks these words were spoken in the times of Ahaz, with respect to the men of Judah; and so Aben Ezra says, they are directed to the men of Zion; and it is generally thought that they are spoken to the more religious and sober part of them; though, by the following verse Isa 29:10, it appears that the case was general, and that the people to whom this address is made were as stupid as others: cry ye out, and cry; or, "delight yourselves" (s), as in the margin; take your pleasure, indulge yourselves in carnal mirth, gratify your sensual appetite in rioting and wantonness, and then "cry" and lament, as you will have reason to do. Kimchi says, his father rendered the words, "awake yourselves, and awake others"; that is, from that deep sleep they were fallen into, afterwards mentioned: they are drunken, but not with wine; not with that only, for otherwise many of them were given to drunkenness in a literal sense, Isa 28:7 but they were like drunken men, as stupid, senseless, and secure, though in the utmost danger: they stagger, but not with strong drink; unsteady in their counsels and resolutions, in their principles and practices, and stumble in their goings. (s) "oblectate vos", Cocceius; "delicias agunt", Junius & Tremellius; "deliciantur", Piscator.
Verse 10
For the Lord hath poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep,.... Gave them up to a stupid frame of spirit; to a reprobate mind, a mind void of judgment and sense; to judicial blindness and hardness of heart: this was remarkably fulfilled in the Jews, in the times of Christ and his apostles, who choosing darkness rather than the light of the Gospel, which shone around them, were righteously given up to such a temper of mind; and to nothing else can be imputed their obstinate rejection of the Messiah, against the most glaring light and evidence. The Apostle Paul produces this passage, in proof of that blindness that had happened unto them in his time, Rom 11:7, and hath closed your eyes; that is, the eyes of their understandings, so that they could not see the characters of the Messiah, and the fulfilment of prophecies in Jesus of Nazareth; nor the danger they were in, nor the ruin that was coming upon their nation, nor even when it was come, still flattering themselves with safety and deliverance: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered; the eyes of them, as before; not only the common people were blinded, but even the Scribes and Pharisees, the elders of the people, their ecclesiastical rulers, who pretended to be seers, and to know more than others; even "for judgment", for the judicial blindness and hardness of these Christ "came, that they which see might be made blind", Joh 9:39. The words may be rendered, "your heads, the seers, hath he covered" (t); and there may be an allusion to the covering of the head with a veil, an emblem of that veil of ignorance and infidelity which still remains upon the Jews. The Targum renders it, "the prophets, and the Scribes, and the teachers that teach the law.'' (t) "et capita vestra, videntes, operuit", Montanus. So Cocceius.
Verse 11
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed,.... The prophecies of all the prophets contained in the Scriptures; or all the prophecies in the book of Isaiah, concerning the Messiah, were no more seen, known, and understood, both by the priests and the people, than if they had been in a book, written, rolled up, and sealed. And this was owing, not to the obscurity of these writings, or because they were really sealed up, but to the blindness and stupidity of the people, whose eyes were closed, and their heads covered; and the prophecies of the Scriptures were only so to them, "unto you", not unto others; not to the apostles of Christ, whose understandings were opened by him, to understand the things written concerning him, in the law, in the prophets, and in the psalms; but the Jewish rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, as well as the common people, understood them not, though they were the means of fulfilling many of them; and they were as ignorant of the prophecies concerning their own ruin and destruction, for their rejection of Christ; see Luk 24:27, which men deliver to one that is learned; or, "that knows the book" (u); or "letters", as the Septuagint; see Joh 7:15 such were the Scribes, called or "letter men", men that could read well, and understood language: saying, Read this, I pray thee; or read this now, as the Targum, and interpret it, and tell the meaning of it: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed; which Kimchi says was an excuse invented, because he had no mind to read it, or otherwise he could have said, open, and I will read it; or he might have broke off the seal; but knowing there were difficult things, and things hard to be understood, in it, did not care to look into it, and read it, and attempt to explain it to others. (u) "scienti librum", Montanus; , Sept.; "scienti literas", V. L. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius.
Verse 12
And the book is delivered to him that is not learned,.... Or that knows not a book or letters, as before, and so consequently cannot read, having never been put to school, or learned to read: saying, Read this, I pray thee; or "now" (w), at once, immediately: and he saith, I am not learned; he does not excuse himself on account of its being sealed, but on account of his want of learning; which shows the former was but an excuse. In short, the sum of it is this, that neither the learned nor unlearned, among the Jews, cared to read their Bibles, or to search the Scriptures, and the prophecies in them, concerning the Messiah, and that neither of them understood them; these things were hid from the wise and prudent, as well as from the ignorant and unlearned of the people, in common, and were only made known to a few babes and sucklings. There was great ignorance of the Scriptures in the times of Christ, to which these passages truly belong, Mat 11:25. (w) "nunc", Pagninus, Montanus.
Verse 13
Wherefore the Lord said,.... Concerning the hypocritical people of the Jews in Christ's time, as the words are applied by our Lord himself, Mat 15:7, Forasmuch as this people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me; Kimchi observes, there is a double reading of the word rendered "draw near": in one reading of it, it signifies to be "afflicted"; and then the sense is, "when this people are afflicted, with their mouth, and with their lips, they honour me"; that is, when they are in distress, they pray unto him, and profess a great regard for him, speak honourably of him, and reverently to him, hoping he will help and relieve them; see Isa 26:16 but the other reading of the word, in which it has the signification of "drawing near", is confirmed, not only by the Masora on the text, but by the citation of it in Mat 15:7 and designs the approach of these people to God, in acts of religion and devotion, in praying to him, and praising of him, and expressing great love and affection for him, and zeal for his cause and interest; but were all outwardly, with their lips and mouths only: but have removed their heart far from me; these were not employed in his service, which is the main thing he requires and regards, but were engaged elsewhere; while their bodies were presented before him, and their mouths and lips were moving to him, their affections were not set upon him, nor the desires of their souls unto him, nor had they any real hearty concern for his glory: and their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men; their worship of God was not according to the prescription of God, and his revealed will; but according to the traditions of the elders, which they preferred to the word of God, and, by observing them, transgressed it, and made it of no effect; see Mat 15:3.
Verse 14
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people,.... Because of their hypocrisy and formality, their regard to men, their doctrines and commandments, and not to the will and word of God, therefore he determines "to deal marvellously with this people": even a marvellous work, and a wonder; that is, something exceedingly marvellous, which would be matter of astonishment to everyone that observed it; and is as follows: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid; and be no more: this was eminently fulfilled in the wise men, the doctors and learned Rabbins of the Jews; and they themselves own (x), that, from the time the temple was destroyed, the wise men became like to Scribes, and the Scribes to those that looked after the synagogues, and these became like the common people, and they grew worse and worse: and Maimonides acknowledges (y), that this respects their present case; he says, when the Heathen princes destroyed their best things, took away their wisdom, and their books, and killed their wise men, they became ignorant and unlearned; which evil God threatened them for their iniquities, as is said in this passage: and also this had its accomplishment in the wise philosophers of the Gentiles; see Co1 1:18. (x) Misna Sota, c. 9. sect. 15. (y) More Nevochim, par. 2. c. 11. p. 212.
Verse 15
Woe unto them,.... Or, "O ye", that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord; which they consulted against Christ, to take away his life, to persecute his apostles, and hinder the spread of his Gospel; which though they consulted in private, and formed deep schemes, imagining they were not observed by the Lord, yet he that sits in the heaven saw them, and laughed at their vain imaginations, Psa 2:1, and their works are in the dark; in the dark night, as if the darkness could conceal them from the all seeing eye of God; such works are truly works of darkness, but cannot be hid, though they flatter themselves they will: and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? as no man, they imagined, did, so not God himself; into such atheism do wicked men sink, when desirous of bringing their schemes into execution, they have taken great pains to form; and which they please themselves are so deeply laid, as that they cannot fail of succeeding; but hear what follows Isa 29:16.
Verse 16
Surely your turning of things upside down,.... Revolving things in their minds, throwing them into different shapes, forming various schemes, and inverting the order of things by their deep counsels, and seeking to hide things from the Lord: or, "O the perverseness of you" (z); in imagining and saying that no eye saw, nor anyone knew, what they did, not the Lord himself. So the Vulgate Latin version, "this is your perverse thought"; namely, what is before related. The Targum is, "do you seek to pervert your works?'' Our version joins it with what follows; though a stop should be made here, because of the accent: shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: their perverse counsels and designs shall be made of no more account with God, and be as easily turned about and brought to nought, as the clay can be formed, and shaped, and marred by the potter, at his pleasure: "if" or "surely as the potter's clay shall it be esteemed", as the words may be rendered; or it may refer to their persons, as well as their counsels. So the Septuagint version, "shall ye not be reckoned as the potter's clay?" ye shall. To which agrees the Targum, "behold, as the clay in the hand of the potter, so are ye accounted before me;'' who could do with them just as seemed good in his sight. De Dieu renders them, "shall the potter be reckoned as the clay?" Such was the stupidity and perverseness of the Jews, in endeavouring to hide their counsels from the Lord, and in fancying that he did not see and know them, that they thought God was like themselves; which is all one as if the potter was reckoned as the clay, for they were the clay, and God the potter. The Vulgate Latin version is, "as if the clay could think against the potter"; contrive schemes to counterwork him; which, to imagine, was not more stupid, than to think they could do anything against the Lord: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? to say that God does not know what is done by his creatures, is in effect to say that he did not make them; for he that made them must needs know their actions, and even the very thoughts of their hearts; as he that makes a watch knows all that is in it, and the motions of it: or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? or judgment, did not know how to make it as it should be. So the Septuagint version, "thou hast not made me wisely"; or he did not understand the work itself, the make and fashion of it. So the Targum, "thou does not understand me.'' This might as well be said, as for a creature to pretend that God does not know what and where he is, or what he is doing. (z) So some in Gataker; "subversio vestra", Pagninus, Montanus.
Verse 17
Is it not yet a very little while,.... In a short space of time, in a few years, what follows would come to pass; when there would be a strange change and alteration made in the world, and by which it would appear, that the Lord not only knows, but foreknows, all things: and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field; the forest of Lebanon should be as Carmel. The meaning is, that the Gentile world, which was like a forest uncultivated, and full of unfruitful trees, to which wicked men may be compared, should through the preaching of the Gospel be manured, become God's husbandry, and be like a fruitful field, abounding with people and churches, fruitful in grace and good works: and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? the people of the Jews, who once had the word and ordinances of God, and were a fruitful and flourishing people in religion; through their rejection of the Messiah, and contempt of his Gospel, should be deprived of all their privileges, and become like a forest or barren land: this was fulfilled, when the kingdom of God was taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it, Mat 21:43. See Isa 32:15.
Verse 18
And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book,.... That is, in the Gospel day, or times of the Gospel dispensation, when that should be preached to the Gentiles; who before were deaf, but now should be made to hear, and be willing to hear, and hear so as to understand the doctrines contained in the Scriptures, the prophecies of them concerning the Messiah; even the words of that book that is sealed to the Jews, and could not be read, neither by the learned nor unlearned among them; but should be both read, heard, and understood, by the Gentiles, having ears given them to hear the Gospel, to receive its doctrines, and obey its ordinances: and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness; such, who before were blind and ignorant as to spiritual things, being called, through the ministry of the word, out of darkness into marvellous light, and their eyes being opened by it, should now see their sin and misery, their lost and dangerous estate, the way of life and salvation by Christ, the great and glorious truths of the Gospel, and what eye has not seen, nor ear heard.
Verse 19
The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord,.... The "meek", lowly, and humble, are such who are made sensible of sin, and become humble under a sense of it; who see the insufficiency of their own righteousness, and submit to the righteousness of Christ; who attribute all they have, and are, to the free grace of God, and quietly submit to every dispensation of Providence; who are not easily provoked by men, but bear much and long without reviling; who envy not those that are above them in gifts and grace, nor despise those that are below them, and think the worst of themselves, and the best of others; now these have joy in the Lord, in the Word of the Lord, as the Targum, in the Lord Jesus Christ; in the greatness and glory of his person as Jehovah, and so able to save to the uttermost; in him as the Lord their righteousness; in his blood and sacrifice, for the pardon and expiation of their sins; in his fulness as theirs, to supply their wants; in his salvation, being so great, so full, so free, and suitable to them: and whereas their joy may be interrupted through the corruptions of their hearts, the temptations of Satan, and divine desertions, they "shall add" (a) joy in the Lord, as in the original; they shall repeat it, it shall come again, it shall be restored unto them, and they shall afresh exercise it, and "increase" in it, as we render it; for spiritual joy may be increased by the discoveries of the love of God; by fresh views of Christ, through an increase of knowledge of him, and faith in him; by means of meditation and prayer, and by reading and hearing the word: and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel; or, "the poorest of men" (b), who were so in a literal sense; for such were the persons, both among Jews and Gentiles, who in the first times of the Gospel were brought to the knowledge of Christ, and faith in him, Mat 11:4 or such who are "poor in spirit"; not only spiritually poor, but who are sensible of their spiritual poverty, and apply to Christ for the true riches of grace: the words may be rendered, "Adam's poor"; such who are impoverished by Adam's fall, and are sensible of it; these, perceiving durable riches and righteousness, even unsearchable riches, in Christ, rejoice in him, "the Holy One of Israel"; who is holy in himself, the sanctifier of others, and is made satisfaction to all his people. The Targum is, "in the word of the Holy One of Israel.'' This joy is not carnal, but spiritual; it is the fruit of the Spirit of God, and is called joy in the Holy Ghost; as it also is the joy of faith, which goes along with it, is through it, and increases as that does; it is peculiar to believers, unknown to the world, and is unspeakable, and full of glory: and such kind of rejoicing, and an increase of it, are what belong to Gospel times. (a) "et addent", V. L. Pagninus: Montanus, (b) "mendici hominum", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus; "egentissimi hominum", Junius & Tremellius.
Verse 20
For the terrible one is brought to nought,.... Who before was so to the people of God; meaning not Sennacherib king of Assyria, but some formidable enemy or enemies under the Gospel dispensation; as the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Jewish sanhedrim; who were "violent" (c), as it may be rendered, violent persecutors of the followers of Christ, the meek and poor before described; who were brought to nought, and their power ceased at the destruction of Jerusalem; and the Roman emperor, with all subordinate rulers and governors in the empire, who harassed the Christians in a terrible manner, but were at last brought to nought by Constantine, and their persecution ceased; and the Romish antichrist, who has been so terrible, that none could or dared oppose him; he in a little time will be brought to nought, and cease to be. The Septuagint version renders it, "the wicked one faileth"; and uses the same word (d), by which antichrist is described, Th2 2:8 also Satan, that terrible enemy of the saints, shall be brought to nought; first bound for a thousand years; and afterwards, being loosed, shall be taken again, and cast into the lake of fire; all which will be matter of joy to the meek and lowly: and the scorner is consumed; the same as before, only represented under a different character; the Jew, that mocked at Christ, because of his meanness, and that of his followers, that scoffed at his doctrines and miracles; and the Gentile, that derided his cross, and the preaching of it; and antichrist, whose mouth is full of blasphemies against God, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in it: and all that watch for iniquity are cut off; that cannot sleep unless they commit it, and seek for and take all opportunities of doing it; or watch for iniquity in others, in Christ, and the professors of his religion; or for anything they could call so, that they might have something to accuse them of, and charge them with, and a pretence to proceed against them in colour of law and justice: which has been the practice of Jews, Pagans, and Papists. (c) "violentus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius. (d)
Verse 21
That make a man an offender for a word,.... Inadvertently spoken, unwarily dropped, without any bad design or ill meaning; or for a word misplaced or misconstrued; or for preaching and professing the word of God, the Gospel of salvation, and adhering to it; which is the true character of the persecutors of good men in all ages: some render the words, "who make a man sin by a word" (e); by their words and doctrines; and so apply it to the false prophets, as Jarchi does; and very well agrees with the Pharisees in Christ's time, who made men to sin, to transgress the word of God, by their traditions. The Targum is, "who condemn the sons of men by their words;'' or for them; particularly for their words of reproof, for which they make them offenders, or pronounce them guilty, as follows: and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate; either for just judges, who sat in the gate of the city, and faithfully reproved and punished men for their sins; or for such that had boldness and courage enough to reprove wicked men openly, and before all, for their wickedness, the gate being a public place, where people pass and repass; and such that sin openly should be reproved openly; and particularly the true prophets of the Lord may be referred to, who sometimes were sent to publish their messages, which were frequently reproofs of the people, in the gates of the city; but, above all, Christ seems to be respected, who in the most public manner inveighed against the Scribes and Pharisees for their wickedness, on account of which they sought to entangle him in his talk, and to lay snares for his life; see Mat 22:15, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought; the Targum is, "that falsely pervert the judgment of the innocent;'' that turn away their judgment, decline doing them justice, but condemn them on frivolous pretences, for just nothing at all, what is mere emptiness and vanity: Christ is eminently the "just" One, righteous in himself, and the author of righteousness to others; yet, on account of things for which there were no foundation, and contrary to all justice, he was proceeded against as a criminal. (e) "qui verbie faciunt ut peccent homines", Castalio; "peccare facientes hominem in verbo", Pagninus, Montanus. And to the same sense the Septuagint, V. L. Syr. and Arab.
Verse 22
Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham,.... That brought him from Ur of the Chaldees; that freed him from idolatry, and from a vain conversation before conversion, and delivered him from many evils and dangers afterwards; and saved him with an everlasting salvation, through the Messiah, the great Redeemer, that sprung from him, and took on him the nature of the seed of Abraham: concerning the house of Jacob; his family and posterity, the whole body of the Jewish people; or rather the church of God in Gospel times, consisting of the posterity of Jacob; that trod in his steps, plain hearted Christians, Israelites indeed, praying souls, wrestling Jacobs, and prevailing Israels; of whom the Lord speaks the following things: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale; as formerly, when those that descended from Jacob rejected the Messiah, traduced his character, as if he was the worst of men; blasphemed his person, doctrines, and miracles; spit upon him, buffeted, scourged, and crucified him; which filled those of the same descent and nation, that believed in him, with shame and confusion, so that their faces blushed, or turned pale or white; but now this should be no longer their case, because of the conversion and salvation of that people in the latter day, which is predicted in the next verse Isa 29:23, with which this is connected.
Verse 23
But when he seeth his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him,.... That is, it will be a pleasure to the church of God, signified by Jacob, when they shall observe a great number of Jacob's posterity, or of the Jews, born again, become the "children" of the church, born in her, and nursed up at her side, dandled on her knees, and sucking at the breasts of her consolation; and so in the midst of her, members of her, and in communion with her, having been begotten again, by means of her ministers, through the Gospel, by the Spirit and grace of God; and so "the work of his hands", his new creatures, formed for and by himself; his workmanship, created in Jesus Christ, curiously wrought by his hands, as well as engraven on them: they shall sanctify my name; meaning either the spiritual seed of Jacob, those regenerated ones, the nation that shall be born at once; these shall sanctify the name of the Lord, not by making, but by declaring him to be holy; by believing in his name; by seeking to him for righteousness and holiness; by embracing his doctrines, and submitting to his ordinances; which will add to the pleasure of the church of Christ. So the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "but when he seeth his children---sanctifying my name"; or else Jacob, that is, the church of Christ, is here meant, who, upon seeing such a large number of Jewish converts, shall sanctify the name of the Lord, or give him praise and glory on account of it; which is repeated with some addition, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel; reverence his name and his sanctuary, his word and his ordinances, worship him inwardly and outwardly, fear the Lord and his goodness, both the church and these new converts, Hos 3:5.
Verse 24
They also that erred in spirit,.... In judgment, and in spiritual things; as the Jews have done, ever since the Messiah's coming, being given up to a spirit of error, as the Targum, on Isa 29:10 calls it; they have erred concerning the Scriptures, and the prophecies of them; concerning the Messiah, his work and office; concerning his truths and his ordinances, and by preferring their traditions to the word of God: but these shall come to understanding; to a spiritual understanding of Christ, and salvation by him; of his Gospel, and the doctrines of it; as well as of themselves, their state and condition: and they that murmured; at Christ, and what was delivered by him; at the reception of sinners by him; at the calling of the Gentiles; and at the providence of God that have attended them, ever since their rejection of the true Messiah: shall learn doctrine; the doctrine of the Messiah; not the law, as Kimchi and Ben Melech; but the Gospel, which Christ "received" from his Father, as the word (f) used signifies, and his disciples received from him, and the church has received from them, and has been transmitted to us Gentiles, and will be to the Jews in the latter day, who will learn the true knowledge of it. (f) a "capere, accipere, est id quod aliquis sibi sumit dicendum", Gusset. Ebr. Comment. p. 443. Next: Isaiah Chapter 30
Introduction
This woe to Ariel, which we have in this chapter, is the same with the "burden of the valley of vision" (Isa 22:1), and (it is very probable) points at the same event - the besieging of Jerusalem by the Assyrian army, which was cut off there by an angel; yet it is applicable to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and its last desolations by the Romans. Here is, I. The event itself foretold, that Jerusalem should be greatly distressed (Isa 29:1-4, Isa 29:6), but that their enemies, who distressed them, should be baffled and defeated (Isa 29:5, Isa 29:7, Isa 29:8). II. A reproof to three sorts of sinners: - 1. Those that were stupid, and regardless of the warnings which the prophet gave them (Isa 29:9-12). 2. Those that were formal and hypocritical in their religious performances (Isa 29:13, Isa 29:14). 3. Those politicians that atheistically and profanely despised God's providence, and set up their own projects in competition with it (Isa 29:15, Isa 29:16). III. Precious promises of grace and mercy to a distinguished remnant whom God would sanctify, and in whom he would be sanctified, when their enemies and persecutors should be cut off (Isa 29:17-24).
Verse 1
That it is Jerusalem which is here called Ariel is agreed, for that was the city where David dwelt; that part of it which was called Zion was in a particular manner the city of David, in which both the temple and the palace were. But why it is so called is very uncertain: probably the name and the reason were then well known. Cities, as well as persons, get surnames and nicknames. Ariel signifies the lion of God, or the strong lion: as the lion is king among beasts, so was Jerusalem among the cities, giving law to all about her; it was the city of the great King (Psa 48:1, Psa 48:2); it was the head-city of Judah, who is called a lion's whelp (Gen 49:9) and whose ensign was a lion; and he that is the lion of the tribe of Judah was the glory of it. Jerusalem was a terror sometimes to the neighbouring nations, and, while she was a righteous city, was bold as a lion. Some make Ariel to signify the altar of burnt-offerings, which devoured the beasts offered in sacrifice as the lion does his prey. Woe to that altar in the city where David dwelt; that was destroyed with the temple by the Chaldeans. I rather take it as a woe to Jerusalem, Jerusalem; it is repeated here, as it is Mat 23:37, that it might be the more awakening. Here is, I. The distress of Jerusalem foretold. Though Jerusalem be a strong city, as a lion, though a holy city, as a lion of God, yet, if iniquity be found there, woe be to it. It was the city where David dwelt; it was he that brought that to it which was its glory, and which made it a type of the gospel church, and his dwelling in it was typical of Christ's residence in his church. This mentioned as an aggravation of Jerusalem's sin, that in it were set both the testimony of Israel and the thrones of the house of David. 1. Let Jerusalem know that her external performance of religious services will not serve as an exemption from the judgments of God (Isa 29:1): "Add year to year; go on in the road of your annual feasts, let all your males appear there three times a year before the Lord, and none empty, according to the law and custom, and let them never miss any of these solemnities: let them kill the sacrifices, as they used to do; but, as long as their lives are unreformed and their hearts unhumbled, let them not think thus to pacify an offended God and to turn away his wrath." Note, Hypocrites may be found in a constant track of devout exercises, and treading around in them, and with these they may flatter themselves, but can never please God nor make their peace with him. 2. Let her know that God is coming forth against her in displeasure, that she shall be visited of the Lord of hosts (Isa 29:6); her sins shall be enquired into and punished: God will reckon for them with terrible judgments, with the frightful alarms and rueful desolations of war, which shall be like thunder and earthquakes, storms and tempests, and devouring fire, especially upon the account of the great noise. When a foreign enemy was not in the borders, but in the bowels of their country, roaring and ravaging, and laying all waste (especially such an army as that of the Assyrians, whose commanders being so very insolent, as appears by the conduct of Rabshakeh, the common soldiers, no doubt, were much more rude), they might see the Lord of those hosts visiting them with thunder and storm. Yet, this being here said to be a great noise, perhaps it is intimated that they shall be worse frightened than hurt. Particularly, (1.) Jerusalem shall be besieged, straitly besieged. He does not say, I will destroy Ariel, but I will distress Ariel; and she is therefore brought into distress, that, being thereby awakened to repent and reform, she may not be brought to destruction. I will (Isa 29:3) encamp against thee round about. It was the enemy's army that encamped against it; but God says that he will do it, for they are his hand, he does it by them. God had often and long, by a host of angels, encamped for them round about them for their protection and deliverance; but now he was turned to be their enemy and fought against them. The siege laid against them was of his laying, and the forts raised against them were of his raising. Note, When men fight against us we must, in them, see God contending with us. (2.) She shall be in grief to see the country laid waste and all the fenced cities of Judah in the enemies' hand: There shall be heaviness and sorrow (Isa 29:2), mourning and lamentation - so these two words are sometimes rendered. Those that are most merry and jovial are commonly, when they come to be in distress, most overwhelmed with heaviness and sorrow; their laughter is then turned into mourning. "All Jerusalem shall then be unto me as Ariel, as the altar, with fire upon it and slain victims about it:" so it was when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans; and many, no doubt, were slain when it was besieged by the Assyrians. "the whole city shall be an altar, in which sinners, falling by the judgments that are abroad, shall be as victims to divine justice." Or thus: - "There shall be heaviness and sorrow; they shall repent, and reform, and return to God, and then it shall be to me as Ariel. Jerusalem shall be like itself, shall become to me a Jerusalem again, a holy city," Isa 1:26. (3.) She shall be humbled, and mortified, and made submissive (Isa 29:4): "Thou shalt be brought down from the height of arrogancy and insolence to which thou hast arrived: the proud looks and the proud language shall be brought down by one humbling providence after another." Those that despise God's judgments shall be humbled by them; for the proudest sinners shall either bend or break before him. They had talked big, had lifted up the horn on high, and had spoken with a stiff neck (Psa 75:5); but now thou shalt speak out of the ground, out of the dust, as one that has a familiar spirit, whispering out of the dust. This intimates, [1.] That they should be faint and feeble, not able to speak up, nor to say all they would say; but as those who are sick, or whose spirits are ready to fail, their speech shall be low and interrupted. [2.] That they should be fearful, and in consternation, forced to speak low as being afraid lest their enemies should overhear them and take advantage against them. [3.] That they should be tame, and obliged to submit to the conquerors. When Hezekiah submitted to the king of Assyria, saying, I have offended, that which thou puttest on me I will bear (Kg2 18:14), then his speech was low, out of the dust. God can make those to crouch that have been most daring, and quite dispirit them. II. The destruction of Jerusalem's enemies is foretold, for the comfort of all that were her friends and well-wishers in this distress (Isa 29:5, Isa 29:7): "Thou shalt be brought down (Isa 29:4), to speak out of the dust; so low thou shalt be reduced. But" (so it may be rendered) "the multitude of thy strangers and thy terrible ones, the numerous armies of the enemy, shall themselves be like small dust, not able to speak at all, or as much as whisper, but as chaff that passes away. Thou shalt be abased, but they shall be quite dispersed, smitten and slain after another manner (Isa 27:7); they shall pass away, yea it shall be in an instant, suddenly: the enemy shall be surprised with the destruction, and you with the salvation." The army of the Assyrians was by an angel laid dead upon the spot, in an instant, suddenly. Such will be the destruction of the enemies of the gospel Jerusalem. In one hour shall their judgment come, Rev 18:10. Again (Isa 29:6), "Thou shalt be visited, or (as it used to be rendered) She shall be visited with thunder and a great noise. Thou shalt be put into a fright which thou shalt soon recover. But (Isa 29:7) the multitude of the nations that fight against her shall be as a dream of a night-vision; they and their prosperity and success shall soon vanish past recall." The multitude of the nations that fight against Zion shall be as a hungry man who dreams that he eats, but still is hungry; that is, 1. Whereas they hoped to make a prey of Jerusalem, and to enrich themselves with the plunder of that opulent city, their hopes shall prove vain dreams, with which their fancies may please and sport themselves for a while, but they shall be disappointed. They fancied themselves masters of Jerusalem, but shall never be so. 2. They themselves, and all their pomp, and power, and prosperity, shall vanish like a dream when one awakes, shall be of as little value and as short continuance. Psa 73:20. He shall fly away as a dream Job 20:8. The army of Sennacherib vanished and was gone quickly, though it had filled the country as a dream fills a man's head, especially as a dream of meat fills the head of him that went to bed hungry. Many understand these verses as part of the threatening of wrath, when God comes to distress Jerusalem, and lay siege to her. (1.) The multitude of her friends, whom she relies upon for help shall do her no good; for, though they are terrible ones, they shall be like the small dust, and shall pass away. (2.) The multitude of her enemies shall never think they can do her mischief enough; but, when they have devoured her much, still they shall be but like a man who dreams he eats, hungry, and greedy to devour her more.
Verse 9
Here, I. The prophet stands amazed at the stupidity of the greatest part of the Jewish nation. They had Levites, who taught the good knowledge of the Lord and had encouragement from Hezekiah in doing so, Ch2 30:22. They had prophets, who brought them messages immediately from God, and signified to them what were the causes and what would be the effects of God's displeasure against them. Now, one would think, surely this great nation, that has all the advantages of divine revelation, is a wise and understanding people, Deu 4:6. But, alas! it was quite otherwise, Isa 29:9. The prophet addresses himself to the sober thinking part of them, calling upon them to be affected with the general carelessness of their neighbours. It may be read, "They delay, they put off, their repentance, but wonder you that they should be so sottish. They sport themselves with their own deceivings; they riot and revel; but do you cry out, lament their folly, cry to God by prayer for them. The more insensible they are of the hand of God gone out against them the more do you lay to heart these things." Note, The security of sinners in their sinful way is just matter of lamentation and wonder to all serious people, who should think themselves concerned to pray for those that do not pray for themselves. But what is the matter? What are we thus to wonder at? 1. We may well wonder that the generality of the people should be so sottish and brutish, and so infatuated, as if they were intoxicated: They are drunken, but not with wine (not with wine only, though with that they were often drunk), and they erred through wine, Isa 28:7. They were drunk with the love of pleasures, with prejudices against religion, and with the corrupt principles they had imbibed. Like drunken men, they know not what they do or say, nor whither they go. They are not sensible of the divine rebukes they are under. They have beaten me, and I felt it not, says the drunkard, Pro 23:35. God speaks to them once, yea, twice; but, like men drunk, they perceive it not, they understand it not, but forget the law. They stagger in their counsels, are unstable and unsteady, and stumble at every thing that lies in their way. There is such a thing as spiritual drunkenness. 2. It is yet more strange that God himself should have poured out upon them a spirit of deep sleep, and closed their eyes (Isa 29:10), that he who bids them awake and open their eyes should yet lay them to sleep and shut their eyes; but it is in a way of righteous judgment, to punish them for their loving darkness rather than light, their loving sleep. When God by his prophets called them they said, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber; and therefore he gave them up to strong delusions, and said, Sleep on now. This is applied to the unbelieving Jews, who rejected the gospel of Christ, and were justly hardened in their infidelity, till wrath came upon them to the uttermost. Rom 11:8, God has given them the spirit of slumber. And we have reason to fear it is the woeful case of many who live in the midst of gospel light. 3. It is very sad that this should be the case with those who were their prophets, and rulers, and seers, that those who should have been their guides were themselves blindfolded; and it is easy to tell what the fatal consequences will be when the blind lead the blind. This was fulfilled when, in the latter days of the Jewish church, the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, were the great opposers of Christ and his gospel, and brought themselves under a judicial infatuation. 4. The sad effect of this was that all the means of conviction, knowledge, and grace, which they enjoyed, were ineffectual, and did not answer the end (Isa 29:11, Isa 29:12): "The vision of all the prophets, true and false, has become to you as the words of a book, or letter, that is sealed up; you cannot discern the truth of the real visions and the falsehood of the pretended ones." Or, every vision particularly that this prophet had seen for them, and published to them, had become unintelligible; they had it among them, but were never the wiser for it, any more than a man (though a good scholar) is for a book delivered to him sealed up, and which he must not open the seals of. He sees it is a book, and that is all; he knows nothing of what is in it. So they knew that what Isaiah said was a vision and prophecy, but the meaning of it was hidden from them; it was only a sound of words to them, which they were not at all alarmed by, nor affected with; it answered not the intention, for it made no impression at all upon them. Neither the learned nor the unlearned were the better for all the messages God sent them by his servants the prophets, nor desired to be so. The ordinary sort of people excused themselves from regarding what the prophets said with their want of learning and a liberal education, as if they were not concerned to know and do the will of God because they were not bred scholars: It is nothing to me, I am not learned. Those of better rank pretended that the prophet had a peculiar way of speaking, which was obscure to them, and which, though they were men of letters, they had not been used to; and, Si non vis intelligi, debes negligi - If you wish not to be understood, you deserve to be neglected. Both these are groundless pretences; for God's prophets have been no unfaithful debtors either to the wise or to the unwise, Rom 1:14. Or we may take it thus: - The book of prophecy was given to them sealed, so that they could not read it, as a just judgment upon them; because it had often been delivered to them unsealed, and they would not take pains to learn the language of it, and then made excuse for their not reading it because they were not learned. But observe, "The vision has become thus to you whose minds the god of this world has blinded; but it is not so in itself, it is not so to all; the same vision which to you is a savour of death unto death to others is and shall be a savour of life unto life." Knowledge is easy to him that understands. II. The prophet, in God's name, threatens those that were formal and hypocritical in their exercises of devotion, Isa 29:13, Isa 29:14. Observe here, 1. The sin that is here charged upon them - dissembling with God in their religious performances, Isa 29:13. He that knows the heart, and cannot be imposed upon with shows and pretences, charges it upon them, whether their hearts condemn them for it or no. He that is greater than the heart, and knows all things, knows that though they draw nigh to him with their mouth, and honour him with their lips, yet they are not sincere worshippers. To worship God is to make our approaches to him, and to present our adorations of him; it is to draw nigh to him as those that have business with him, with an intention therein to honour him. This we are to do with our mouth and our lips, in speaking of him and in speaking to him; we must render to him the calves of our lips, Hos 14:2. And, if the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of that the mouth will speak. But there are many whose religion is lip-labour only. They say that which expresses an approach to God and an adoration of him, but it is only from the teeth outward. For, (1.) They do not apply their minds to the service. When they pretend to be speaking to God they are thinking of a thousand impertinences: The have removed their hearts far from me, that they might not be employed in prayer, nor come within reach of the word. When work was to be done for God, which required the heart, that was sent out of the way on purpose, with the fool's eyes, into the ends of the earth. (2.) They do not make the word of God the rule of their worship, nor his will their reason: Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men. They worshipped the God of Israel, not according to his appointment, but their own inventions, the directions of their false prophets or their idolatrous kings, or the usages of the nations that were round about them. The tradition of the elders was of more value and validity with them than the laws which God commanded Moses. Or, if they did worship God in a way conformable to his institution in the days of Hezekiah, a great reformer, they had more an eye to the precept of the king than to God's command. This our Saviour applies to the Jews in his time, who were formal in their devotions and wedded to their own inventions, and pronounces concerning them that in vain they did worship God, Mat 15:8, Mat 15:9. 2. It is a spiritual judgment with which God threatens to punish them for their spiritual wickedness (Isa 29:14): I will proceed to do a marvellous work. They did one strange thing; they removed all sincerity from their hearts. Now God will go on and do another; he will remove all sagacity from their heads. The wisdom of their wise men shall perish. They played the hypocrite, and thought to put a cheat upon God, and now they are left to themselves to play the fool, and not only to put a cheat upon themselves, but to be easily cheated by all about them. Those that make religion no more than a pretence, to serve a turn, are out in their politics; and it is just with God to deprive those of their understanding who part with their uprightness. This was fulfilled in the wretched infatuation which the Jewish nation were manifestly under, after they had rejected the gospel of Christ; they removed their hearts far from God, and therefore God justly removed wisdom far from them, and hid from their eyes the things that belonged even to their temporal peace. This is a marvelous work; it is surprising, it is astonishing, that wise men should of a sudden lose their wisdom and be given up to strong delusions. Judgments on the mind, though least taken notice of, are to be most wondered at. III. He shows the folly of those that though to act separately and secretly from God, and were carrying on designs independent upon God and which they projected to conceal from his all-seeing eye. Here we have, 1. Their politics described (Isa 29:15): They seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, that he may not know either what they do or what they design; they say, "Who sees us? No man, and therefore not God himself." The consultations they had about their own safety they kept to themselves, and never asked God's advice concerning them; nay, they knew they were displeasing to him, but thought they could conceal them from him; and, if he did not know them, he could not baffle and defeat them. See what foolish fruitless pains sinners take in their sinful ways; they seek deep, they sink deep, to hide their counsel from the Lord, who sits in heaven and laughs at them. Note, A practical disbelief of God's omniscience is at the bottom both of the carnal worships and of the carnal confidences of hypocrites; Psa 94:7; Eze 8:12; Eze 9:9. 2. The absurdity of their politics demonstrated (Isa 29:16): "Surely your turning of things upside down thus, your various projects, turning your affairs this and that way to make them shape as you would have them - or rather your inverting the order of things, and thinking to make God's providence give attendance to your projects, and that God must know no more than you think fit, which is perfectly turning things upside down and beginning at the wrong end - shall be esteemed as the potter's clay. God will turn and manage you, and all your counsels, with as much ease and as absolute a power as the potter forms and fashions his clay." See how God despises, and therefore what little reason we have to dread, those contrivances of men that are carried on without God, particularly those against him. (1.) Those that think to hide their counsels from God do in effect deny him to be their Creator. It is as if the work should say of him that made it, "He made me not; I made myself." If God made us, he certainly knows us as the Psalmist shows, (Psa 139:1, Psa 139:13-16); so that those who say that he does not see them might as well say that he did not make them. Much of the wickedness of the wicked arises from this, they forget that God formed them, Deu 32:18. Or, (2.) Which comes to the same thing, they deny him to be a wise Creator: The thing framed saith of him that framed it, He had no understanding; for if he had understanding to make us so curiously, especially to make us intelligent beings and to put understanding into the inward part (Job 38:36), no doubt he has understanding to know us and all we say and do. As those that quarrel with God, so those that think to conceal themselves from him, do in effect charge him with folly; but he that formed the eye, shall he not see? Psa 94:9.
Verse 17
Those that thought to hide their counsels from the Lord were said to turn things upside down (Isa 29:16), and they intended to do it unknown to God; but God here tells them that he will turn things upside down his way; and let us see whose word shall stand, his or theirs. They disbelieve Providence: "Wait awhile," says God, "and you shall be convinced by ocular demonstration that there is a God who governs the world, and that he governs it and orders all the changes that are in it for the good of his church." The wonderful revolution here foretold may refer primarily to the happy settlement of the affairs of Judah and Jerusalem after the defeat of Sennacherib's attempt, and the repose which good people then enjoyed, when they were delivered from the alarms of the sword both of war and persecution. But it may look further, to the rejection of the Jews at the first planting of the gospel (for their hypocrisy and infidelity were here foretold, Isa 29:13) and the admission of the Gentiles into the church. I. In general, it is a great and surprising change that is here foretold, Isa 29:17. Lebanon, that was a forest, shall be turned into a fruitful field; and Carmel, that was a fruitful field, shall become a forest. It is a counterchange. Note, Great changes, both for the better and for the worse, are often made in a very little while. It was a sign given them of the defeat of Sennacherib that the ground should be more than ordinarily fruitful (Isa 37:30): You shall eat this year such as grows of itself; food for man shall be (as food for beasts is) the spontaneous product of the soil. Then Lebanon became a fruitful field, so fruitful that that which used to be reckoned a fruitful field in comparison with it was looked upon but as a forest. When a great harvest of souls was gathered in to Christ from among the Gentiles then the wilderness was turned into a fruitful field; and the Jewish church, that had long been a fruitful field, became a desolate and deserted forest, Isa 54:1. II. In particular, 1. Those that were ignorant shall become intelligent, Isa 29:18. Those that understood not this prophecy (but it was to them as a sealed book, Isa 29:11) shall, when it is accomplished, understand it, and shall acknowledge, not only the hand of God in the event, but the voice of God in the prediction of it: The deaf shall then hear the words of the book. The fulfilling of prophecy is the best exposition of it. The poor Gentiles shall then have divine revelation brought among them; and those that sat in darkness shall see a great light, those that were blind shall see out of obscurity; for the gospel was sent to them to open their eyes, Act 26:18. Observe, In order to the making of men fruitful in good affections and actions, the course God's grace takes with them is to open their understandings and make them hear the words of God's book. 2. Those that were erroneous shall become orthodox (Isa 29:24): Those that erred in spirit, that were under mistakes and misapprehensions concerning the words of the book and the meaning of them, shall come to understanding, to a right understanding of things; the Spirit of truth shall rectify their mistakes and lead them into all truth. This should encourage us to pray for those that have erred and are deceived, that God can, and often does, bring such to understanding. Those that murmured at the truths of God as hard sayings, and loved to pick quarrels with them, shall learn the true meaning of these doctrines, and then they will be better reconciled to them. Those that erred concerning the providence of God as to public affairs, and murmured at the disposals of it, when they shall see the issue of things shall better understand them and be aware of what God was designing in all, Hos 14:9. 3. Those that were melancholy shall become cheerful and pleasant (Isa 29:19): The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord. Those who are poor in the world and poor in spirit, who, being in affliction, accommodate themselves to their affliction, are purely passive and not passionate, when they see God appearing for them, they shall add, or repeat, joy in the Lord. This intimates that even in their distress they kept up their joy in the Lord, but now they increased it. Note, Those who, when they are in trouble, can truly rejoice in God, shall soon have cause given them greatly to rejoice in him. When joy in the world is decreasing and fading joy in God is increasing and getting round. This shining light shall shine more and more; for that which is aimed at is that this joy may be full. Even the poor among men may rejoice in the Holy One of Israel, and their poverty needs not deprive them of that joy, Hab 3:17, Hab 3:18. And the meek, the humble, the patient, and dispassionate, shall grow in this joy. Note, The grace of meekness will contribute very much to the increase of our holy joy. 4. The enemies, that were formidable, shall become despicable. Sennacherib, that terrible one, and his great army, that put the country into such a consternation, shall be brought to nought (Isa 29:20), shall be quite disabled to do any further mischief. The power of Satan, that terrible one indeed, shall be broken by the prevalency of Christ's gospel; and those that were subject to bondage through fear of him that had the power of death shall be delivered, Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15. 5. The persecutors, that were vexatious, shall be quieted, and so those they were troublesome to shall be quiet from the fear of them. To complete the repose of God's people, not only the terrible one from abroad shall be brought to nought, but the scorners at home too shall be consumed and cut off by Hezekiah's reformation. Those are a happy people, and likely to be so, who, when God gives them victory and success against their terrible enemies abroad, take care to suppress vice, and profaneness, and the spirit of persecution, those more dangerous enemies at home. Or, They shall be consumed and cut off by the judgments of God, shall be singled out to be made examples of. Or, They shall insensibly waste away, being put to confusion by the fulfilling of those predictions which they had made a jest of. Observe what had been the wickedness of these scorners, for which they should be cut off. They had been persecutors of God's people and prophets, probably of the prophet Isaiah particularly, and therefore he complains thus feelingly of them and of their subtle malice. Some as informers and persecutors, others as judges, did all they could to take away his life, or at least his liberty. And this is very applicable to the chief priests and Pharisees, who persecuted Christ and his apostles, and for that sin they and their nation of scorners were cut off and consumed. (1.) They ridiculed the prophets and the serious professors of religion; they despised them, and did their utmost to bring them into contempt; they were scorners, and sat in the seat of the scornful. (2.) They lay in wait for an occasion against them. By their spies they watch for iniquity, to see if they can lay hold of any thing that is said or done that may be called an iniquity. Or they themselves watch for an opportunity to do mischief, as Judas did to betray our Lord Jesus. (3.) They took advantage against them for the least slip of the tongue; and, if a thing were ever so little said amiss, it served them to ground an indictment upon. They made a man, though he were ever so wise and good a man, though he were a man of God, an offender for a word, a word mischosen or misplaced, when they could not but know that it was well meant, Isa 29:21. They cavilled at every word that the prophets spoke to them by way of admonition, though ever so innocently spoken, and without any design to affront them. They put the worst construction upon what was said, and made it criminal by strained innuendoes. Those who consider how apt we all are to speak unadvisedly, and to mistake what we hear, will think it very unjust and unfair to make a man an offender for a word. (4.) They did all they could to bring those into trouble that dealt faithfully with them and told them of their faults. Those that reprove in the gates, reprovers by office, that were bound by the duty of their place, as prophets, as judges, and magistrates, to show people their transgressions, they hated these, and laid snares for them, as the Pharisees' emissaries, who were sent to watch our Saviour that they might entangle him in his talk (Mat 22:15), that they might have something to lay to his charge which might render him odious to the people or obnoxious to the government. So persecuted they the prophets; and it is next to impossible for the most cautious to place their words so warily as to escape such snares. See how base wicked people are, who bear ill-will to those who, out of good-will to them, seek to save their souls from death; and see what need reprovers have both of courage to do their duty and of prudence to avoid the snare. (5.) They pervert judgment, and will never let an honest man carry an honest cause: They turn aside the just for a thing of nought; they condemn him, or give the cause against him, upon no evidence, no colour or pretence whatsoever. They run a man down, and misrepresent him, by all the little arts and tricks they can devise, as they did our Saviour. We must not think it strange if we see the best of men thus treated; the disciple is not greater than his Master. But wait awhile, and God will not only bring forth their righteousness, but cut off and consume these scorners. 6. Jacob, who was made to blush by the reproaches, and made to tremble by the threatenings, of his enemies, shall now be relieved both against his shame and against his fear, by the rolling away of those reproaches and the defeating of those threatenings (Isa 29:22): Thus the Lord saith who redeemed Abraham, that is, called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and so rescued him from the idolatry of his fathers and plucked him as a brand out of the fire. He that redeemed Abraham out of his snares and troubles will redeem all that are by faith his genuine seed out of theirs. He that began his care of his church in the redemption of Abraham, when it and its Redeemer were in his loins, will not now cast off the care of it. Because the enemies of his people are so industrious both to blacken them and to frighten them, therefore he will appear for the house of Jacob, and they shall not be ashamed as they have been, but shall have wherewith to answer those that reproach them, nor shall their faces now wax pale; but they shall gather courage, and look their enemies in the face without change of countenance, as those have reason to do who have the God of Abraham on their side. 7. Jacob, who thought his family would be extinct and the entail of religion quite cut off, shall have the satisfaction of seeing a numerous progeny devoted to God for a generation, Isa 29:23. (1.) He shall see his children, multitudes of believers and praying people, the spiritual seed of faithful Abraham and wrestling Jacob. Having his quiver full of these arrows, he shall not be ashamed (Isa 29:22) but shall speak with his enemy in the gate, Psa 127:5. Christ shall not be ashamed (Isa 50:7), for he shall see his seed (Isa 53:10); he sees some, and foresees more, in the midst of him, flocking to the church, and residing there. (2.) His children are the work of God's hands; being formed by him, they are formed for him, his workmanship, created unto good works. It is some comfort to parents to think that their children are God's creatures, the work of the hands of his grace. (3.) He and his children shall sanctify the name of God as their God, as the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear and worship the God of Israel. This is opposed to his being ashamed and waxing pale; when he is delivered from his contempts and dangers he shall not magnify himself, but sanctify the Holy One of Jacob. If God make our condition easy, we must endeavour to make his name glorious. Parents and children are ornaments and comforts indeed to each other when they join in sanctifying the name of God. When parents give up their children, and children give up themselves, to God, to be to him for a name and a praise, then the forest will soon become a fruitful field.
Verse 1
The prophecy here passes from the fall of Samaria, the crown of flowers (Isa 28:1-4), to its formal parallel. Jerusalem takes its place by the side of Samaria, the crown of flowers, and under the emblem of a hearth of God. 'Arı̄'ēl might, indeed, mean a lion of God. It occurs in this sense as the name of certain Moabitish heroes (Sa2 23:20; Ch1 11:22), and Isaiah himself used the shorter form אראל for the heroes of Judah (Isa 33:7). But as אריאל (God's heart, interchanged with הראל htiw degna, God's height) is the name given in Eze 43:15-16, to the altar of burnt-offering in the new temple, and as Isaiah could not say anything more characteristic of Jerusalem, than that Jehovah had a fire and hearth there (Isa 31:9); and, moreover, as Jerusalem the city and community within the city would have been compared to a lioness rather than a lion, we take אריאל in the sense of ara Dei (from ארה, to burn). The prophet commences in his own peculiar way with a grand summary introduction, which passes in a few gigantic strides over the whole course from threatening to promise. Isa 29:1 "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the castle where David pitched his tent! Add year to year, let the feasts revolve: then I distress Ariel, and there is groaning and moaning; and so she proves herself to me as Ariel." By the fact that David fixed his headquarters in Jerusalem, and then brought the sacred ark thither, Jerusalem became a hearth of God. Within a single year, after only one more round of feasts (to be interpreted according to Isa 32:10, and probably spoken at the passover), Jehovah would make Jerusalem a besieged city, full of sighs (vahătsı̄qōthı̄, perf. cons., with the tone upon the ultimate); but "she becomes to me like an Arı̄el," i.e., being qualified through me, she will prove herself a hearth of God, by consuming the foes like a furnace, or by their meeting with their destruction at Jerusalem, like wood piled up on the altar and then consumed in flame. The prophecy has thus passed over the whole ground in a few majestic words. It now starts from the very beginning again, and first of all expands the hoi. Isa 29:3, Isa 29:4 "And I encamp in a circle round about thee, and surround thee with watch-posts, and erect tortoises against thee. And when brought down thou wilt speak from out of the ground, and thy speaking will sound low out of the dust; and thy voice cometh up like that of a demon from the ground, and thy speaking will whisper out of the dust." It would have to go so far with Ariel first of all, that it would be besieged by a hostile force, and would lie upon the ground in the greatest extremity, and then would whisper with a ghostlike softness, like a dying man, or like a spirit without flesh and bones. Kaddūr signifies sphaera, orbis, as in Isa 22:18 and in the Talmud (from kâdar = kâthar; cf., kudur in the name Nabu-kudur-ussur, Nebo protect the crown, κίδαριν), and is used here poetically for סביב. Jerome renders it quasi sphaeram (from dūr, orbis). מצּב (from נצב, יצב) might signify "firmly planted" (Luzzatto, immobilmente; compare shūth, Isa 2:7); but according to the parallel it signifies a military post, like מצּב, נציב. Metsurōth (from mâtsōr, Deu 20:20) are instruments of siege, the nature of which can only be determined conjecturally. On 'ōbh, see Isa 8:19; (Note: The 'akkuubh mentioned there is equivalent to anbûb, Arab. a knot on a reed stalk, then that part of such a reed which comes between two knots, then the reed stalk itself; root נב, to rise up, swell, or become convex without and concave within (Fl.). It is possible that it would be better to trace 'ōbh back to this radical and primary meaning of what is hollow (and therefore has a dull sound), whether used in the sense of a leather-bag, or applied to a spirit of incantation, and the possessor of such a spirit.) there is no necessity to take it as standing for ba‛al 'ōbh.
Verse 5
Thus far does the unfolding of the hoi reach. Now follows an unfolding of the words of promise, which stand at the end of Isa 29:1 : "And it proves itself to me as Ariel." Isa 29:5-8 : "And the multitude of thy foes will become like finely powdered dust, and the multitude of the tyrants like chaff flying away; and it will take place suddenly, very suddenly. From Jehovah of hosts there comes a visitation with crash of thunder and earthquake and great noise, whirlwind and tempest, and the blazing up of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that gather together against Ariel, and all those who storm and distress Ariel and her stronghold, will be like a vision of the night in a dream. And it is just as a hungry man dreams, and behold he eats; and when he wakes up his soul is empty: and just as a thirsty man dreams, and behold he drinks; and when he wakes up, behold, he is faint, and his soul is parched with thirst: so will it be to the multitude of the nations which gather together against the mountain of Zion." The hostile army, described four times as hâmōn, a groaning multitude, is utterly annihilated through the terrible co-operation of the forces of nature which are let loose upon them (Isa 30:30, cf., Isa 17:13). "There comes a visitation:" tippâqēd might refer to Jerusalem in the sense of "it will be visited" in mercy, viz., by Jehovah acting thus upon its enemies. But it is better to take it in a neuter sense: "punishment is inflicted." The simile of the dream is applied in two different ways: (1.) They will dissolve into nothing, as if they had only the same apparent existence as a vision in a dream. (2.) Their plan for taking Jerusalem will be put to shame, and as utterly brought to nought as the eating or drinking of a dreamer, which turns out to be a delusion as soon as he awakes. Just as the prophet emphatically combines two substantives from the same verbal root in Isa 29:1, and two adverbs from the same verb in Isa 29:5; so does he place צבא and צבה together in Isa 29:7, the former with על relating to the crowding of an army for the purpose of a siege, the latter with an objective suffix (compare Psa 53:6) to the attack made by a crowded army. The metsōdâh of Ariel (i.e., the watch-tower, specula, from tsūd, to spy) (Note: In Arabic, also, masâd signifies a lofty hill or mountain-top, from a secondary form of tsud; and massara, to lay the foundations of a fortified city (‛ı̄r mâtsōr, Psa 31:22), from tsūr.)) is the mountain of Zion mentioned afterwards in Isa 29:8. כּאשׁר, as if; comp. Zac 10:6; Job 10:19. אוכל והנּה without הוּא; the personal pronoun is frequently omitted, not only in the leading participial clause, as in this instance (compare Isa 26:3; Isa 40:19; Psa 22:29; Job 25:2; and Khler on Zac 9:12), but also with a minor participial clause, as in Psa 7:10; Psa 55:20, and Hab 2:10. The hungering and thirsting of the waking man are attributed to his nephesh (soul: cf., Isa 32:6; Isa 5:14; Pro 6:30), just because the soul is the cause of the physical life, and without it the action of the senses would be followed by no sensation or experience whatever. The hungry stomach is simply the object of feeling, and everything sensitive in the bodily organism is merely the medium of sensation or feeling; that which really feels is the soul. The soul no sooner passes out of the dreaming state into a waking condition, than it feels that its desires are as unsatisfied as ever. Just like such a dream will the army of the enemy, and that victory of which it is so certain before the battle is fought, fade away into nothing.
Verse 9
This enigma of the future the prophet holds out before the eyes of his contemporaries. The prophet received it by revelation of Jehovah; and without the illumination of Jehovah it could not possibly be understood. The deep degradation of Ariel, the wonderful deliverance, the sudden elevation from the abyss to this lofty height - all this was a matter of faith. But this faith was just what the nation wanted, and therefore the understanding depending upon it was wanting also. The shemu‛âh was there, but the bı̄nâh was absent; and all שׁמועה הבין was wrecked on the obtuseness of the mass. The prophet, therefore, who had received the unhappy calling to harden his people, could not help exclaiming (Isa 29:9), "Stop, and stare; blind yourselves, and grow blind!" התמהמהּ, to show one's self delaying (from מההּ, according to Luzzatto the reflective of תּמהמהּ, an emphatic form which is never met with), is connected with the synonymous verb תּמהּ, to be stiff with astonishment; but to שׁעע, to be plastered up, i.e., incapable of seeing (cf., Isa 6:10), there is attached the hithpalpel of the same verb, signifying "to place one's self in such circumstances," se oblinere (differently, however, in Psa 119:16, Psa 119:47, compare Isa 11:8, se permulcere). They could not understand the word of God, but they were confused, and their eyes were, so to speak, festered up: therefore this self-induced condition would become to them a God-appointed punishment. The imperatives are judicial words of command. This growth of the self-hardening into a judicial sentence of obduracy, is proclaimed still more fully by the prophet. "They are drunken, and not with wine; they reel, and not with meth. For Jehovah hath poured upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and bound up your eyes; the prophets and your heads, the seers, He has veiled. And the revelation of all this will be to you like words of a sealed writing, which they give to him who understands writing, saying, Pray, read this; but he says, I cannot, it is sealed. And they give the writing to one who does not understand writing, saying, Pray, read this; but he says, I do not understand writing." They were drunken and stupid; not, however, merely because they gave themselves up to sensual intoxication (יין, dependent upon שׁכרוּ, ebrii vino), but because Jehovah had given them up to spiritual confusion and self-destruction. All the punishments of God are inflicted through the medium of His no less world-destroying than world-sustaining Spirit, which, although not willing what is evil, does make the evil called into existence by the creature the means of punishing evil. Tardēmâh is used here to signify the powerless, passive state of utter spiritual insensibility. This judgment had fallen upon the nation in all its members, even upon the eyes and heads of the nation, i.e., the prophets. Even they whose duty is was to see to the good of the nation, and lead it, were blind leaders of the blind; their eyes were fast shut (עצּם, the intensive form of the kal, Isa 33:15; Aram. עצּם; Talmud also עמּץ: to shut the eyes, or press them close), and over their heads a cover was drawn, as over sleepers in the night. Since the time of Koppe and Eichhorn it has become a usual thing to regard את־הנּביאים and החזים as a gloss, and indeed as a false one (compare Isa 9:13-14); but the reason assigned - namely, that Isaiah's polemics are directed not against the prophets, but against the stupid staring people - is utterly groundless (compare Isa 28:7, and the polemics of his contemporary Micah, e.g., Isa 3:5-8). Moreover, the author of a gloss would have been more likely to interpret ראשׁיכם by השּׂרים or הכּהנים (compare Job 9:24). And Isa 29:11, Isa 29:12 are also opposed to this assumption of a gloss. For by those who understood what was written (sēpher), it is evident that the prophets and rulers of the nation are intended; and by those who did not understand it, the great mass of the people. To both of them, "the vision of all," i.e., of all and everything that God had shown to His true prophets, was by the judgment of God completely sealed. Some of them might have an outward knowledge; but the inward understanding of the revelation was sealed to them. Some had not even this, but stared at the word of the prophet, just as a man who cannot read stares at what is written. The chethib has הסּפר; the keri ספר, though without any ground, since the article is merely generic. Instead of נא־זה קרא, we should write זה קרא־נא in both cases, as certain codices and old editions do.
Verse 13
This stupefaction was the self-inflicted punishment of the dead works with which the people mocked God and deceived themselves. "The Lord hath spoken: Because this people approaches me with its mouth, and honours me with its lips, and keeps its heart far from me, and its reverence of me has become a commandment learned from men: therefore, behold, I will proceed wondrously with this people, wondrously and marvellously strange; and the wisdom of its wise men is lost, and the understanding of its intelligent men becomes invisible." Ever since the time of Asaph (Ps 50, cf., Psa 78:36-37), the lamentation and condemnation of hypocritical ceremonial worship, without living faith or any striving after holiness, had been a leading theme of prophecy. Even in Isaiah's introductory address (chapter 1) this complain was uttered quite in the tone of that of Asaph. In the time of Hezekiah it was peculiarly called for, just as it was afterwards in that of Josiah (as the book of Jeremiah shows). The people had been obliged to consent to the abolition of the public worship of idols, but their worship of Jehovah was hypocrisy. Sometimes it was conscious hypocrisy, arising from the fear of man and favour of man; sometimes unconscious, inasmuch as without any inward conversion, but simply with work-righteousness, the people contented themselves with, and even prided themselves upon, an outward fulfilment of the law (Mic 6:6-8; Mic 3:11). Instead of נגּשׁ (lxx, Vulg., Syr., Mat 15:8; Mar 7:6), we also meet with the reading נגּשׂ, "because this people harasses itself as with tributary service;" but the antithesis to richaq (lxx πόῤῥω ἀπέχει ) favours the former reading niggash, accedit; and bephı̄v (with its moth) must be connected with this, though in opposition to the accents. This self-alienation and self-blinding, Jehovah would punish with a wondrously paradoxical judgment, namely, the judgment of a hardening, which would so completely empty and confuse, that even the appearance of wisdom and unity, which the leaders of Israel still had, would completely disappear. יוסיף (as in Isa 38:5) is not the third person fut. hiphil here (so that it could be rendered, according to Isa 28:16, "Behold, I am he who;" or more strictly still, "Behold me, who;" which, however, would give a prominence to the subject that would be out of place here), but the part. kal for יוסף. That the language really allowed of such a lengthening of the primary form qatĭl into qatı̄l, and especially in the case of יוסיף, is evident from Ecc 1:18 (see at Psa 16:5). In ופלא הפלא, פלא (cf., Lam 1:9) alternates with the gerundive (see at Isa 22:17): the fifth example in this one address of the emphatic juxtaposition of words having a similar sound and the same derivation (vid., Isa 29:1, Isa 29:5, Isa 29:7, Isa 29:9).
Verse 15
Their hypocrisy, which was about to be so wonderfully punished according to the universal law (Psa 18:26-27), manifested itself in their self-willed and secret behaviour, which would not inquire for Jehovah, nor suffer itself to be chastened by His word. "Woe unto them that hide plans deep from Jehovah, and their doing occurs in a dark place, and they say, Who saw us then, and who knew about us? Oh for your perversity! It is to be regarded as potters' clay; that a work could say to its maker, He has not made me; and an image to its sculptor, He does not understand it!" Just as Ahaz had carefully kept his appeal to Asshur for help secret from the prophet; so did they try, as far as possible, to hide from the prophet the plan for an alliance with Egypt. לסתּיר is a syncopated hiphil for להסתּיר, as in Isa 1:12; Isa 3:8; Isa 23:11. העמיק adds the adverbial notion, according to our mode of expression (comp. Joe 2:20, and the opposite thought in Joe 2:26; Ges. 142). To hide from Jehovah is equivalent to hiding from the prophet of Jehovah, that they might not have to listen to reproof from the word of Jehovah. We may see from Isa 8:12 how suspiciously they watched the prophet in such circumstances as these. But Jehovah saw them in their secrecy, and the prophet saw through the whole in the light of Jehovah. הפכּכם is an exclamation, like תּפלצתּך in Jer 49:16. They are perverse, or ('im) "is it not so?" They think they can dispense with Jehovah, and yet they are His creatures; they attribute cleverness to themselves, and practically disown Jehovah, as if the pot should say to the potter who has turned it, He does not understand it.
Verse 17
But the prophet's God, whose omniscience, creative glory, and perfect wisdom they so basely mistook and ignored, would very shortly turn the present state of the world upside down, and make Himself a congregation out of the poor and wretched, whilst He would entirely destroy this proud ungodly nation. "Is it not yet a very little, and Lebanon is turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field esteemed as a forest? And in that day the deaf hear scripture words, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness. And the joy of the humble increases in Jehovah, and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For tyrants are gone, and it is over with scoffers; and all who think evil are rooted out, who condemn a man for a word, and lay snares for him that is free-spoken in the gate, and overthrow the righteous through shameful lies." The circumstances themselves, as well as the sentence passed, will experience a change, in complete contrast with the present state of things. This is what is affirmed in Isa 29:17; probably a proverb transposed into a more literary style. What is now forest becomes ennobled into garden ground; and what is garden ground becomes in general estimation a forest (לכרמל, ליער, although we should rather expect ל, just as in Isa 32:15). These emblems are explained in Isa 29:18. The people that are now blind and deaf, so far as the word of Jehovah is concerned, are changed into a people with open ears and seeing eyes. Scripture words, like those which the prophet now holds before the people so unsuccessfully, are heard by those who have been deaf. The unfettered sight of those who have been blind pierces through the hitherto surrounding darkness. The heirs of the new future thus transformed are the anâvı̄m ("meek") and the 'ebhyōnı̄m ("poor"). אדם (the antithesis of אנשׁהים, e.g., Isa 29:13) heightens the representation of lowliness; the combination is a superlative one, as in הצאן צעירי, Jer 49:20, and הצאן עניי in Zac 11:7 (cf., חיות פריץ in Isa 35:9): needy men who present a glaring contrast to, and stand out from, the general body of men. Such men will obtain ever increasing joy in Jehovah (yâsaph as in Isa 37:31). Such a people of God would take the place of the oppressors (cf., Isa 28:12) and scoffers (cf., Isa 28:14, Isa 28:22), and those who thought evil (shâqad, invigilare, sedulo agere), i.e., the wretched planners, who made a חטא of every one who did not enter into their plans (i.e., who called him a chōtē'; cf., Deu 24:4; Ecc 5:5), and went to law with the man who openly opposed them in the gate (Amo 5:10; yeqōshūn, possibly the perf. kal, cf., Jer 50:24; according to the syntax, however, it is the fut. kal of qūsh = yâqōsh: see at Isa 26:16; Ges. 44, Anm. 4), and thrust away the righteous, i.e., forced him away from his just rights (Isa 10:2), by tōhū, i.e., accusations and pretences of the utmost worthlessness; for these would all have been swept away. This is the true explanation of the last clause, as given in the Targum, and not "into the desert and desolation," as Knobel and Luzzatto suppose; for with Isaiah tōhū is the synonym for all such words as signify nothingness, groundlessness, and fraud. The prophet no doubt had in his mind, at the time that he uttered these words, the conduct of the people towards himself and his fellow-prophets, and such as were like-minded with them. The charge brought against him of being a conspirator, or a traitor to his country, was a tōhū of this kind. All these conspirators and persecutors Jehovah would clear entirely away.
Verse 22
Everything that was incorrigible would be given up to destruction; and therefore the people of God, when it came out of the judgment, would have nothing of the same kind to look for again. "Therefore thus saith Jehovah of the house of Jacob, He who redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not henceforth be ashamed, nor shall his face turn pale any more. For when he, when his children see the work of my hands in the midst of him, they will sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shudder before the God of Israel. And those who were of an erring spirit discern understanding, and murmurers accept instruction." With אל (for which Luzzatto, following Lowth, reads אל sda, "the God of the house of Jacob") the theme is introduced to which the following utterance refers. The end of Israel will correspond to the holy root of its origin. Just as Abraham was separated from the human race that was sunk in heathenism, to become the ancestor of a nation of Jehovah, so would a remnant be separated from the great mass of Israel that was sunk in apostasy from Jehovah; and this remnant would be the foundation of a holy community well pleasing to God. And this would never be confounded or become pale with shame again (on bōsh, see at Isa 1:29; châvar is a poetical Aramaism); for both sins and sinners that called forth the punishments of God, which had put them to shame, would have been swept away (cf., Zep 3:11). In the presence of this decisive work of punishment (ma‛ăseh as in Isa 28:21; Isa 10:12; Isa 5:12, Isa 5:19), which Jehovah would perform in the heart of Israel, Israel itself would undergo a thorough change. ילדיו is in apposition to the subject in בּראתו, "when he, namely his children" (comp. Job 29:3); and the expression "his children" is intentionally chosen instead of "his sons" (bânı̄m), to indicate that there would be a new generation, which would become, in the face of the judicial self-manifestation of Jehovah, a holy church, sanctifying Him, the Holy One of Israel. Yaqdı̄shū is continued in vehiqdı̄shū: the prophet intentionally repeats this most significant word, and he‛ĕrı̄ts is the parallel word to it, as in Isa 8:12-13. The new church would indeed not be a sinless one, or thoroughly perfect; but, according to Isa 29:24, the previous self-hardening in error would have been exchanged for a willing and living appropriation of right understanding, and the former murmuring resistance to the admonitions of Jehovah would have given place to a joyful and receptive thirst for instruction. There is the same interchange of Jacob and Israel here which we so frequently met with in chapters 40ff. And, in fact, throughout this undisputedly genuine prophecy of Isaiah, we can detect the language of chapters 40-66. Through the whole of the first part, indeed, we may trace the gradual development of the thoughts and forms which predominate there.
Verse 1
29:1-14 This is the second of the six woes (What sorrow . . .).
29:1-8 In the Assyrian siege, the Lord would be fighting against Jerusalem, but he would force the Assyrians to abandon Jerusalem in his own time.
29:1-2 Ariel was another name for Mount Zion (29:8); it probably means altar of God.
Verse 3
29:3 The Lord himself would come against Jerusalem, surrounding and attacking it.
Verse 4
29:4 God’s goal was to destroy the sinful pride of the people of Jerusalem. Their voice would rise as if from the grave. Through the Assyrians, God would humble his people, but he would not abandon them.
Verse 6
29:6 will act for you (literally you will be visited): God would bring rescue for his people. • thunder and earthquake . . . storm and consuming fire: These phenomena indicate a theophany (see study note on 5:25).
Verse 7
29:7 The Assyrians’ sudden lifting of the siege came like a dream . . . like a vision in the night. God would save Judah and judge Assyria.
Verse 8
29:8-12 Jerusalem’s blindness kept its people from understanding God’s plan.
29:8 Like a hungry or thirsty person, the Assyrians could taste the victory over Jerusalem. Yet they never became victorious.
Verse 10
29:10 a spirit of deep sleep: The people’s folly was reinforced by God’s judgment on them (cp. Rom 1:24-32; 11:8); they had no perception of reality. • Prophets were also sometimes called visionaries. Neither the people nor their prophets would understand what God was doing (Isa 6:9-10).
Verse 13
29:13 These people used pious-sounding language in their prayers and talk (see Matt 15:8; Mark 7:6-7), but they did not truly honor God. • In their hearts, they were not committed to the Lord at all. • In their worship, they followed man-made rules and regulations rather than God’s word.
Verse 14
29:14 Human wisdom . . . intelligence . . . will disappear (see 1 Cor 1:19). The prophet had already spoken of the failure of Egypt’s wise men (Isa 19:11-12); even Judah’s wise men would blunder.
Verse 15
29:15-24 This threat of coming judgment is the third of the six woes (see study note on 28:1–33:24). It begins with judgment but moves to a vision of creation being renewed and of the wicked coming to an end.
29:15 Their plans might refer to the advice that royal counselors were giving Hezekiah, who at first attempted to free himself from Assyria by making alliances with Egypt (715 or 701 BC). • The people were conspiring to commit evil deeds in secret, but God saw everything.
Verse 16
29:16 Potter . . . clay: The Lord’s sovereignty is beyond challenge. Scripture does not discourage asking God hard questions, but there is no place for resistance to God’s will (see 10:15; 45:9; 64:8; Rom 9:20). • He didn’t make me: Such claims against God demonstrate a total unwillingness to recognize God’s intimate involvement with every aspect of a person’s life.
Verse 17
29:17 The forests of Lebanon are usually an image of luxuriant growth (see 2:13; 14:8), but here they represent desolation.
Verse 18
29:18 The people were deaf and blind in heart and spirit (see 6:10; 42:18; 43:8). Yet humanity and all of creation would be renewed (see 35:1-5).
Verse 21
29:21 The false testimony that led to the oppression of the poor through trickery in the courts of Isaiah’s era would end. Because of God’s work in their hearts, the people would turn from their sinful behavior of the past.
Verse 22
29:22-24 The prophecy of woe, which began at 29:15, now ends with a prophecy of salvation.
29:22 Abraham was the father of all Israel (see Gen 12:1-3; see also Gal 3:29). • Rescued from human abuse and God’s judgment, the people would no longer be ashamed; their disgrace resulted from the apparent failure of what they had trusted (see Ps 71:1; 1 Pet 2:6).