Isaiah 29

Isaiah warns Jerusalem, called Ariel, that God will bring her low, then rescue her suddenly from a vast enemy army. Yet the people’s religion is hollow and their leaders spiritually blind, so God’s works will astonish them. The chapter ends with a promise that the blind will see, the humble will rejoice, and the wayward will learn.

Isaiah 29:1

Isaiah cries woe over Jerusalem, here called Ariel, and recalls that David once camped there. The city goes on keeping its yearly feasts as though all were well. Routine religion cannot hide that judgment is coming.

BSA: Ariel (“lion of God”): The name pictures Jerusalem as God’s strong lion, or perhaps his fierce altar, making her fall more striking. Woe (“a cry of sorrow, deep distress”): This is a mourner’s cry, so Isaiah grieves over the city while he warns it.

Hebrew: אֲרִיאֵל (Ariel, H740) — “lion of God, or altar hearth of God.” The Hebrew name can sound like “lion of God” or like the altar hearth. Verse 2 plays on the second sense when the city becomes like an altar hearth.

See also: Isaiah 28:1.

Isaiah 29:2

God himself will bring distress on Jerusalem, and her feasting will turn to mourning. She will become like an altar hearth, a place of burning and bloodshed. Judgment comes from God’s own hand, under his eye.

BSA: constrain (“distress, bring trouble to”): God squeezes the city into a tight place, so her trouble is no accident.

Isaiah 29:3

God describes the siege in his own first person: camp, towers and earthworks closing in on every side. The enemy is his instrument. The city that trusted her walls finds herself shut in.

BSA: besiege (“confine, surround”): The city is hemmed in with no way of escape.

Isaiah 29:4

Jerusalem will be flattened, speaking in a faint whisper from the dust. Her voice will sound like that of a ghost or medium muttering from the earth. It is a picture of utter humiliation.

BSA: spirit (“medium, one who contacts the dead”): The picture is of the thin, eerie voice of a medium, so the proud city sounds like the dead.

Isaiah 29:5

Then the story turns. The vast, ruthless army will be like fine dust and drifting chaff. Judgment is not God’s last word on Jerusalem; deliverance comes without warning, in an instant.

BSA: chaff (“loose outer covering of grain, worthless material”): The proud army proves as weightless as husks that the wind carries away.

See also: Psalm 1:4.

Isaiah 29:6

The LORD of Hosts himself visits the city. Thunder, earthquake, storm and fire are the signs of his presence. The commander of heaven’s armies fights for the city he had just been humbling.

BSA: visited (“to reckon, oversee, or inspect”): God’s visit is a decisive inspection and intervention that can bring judgment or rescue.

See also: Exodus 19:16-18.

Isaiah 29:7

The many nations that gather to attack Jerusalem will vanish like a night dream. What looked so solid and threatening will prove to have no substance when God acts.

BSA: dream (“a vision, a prophetic message”): The enemy’s mighty assault is only a night-time vision that fades.

Isaiah 29:8

A hungry man dreams of a feast and wakes up empty. So the nations will gain nothing from their assault on Zion. Those who set themselves against God’s people end with nothing in their hands.

BSA: parched (“completely dry, barren”): The dreamer wakes more desperate than before, as the nations do.

See also: Isaiah 37:36.

Isaiah 29:9

Isaiah now turns to the people, who are astonished at God’s works yet will not see them. They stagger like drunkards, but their dizziness is spiritual, not from drink. Refusing to see leads to real blindness.

BSA: astonished (“amazed, stunned”): They are stunned by God’s works but do not understand them.

Isaiah 29:10

The spiritual numbness has a source: the LORD himself has poured out a deep sleep. The prophets and seers, who should have been the people’s eyes, cannot see. When people refuse God’s word, he may give them over to their dullness.

BSA: deep sleep (“trance, complete unawareness”): This is not light dozing but a heavy sleep in which they are unaware of what is happening.

See also: Romans 11:8.

Isaiah 29:11-12

God’s message has become like a sealed scroll. The educated say it is sealed; the uneducated say they cannot read. Neither learning nor ignorance opens it. Only God can give understanding of his word.

BSA: sealed (“locked, inaccessible”): The message is shut up so that no human skill can open it.

See also: Revelation 5:1-5.

Isaiah 29:13

The people say the right words and go through the motions, but their hearts are far from God. Their worship is a set of human rules learned by rote. Jesus quoted this verse against hollow religion.

BSA: hearts (“inner beings, will”): God looks past speech to the inner person, which here is distant from him. rules (“commandments, teachings”): What they follow are human commandments, not God’s own word.

See also: Matthew 15:7-9.

Isaiah 29:14

Because of this empty worship, God will do astonishing things that human wisdom cannot explain. The clever will find their cleverness fails. God is not outwitted by those who think themselves wise.

BSA: wonder (“a marvelous work, a miracle”): God’s surprising acts will overturn what people thought they understood.

See also: 1 Corinthians 1:19.

Isaiah 29:15

Woe to those who make secret plans, thinking God cannot see. They did their schemes in darkness and asked who would know. They forgot that nothing is hidden from the One they were trying to hide from.

BSA: dig deep (“to deeply conceal, to hide completely”): They go to great lengths to bury their plans where they think no eye can reach.

See also: Psalm 139:11-12.

Isaiah 29:16

To hide from God is to turn things upside down, as if clay could be wiser than the potter. A created thing cannot deny its maker or accuse him of ignorance. The Creator knows what he has made.

BSA: potter (“the Creator, the One who shapes”): The potter stands for God, who shaped his people and knows them completely.

See also: Romans 9:20-21; Isaiah 45:9.

Isaiah 29:17

Now the tone turns to hope. Reversals are coming: wild Lebanon becomes a fruitful orchard, and the orchard grows so rich it seems like a forest. God can transform barrenness into fruitfulness.

BSA: orchard (“a plantation, a fruitful field”): This stands for cultivated, fruitful land, a picture of renewal.

Isaiah 29:18

On that day the spiritual deafness and blindness of verses 10-12 are healed. The deaf hear the words of the scroll that was sealed, and the blind see even from deep darkness. God opens what he had closed.

BSA: deaf (“those unable to hear, spiritually or physically”): The healing is both of the body and of the heart’s ability to receive God’s word.

See also: Isaiah 35:5; Matthew 11:5.

Isaiah 29:19

The humble and the poor, who had little to trust in but God, will have their joy increased. Their gladness is in the LORD himself, the Holy One of Israel. God lifts those the world overlooks.

BSA: humble (“meek”): These are people who bow low before God and wait on him. poor (“needy, oppressed”): These are people who are crushed and have nothing else to lean on.

See also: Matthew 5:3.

Isaiah 29:20-21

The cruel, the scoffers and those who plot evil will be gone. These included people who twisted justice at the city gate with false charges and traps for honest men. God will not let injustice stand forever.

BSA: mockers (“scorners, those who make sport of the Lord”): These are proud people who laugh at God and at those who trust him. gate (“the city entrance, the place of judgment”): The gate was where legal cases were heard, so corruption there harmed the helpless.

See also: Amos 5:12.

Isaiah 29:22

The LORD, who redeemed Abraham, promises that Jacob’s family will no longer be put to shame or turn pale with fear. God’s past faithfulness to Abraham is the ground of his promise for the future.

BSA: redeemed (“ransomed, set free”): God bought Abraham out of an old life to belong to him.

See also: Joshua 24:2-3.

Isaiah 29:23

Jacob will see his children as the work of God’s hands. They will honor his name, call him holy and stand in reverent awe. A restored people finally see God rightly.

BSA: sanctify (“set apart, consecrate”): They will treat God’s name as holy, giving it the place it deserves.

See also: Matthew 6:9.

Isaiah 29:24

The chapter ends with learning. Those who went astray in spirit will gain understanding, and grumblers will accept teaching. God’s work is not only to judge but to renew minds and hearts.

BSA: grumble (“murmur, complain in rebellion”): This is a rebellious complaining against God, which he will turn into a teachable heart.

See also: Psalm 119:18.