Isaiah 29:1-14 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Isaiah 29:1-14. Let’s go!
Remember that Isaiah chapters 28-33 represent a new section in the book of Isaiah. Scholars believe that this section relates to the time when Judah was considering forming an alliance with Egypt in order to help defend against the threat of Assyria. The ongoing message from Isaiah is that this alliance will only hurt Judah, not help them, and that Judah’s only true hope is trusting in the LORD.
Isaiah 29:1-8 (NIV)
1 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on.
2 Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth.
3 I will encamp against you all around; I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you.
4 Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.
5 But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant,
6 the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
7 Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is with a dream, with a vision in the night–
8 as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger remains; as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.
On verses 1-8: Have you ever gone from not understanding a passage in the Bible to loving it? That’s what happened to me when it comes to Isaiah 29:1-14.
My first question when reading this passage was: who is “Ariel”? Ariel is another name for Jerusalem, “the city where David settled” (v1).
Verses 1-4 describe how God is going to cause a siege of the city of Jerusalem. He is going to humble the people of Jerusalem and bring them so low to the ground that they can hardly speak. Why is God going to cause this siege? It’s in response to the persistent pride, wickedness and spiritual hypocrisy He sees in Jerusalem. God is going to blow up the assumption that a lot of Judahites had that because Jerusalem is a “holy city” where the temple is located and where people worship God, danger could never happen to Jerusalem. Isaiah even sarcastically says, “Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on” (v1) – in other words, “keep going, Judah, with all your religious festivals and sacrifices; they’re not going to protect you from what’s coming.”
My next question was why Isaiah would talk about God humbling Jerusalem in verses 1-4 and then suddenly shift gears in verses 5-8 and talk about how Jerusalem’s many enemies will “become like fine dust” and “blown chaff” (v5)? Aren’t the bringing down of Jerusalem and the defeat of Jerusalem’s enemies two contradicting ideas? No, not when you consider what would eventually happen: God would allow Jerusalem to be besieged by Assyria. However, in an incredible, miraculous way, just when Jerusalem thinks all hope is lost and defeat is inevitable, God is going to rescue Jerusalem by striking down the Assyrians “in an instant” (v5). That is why verses 5-6 and say that, “Suddenly, in an instant, the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise…Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her” (v5-6) will be gone, as if in a dream (v7-8). As verse 8 says, “So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.”
Verses 1-4 and 5-8 are not contradicting each other. Rather, they are together telling a story of how God will, in the most incredible way, humble and then rescue the people of Jerusalem.
Isaiah 29:9-12 (NIV)
9 Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer.
10 The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).
11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.”
12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”
On verses 9-12: In verses 9-12, Isaiah emphasizes just how unfathomable and unexpected is what God will do for the people of Jerusalem. Every image Isaiah uses in verses 9-12 is of people being completely oblivious and unaware of what’s going on, whether it’s the image of blindness (v9), drunkenness (v9), in deep sleep (v10), unable to access a prophet or seer (v10), words hidden in a scroll (v11) or scrolls sealed up (v12). Isaiah uses all these images to communicate how God’s plan to humble and then save the people of Jerusalem will be so mind-blowing, so beyond anything that anyone can imagine, such that no one will be able to fathom it.
Isaiah 29:13-14 (NIV)
13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
14 Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
On verses 13-14: Isaiah’s words in verse 13 have been made even more famous by Jesus, who quotes them in Matthew 15:8 and Mark 7:6. The more obvious point is that Isaiah and Jesus both use these words to describe the condition of their people’s hearts: how their people are very religious with their rule keeping and sacrifice giving, and yet so far from God because of their pride and hypocrisy. The less obvious point is in verse 14: because of the people’s prideful, hypocritical heart condition, God (in both Isaiah’s time and in Jesus’ time) is going to perform a wonder that astound the minds of everyone, confound the wisdom of every person who thinks they have God figured out, and show how incredible God really is. In Isaiah’s time this mind-blowing wonder would be the incredible deliverance of Jerusalem. In Jesus’ time this mind-blowing wonder would be the death of Jesus on a cross and His resurrection.
What can we learn from all this?
1. Hypocritical worship does not bring any divine protection. In fact, it attracts God’s wrath.
2. God does not allow hardship for no good reason. To teach us humility and show us that He alone is sovereign, God will sometimes allow us to be brought low so that He can rescue us in a way that no one could expect and in a way that can only be attributed to God.
3. Just when you think you have God all figured out, God can do something that will completely blow your mind.
4. God wants worshipers who are close to Him in heart.
Father, I will never be able to figure You all out – how great, powerful, good, and merciful You are and how incredible are all Your thoughts, plans, and deeds. But thank You that though I can never figure You all out, because of Jesus I can still draw close to You and know You intimately, because that’s what You desire. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
