Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 29:9
Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
9. Stay yourselves, and wonder ] Rather (as R.V. marg.), Be ye amazed and wonder. The first verb is of uncertain derivation. Probably both express the idea of astonishment. Cheyne ( Comm.) rendered: “astonish yourselves and be astonished.”
cry ye out, and cry ] Render: Blind yourselves and be blind. The root of both verbs is that used in ch. Isa 6:10 of “smearing” the eyes: the doom then threatened is now being fulfilled.
they are drunken they stagger ] These perfects should probably be pointed and translated as imperatives; “be drunken” (so the LXX.).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
9 12. The people meet their doom in a state of spiritual stupor, unobservant of Jehovah’s work, and heedless of the warnings given to them.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Stay yourselves – Thus far the prophet had given a description of the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, and of his sudden overthrow. He now turns to the Jews, and reproves their stupidity, formality, and hypocrisy; and the remainder of the chapter is occupied with a statement of the prevalence of these sins, of the judgments that must follow, and of the fact that there should yet be an extensive reformation, and turning to the Lord. The word rendered stay yourselves ( htemahemehu) means properly to linger, tarry, delay Gen 19:16; Gen 43:10; 2Sa 15:28. Here it seems to denote that state of mind in which anyone is fixed in astonishment; in which one stops, and stares at some strange and unexpected occurrence. The object of amazement which the prophet supposes would excite astonishment, was the stupidity, dulness, and hypocrisy of a people who had been so signally favored (compare Hab 1:5).
Cry ye out, and cry – There is in the original here a paronomasia which cannot be conveyed in a translation. The word which is used ( hshetaasheu) is one form of the verb shaa, which means, usually, to make smooth, rub, spread over; hence, in the Hithpael form which is used here, to be spread over; and hence, is applied to the eyes Isa 6:10, to denote blindness, as if they were overspread with something by reason of which they could not see. Here it probably means, be ye dazzled and blinded, that is, ye be astonished, as in the former part of the verse. The idea seems to be that of some object of sudden astonishment that dims the sights and takes away all the powers of vision. The word is used in the same sense in Isa 32:3; compare Isa 35:5; Isa 42:19. Probably the idea here would be well expressed by our word stare, stare and look with a stupid surprise; denoting the attitude and condition of a man who is amazed at some remarkable and unlooked for spectacle.
They are drunken, but not with wine – The people of Jerusalem. They reel and stagger, but the cause is not that they are drunken with wine. It is a moral and spiritual intoxication and reeling. They err in their doctrines and practice; and it is with them as it is with a drunken man that sees nothing clearly or correctly, and cannot walk steadily. They have perverted all doctrines; they err in their views of God and his truth, and they are irregular and corrupt in their conduct.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 29:9-12
Stay yourselves, and wonder, they are drunken, but not with wine
Spiritual drunkenness
By spiritual drunkenness (Isa 29:9) we are probably to understand unsteadiness of conduct and a want of spiritual discernment.
(J. A. Alexander.)
Spiritual drunkenness worse than bodily, and more prevalent
Drunkenness in itself is a horrible vice, and it is the mother of innumerable more. But besides this there is a spiritual drunkenness.
I. This worse drunkenness, says the text, is SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY, OR INSANITY. In this respect it resembles the other drunkenness. The man who is drunk has eyes, but he cannot see; ears, but he cannot hear; a heart that has not ceased to beat, but he cannot understand. He mistakes one person and thing fur another. So it is with the spiritual sort in regard to the spiritual world. Look at a few of the varieties. Drunkenness–
1. From ignorance of the truth.
2. From perversion or profanation of the truth.
3. From rejection of the truth.
II. WHAT IS THE QUALITY OR CURSE OF THIS SPIRITUAL DRUNKENNESS, compared with the other? Compare it–
1. In regard to the drunkards intelligence or powers of perception.
2. In regard to the drunkards life, affections, passions, habits.
3. In regard to the drunkards state before God, the salvation of soul and body. What shall we say, if we discover the terrific truth?
(1) That the spiritual is more besotting and blinding to the spirit.
(2) That it is more maddening and brutalising to the drunkards life. What crime will the drunkard not perpetrate? But what is the life of the spiritual drunkard who goes on in his wickedness? One lifelong defiance of God.
(3) That it is a drunkenness still more infernal, more devilish, and more deadly to both soul and body. (R. Paisley.)
Judicial blindness
The Jews are represented as given over by God to a judicial blindness. Now, we regard it as a fixed principle in the interpretation of Scripture that God never does more than leave men to themselves; doing nothing directly to harden them in wickedness, or to place them out of the reach of forgiveness. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Drunken, but not with wine
Are there, then, other forms of insobriety and resultant demoralisation distinct from that of the familiar cup? The phrases which suggest this abnormal state are continually in our mouths. Thus, we speak of people being intoxicated with delight, with fanaticism, with political excitement, or with the spirit of gambling. Wendell Holmes speaks of people who become intoxicated with music, with poetry, with love, with religious enthusiasm. He remarks how convalescents are sometimes made tipsy by a beef steak. It is said of one that he was too intoxicated with certain good news to be able to imbibe anything else. Indeed, it is told of certain company that it was so intoxicating that some of the circle were compelled to drink to keep themselves sober. (J. J.Ingram.)
Intoxication
What are the main characteristics of intoxication? The drunken man is one who has lost his power of self-control, one to whose eye and thought the proportions and relationships of life have become disordered, one whose vigour, both physically and mentally, has become enfeebled and inefficient. He is a man who for the time being loses his true relation to the things of outer life. He is abnormal. His appetites are deranged, his engrossments disproportionate, his views beclouded or oblique. (J. J. Ingram.)
For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep
The spirit of a deep sleep
The Lord hath poured out, etc. That is an appalling judgment. What have been the steps which have led up to so terrible a consummation? Men do not lose their moral sensitiveness by a stroke; it is the ultimate issue of a process. Drowsiness precedes sleep; the twilight ushers in the night. We do not reach moral abysses by a precipice; we reach them by a gradient. We do not drop into bondage; we walk into it.
1. Here are the men of my text; what was the first step in the degradation? We have it clearly indicated in the thirteenth verse. If we take the thirteenth verse, and place it before Isa 29:9, we have unfolded before us the process of degeneracy, which is re-enacted in multitudes of lives in every succeeding age. The first step towards moral benumbment is the evisceration of religious worship. Take the heart out of worship, and you will take the life out of morals. And their fear of Me is a commandment of men which has been taught them. What does that mean? The man-made has supplanted the God-born. And what does that further mean but the intrusion of the casuist into religion? The casuist is he who turns a shining principle into a dull maxim, who makes breaches and loopholes of escape in the great moral law, who changes the searching inwardness of religion into an easy external ordinance, who removes the fearful sense of the eternal, and makes us feel perilously at home in the small demands of his own commandments.
2. Now let us mark the progress of the degeneracy. Religious formalism issues in moral laxity. Note the analysis of the process which is given in the ninth verse. First there is dimness of moral vision. Tarry ye and wonder. The figure is that of a man who pulls himself up in bewilderment. He does not remember quite clearly whether this is the way, or whether he should take the next turning. Moral law does not stand out in clear bold relief. His conscience does not act readily. There is hesitancy. He tarries! There is confusion He wonders! Take your pleasure and be blind. With dimness there comes wilfulness. The little truth they saw they resented. The people liked the restfulness of the dulness. There was nothing searching or self-revealing in the adulterated light. They preferred the twilight in which they can partially hide. Let us go on with the analysis. Moral dimness; moral wilfulness; what is the next step in the degeneracy? Moral stupor. They are drunk, but not with wine. They stagger, but not with strong drink.
3. Now let us proceed to the third step in the appalling gradient. When a man has eviscerated his religion, changing its inwardness to a thin superficialness, and from this proceeds to moral laxity, I am told by the words of my text that by a judicial act of God his stupor becomes fixed. If a man will not, he shall not! Ye have taken the cup of wilfulness, and drugged yourselves into sin, and the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep.
4. What is the next step in the awful gradient? And all vision is become to you as a book that is sealed. The great writings of the great books have no illuminating message. The books are sealed! What books? There is the book of conscience. Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. That book is sealed. There is the book of experience, the teachings of yesterday, the witness of history. Ask now of the days that are past. That book is sealed. There is the book of nature. The book of nature began to be read by William Wordsworth when the atmosphere of English life had been warmed by the evangelical revival. When the evangelical is dead natures inner significance is concealed. Let us therefore watch, with intensest vigilance, against the intrusion of all insincerity into our worship. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. Stay yourselves, and wonder] hithmahmehu, go on what-what-whatting, in a state of mental indetermination, till the overflowing scourge take you away. See Clarke on Ps 119:60.
They are drunken, but not with wine] See Clarke on Isa 51:21.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Stay yourselves, and wonder; pause upon it, and you will see cause to wonder at the stupidity of this people, of which he is now about to speak. He directeth his speech, either to the religious part of the people, or to those particular persons who heard him when he delivered this prophecy.
Cry ye out, and cry; cry out again and again, either in way of supplication for them; or rather through astonishment and horror. Or, they take pleasure or sport themselves, (as this word most commonly signifies,) and riot; in the midst of all these threatenings and dangers, they are secure, and give up themselves to sensuality; which is matter of just wonder.
They are drunken, but not with wine; but either,
1. With drinking the cup of Gods fury, wherewith they are said to be made drunk, Isa 51:17,20. And then, they are drunk, is put for, they shall be drunk, after the manner of the prophets. Or,
2. With the spirit of giddiness or stupidity, which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger, and not knowing what to do.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. Stayrather, “Beastounded”; expressing the stupid and amazed incredulity withwhich the Jews received Isaiah’s announcement.
wonderThe secondimperative, as often (Isa 8:9),is a threat; the first is a simple declaration of a fact, “Beastounded, since you choose to be so, at the prophecy, soon youwill be amazed at the sight of the actual event” [MAURER].
cry . . . out . . .cryrather, “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; Isa 6:10).
not with winebut withspiritual paralysis (Isa 51:17;Isa 51:21).
ye . . . theyThechange from speaking to, to speaking of them, intimatesthat the prophet turns away from them to a greater distance, becauseof their stupid unbelief.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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 sh e muah was there, but the bnah was absent; and all 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! ” , to show one’s self delaying (from , according to Luzzatto the reflective of , an emphatic form which is never met with), is connected with the synonymous verb , to be stiff with astonishment; but to , 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 ( , dependent upon , 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. Tardemah 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 ( , the intensive form of the kal, Isa 33:15; Aram. ; Talmud also : 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 and 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 by or (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 ( sepher ), 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 ; the keri , though without any ground, since the article is merely generic. Instead of , we should write in both cases, as certain codices and old editions do.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Threatenings against Judah. | B. C. 725. |
9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 10 For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. 11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: 12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. 13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: 14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. 15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? 16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
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, 2 Chron. xxx. 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, Deut. iv. 6. But, alas! it was quite otherwise, v. 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, ch. xxviii. 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, Prov. xxiii. 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 (v. 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 away 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. xi. 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. i. 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, v. 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, Hosea xiv. 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 (v. 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 (v. 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 (v. 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, Deut. xxxii. 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 xxxviii. 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? Ps. xciv. 9.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 9-16: THE CAUSE OF JUDGMENT UPON JERUSALEM
1. If they receive Isaiah’s prophecy with amazed incredulity, they will surely be astounded by the event itself, (vs. 9).
2. They must not deceive themselves any longer about their spiritual wickedness; they are blind only because they REFUSE TO SEE! (Mat 13:15; Act 28:26-28).
3. But, since they have chosen darkness, God will give them their fill of it!
a. He has poured upon them a spirit of deep sleep, (vs. 10; Isa 6:9-10; Rom 11:7-10; 2Th 2:9-12) shutting the eyes of their prophets, (Mic 3:5-6), and covering the heads of their seers, (Mic 3:7).
b. Thus, the vision (the word of the Lord) became unto all of them as a sealed book which none could understand, (vs. 11-12; Isa 8:16; Dan 12:4; Dan 12:9).
4. So addicted were these hypocrites to their formalistic, heartless “precepts of men”; that they Were beyond the reach of help until brought to see their spiritual bankruptcy – an impossibility apart from God’s “marvelous work” of judgment, (vs. 13; Isa 65:7; Hos 1:5-6).
5. Therefore, the wisdom and understanding of their wise men perished, (vs. 14; comp. Isa 44:24-25; Jer 8:8-9; 1Co 1:18-25; Pro 1:20-33; Rom 1:18-32).
6. A special “woe” is upon the presumptuous perverseness of these god-players who turn things upside down – imagining that their secret plans to lean on Egypt for support are hidden from God’s view, (vs. 15-16; comp. Isa 28:15; Isa 45:9; Isa 47:10; Isa 57:11-13; Eze 8:12; Jer 8:4-7; Rom 9:19-21).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
9. Tarry and wonder. Isaiah follows out the same subject, and attacks more keenly the gross stupidity of the people. Instead of “tarry,” some render the term, “Be amazed;” but the view which I prefer may be thus expressed: “Though they dwell much and long on this thought, yet it will end in nothing else than that, by long continued thought, their minds shall be amazed.” In short, he means that the judgment of God will so completely overwhelm their minds, that though they torture themselves by thinking and reflecting, still they will be unable to find any outlet or conclusion.
They are drunken, and not with wine. He now assigns the reason why fixed thought does not aid them in conquering their slowness of apprehension. It is, because they resemble drunkards. When, therefore, they neither see nor understand anything in the works of God, he shews that this is owing to their indolence and stupidity. A proof of this is given daily in many persons; for spiritual “drunkenness” engrosses and stupefies all their senses to such a degree, that they are blind to the plainest subjects; and, when God shews the brightest light of justice and equity, they are so completely dazzled, that their dim vision bewilders them more and more. This stupidity is a just punishment which the Lord inflicts on them on account of their unbelief.
In order that we may apply this statement of the Prophet for our own use, it is proper to observe, that these words of the Prophet must not be understood to be commands, as if he enjoined them to stop and think longer; but, on the contrary, he mocks and reproves their stupidity, as we have already said. ( Pensez y tant que vous voudrez, vous n’y entendres rien) “Think as much as you please about it, you will not at all understand it.”
They are blinded, and they blind. (265) He means, that they are destitute of judgment and understanding, and that consequently it is useless for them to contemplate these works of God; for as the brightness of the sun is of no avail to the toad, so a blinded understanding in vain does its utmost to comprehend the majestic works of God. When he says that “they are blinded,” he means that by nature we are created so as to be endued with reason and understanding for contemplating the works of God; that our being “blinded” is, so to speak, an accidental fault, and that the drunkenness does not naturally belong to us, for it is owing to the ingratitude of men, which the Lord justly censures.
They stagger. This “staggering” of the mind is contrasted by him with a calm and quiet exercise of reason; for he means that violence of the passions which agitates the mind, and causes it to waver and reel.
(265) Bogus footnote
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
4. SULLENNESS
TEXT: Isa. 29:9-16
9
Tarry ye and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10
For Jehovah hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, hath he covered.
11
And all vision is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed:
12
and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I am not learned.
13
And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw nigh unto me, and with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which hath been taught them;
14
therefore, 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 shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15
Woe unto them that hide deep their counsel from Jehovah, and whose works are in the dark, and say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
16
Ye turn things upside down! Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it, He made me not; or the thing formed say of him that formed it, He hath no understanding?
QUERIES
a.
How is the book sealed?
b.
What was to be Gods marvelous work?
PARAPHRASE
Yes, go ahead and stand around with that look of incredulity. Go ahead and stagger around in your stupor of blinding self-indulgence. The Lord has allowed you to drown yourselves in a spirit of deep stupor. The Lord has permitted your prophets and wise men to refuse to see His message. Gods revelation has become a closed book to you. When men give it to a learned man and ask him to read it he says, I do not understand it, it is a closed book and I cannot read it. When they give it to the illiterate and ask him to read it, he says, I cannot read. None of you, therefore, know Gods revelation. Now the Lord says, because you people pay Me only lip-service while your hearts desire is far away from Me, and because you revere the tradition and ritualism of men about My revelation, I will proceed with My program of judgment. I am going to manifest a miraculous judgment, such as only God can do. I am going to destroy the wisdom of your wise men. I am going to bring you into such difficult and impossible circumstances that none of your counselors will know the solution and their so-called wisdom will be shown to be folly. All this woe is to come upon you people because your leaders have taught you to reject the will of the Lord in your lives and they have taught you to believe the Lord is not the sovereign of your life. Your teachers have caused you to reverse reality! You have gotten every thing in life backwards. The clay vessel does not create the potterthe potter is maker and sovereign of the vessel. The pot does not say of the potter, he has no sense.
COMMENTS
Isa. 29:9-12 BROODING: Isaiah represents the people as standing in a sort of stunned, hesitant, stupified state of sullen disbelief. They think it incredible that Isaiah is predicting Jerusalem will become a bloody altar to the Lords vengeance. It does not make sense to them. They stare at the prophet like a drunken man stares when he does not comprehend what is being said to him. The Lord has allowed them to fall into a spiritual stupor. They have inebriated themselves and deadened their spiritual comprehension with rebellion against Gods revelation and the heady intoxicant of self-exalting, self-justifying human traditions and rituals. And the Lord has made man a moral being whose choices either make him better or worse. Mans moral choices either blind him or enlighten him. That is the way God made man, so it is ultimately Gods doing. The prophet who continues to choose what is false will eventually be blinded to anything true. What a man does not use he loses. When men do not exercise their faculties to choose between evil and good they soon lose the ability to see good as distinguished from evil. The people of Jerusalem have made up their minds that safety and security from the Assyrian menace is to be found in their own political shrewdness and their treaties with Egypt. They have left the Lord completely out of their plans. They do not trust Him. They do not believe He will act in their best interests. They believe their way is superior.
Sullenly they brood over the revelation of God delivered through the writings of Isaiah (cf. Isa. 8:16-22), and when someone asks them what Isaiahs revelation means, their scholars and wise men scoff at it and call it a lot of gibberish and incredible nonsense which no one can understand. Isaiahs writings are like the sealed book of a mysticthey are completely unrealistic and far-fetched. What Isaiah says will never happen according to the wise men of Jerusalem. And, of course, in Isaiahs day many people were illiterate and depended upon priests and prophets and scribes for all their knowledge of what was written in books. The illiterate could not read for themselves, and when the literate would not read Isaiahs writings to them no one knew what Isaiah was revealing from the Lord. The whole nation learned only what the unbelieving, ungodly leaders taught them.
Isa. 29:13-16 BELLIGERENT: Now Isaiah turns his attention to the cause of their blindness. Their leaders were teaching them to trust in their religion as it was then being practiced. It was a syncretism of paganism and Jewish tradition. It was a religion of self-merit based on ritual observance and disassociated from any relationship to a personal, righteous, holy, loving God. It was a religion of going through certain motions and saying certain words, but it had nothing to do with morality, goodness, truth, holiness of life. They had fallen into the same trap the devil has laid for so many men and womenthat of compartmentalizing life. Religion is in one compartment; vocation is in another compartment; family relationships in another compartment; recreation in another compartment; none of these compartments of life are supposed to have any influence on the others. These people of Jerusalem gave God lip-service, but their hearttheir desires and aspirationswas focused on themselves and the things of the world. The center of their lives was not God and His holiness but their own self-esteem and self-indulgence. They practiced a religion but it had no relationship to their way of life. They did not treasure God so their heart was not with Him (cf. Mat. 5:21). They reverenced the esteem of men; they treasured the traditions and opinions of men; they believed in man and his ability to solve all his own problems by his human wisdom and so they did not need God. They had simply turned a deaf ear to His prophet and eliminated God from all their plans.
Jesus quoted Isa. 29:13 in a confrontation with the Pharisees (Mat. 15:1-20; Mar. 7:1-23) over Jewish traditions. The Pharisees valued their traditions and opinions so highly they were eager to break the commandment of God in order to promote their traditions. It is the same old story of mankinds pride rejecting divine wisdom and sovereignty in favor of its own finite and fallible wisdom. To accept and be guided by divine revelation from The Sovereign God entails human surrender and self-humiliationa full and complete trust in Gods word over ones own wisdom. This is not easy. God has never said it was easy. But mans historic experience, coupled with Gods historic demonstration of Himself in His Son, should prove beyond the slightest doubt that man is lost if left to his own wisdom.
Isaiahs prophecy here had immediate reference to the marvelous wonder God was about to do in the Assyrian siege and the deliverance of Jerusalem by the angel of death slaying 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. When God sent the Assyrian hordes and they got their strangle-hold on Jerusalem, the wisdom of Jerusalems wise men was shown to be the foolishness it really was. Judahs leaders had advised that an alliance with Egypt would protect them from Assyria. The leaders discounted all Isaiahs warnings of judgment from Jehovah as so much nonsense. In effect they were saying, Isaiah is a fool and he is wrong; God has nothing to do with our political affairs; what God supposedly advises through Isaiah is foolishness; we know what is right and effective in our own affairs. So, when God allowed them to be brought to utter helplessness and near to being completely consumed by the Assyrians, He was destroying the wisdom of the wise.
The climactic point in history where God demonstrably destroyed the wisdom of the wise was at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All the human schemes and philosophies of self-righteousness, self-esteem and self-salvation were thoroughly invalidated and shown to be foolishness. The cross and the resurrection were demonstrated to be the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. That is why the apostle Paul quoted Isa. 29:14. Every historic demonstration of Gods wisdom versus mans foolishness in the Old Testament was a type and a prophecy of the climactic demonstration at the cross and the empty tomb! The Assyrian siege and the deliverance by the Lords angel was one of those types!
When a man takes it upon himself to exclude God from any area or circumstance of his life, that man has turned things upside down! The man who tries to hide his doings and thinkings from the Omniscient God is a fool! His attempt is as absurd as the clay vessel attempting to say that it made itself and the potter had nothing to do with it. And when man gets his relationship to his Creator upside down all of mans existence gets perverted and in opposition to his real self! All mans moral perverseness, intra-personal antagonisms and self-conflicts are directly related to mans rejection of the sovereignty of his Creator in all the areas of life.
God extends Himself in love to reclaim autonomous, belligerent, sullen man. God carries out His program of reclamation through judgments and redemptions. But man, a free moral agent, must make a willing, humble, surrendered response. Man must surrender to Gods sovereignty. Gods judgment and redemption of Jerusalem at the siege of Assyria accomplished the reclamation of a remnant through which the Messiah was to be born. But the majority of the Jews continued in their belligerence and sullenness rejecting Gods wisdom spoken through the prophets until in Jeremiahs day practically the whole nation (cf. Jer. 5:1) was in rebellion.
QUIZ
1.
Characterize the people of Jerusalem as Isaiah saw them in this chapter.
2.
How was Jerusalem to become an altar to Jehovah?
3.
What was the response of the people of Jerusalem to Isaiahs revelation?
4.
What was the cause of the peoples attitude toward Gods prophet?
5.
What was the climactic demonstration of Gods destruction of the wisdom of the wise?
6.
What is the cause of mans perverseness?
7.
How may man find salvation from his perverseness?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(9) Stay yourselves . . .Better, Astonish yourselves. We can perhaps best understand the words by picturing to ourselves the prophet as preaching or reciting the previous prediction to his disciples and to the people. They are staggered, startled, incredulous, and he bursts into words of vehement reproof. The form of the verb implies that their astonished unbelief was self-caused. The change from the second person to the third implies that the prophet paused for a moment in his address to describe their state as an observer. Outwardly, they were as men too drunk to understand, but their drunkenness was not that of the wine or the strong drink of the fermented palm-juice, in which, as in Isa. 28:7, the prophet implies that they habitually indulged. Now their drunkenness was of another type.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9-12. Stay wonder; cry The original, and our version from it, in this verse are obscure. Credibly the meaning is: “Stare with amazed look at the prophecy just given, if you will. [Isaiah is addressing the nobles and priests and prophets of Jerusalem.] Revel in sensual pleasures if you will. Deeper blindness will be the certain result. Cling still to your policy of rejecting Jehovah’s aid and seeking Egypt’s.” They stagger, etc. Here the prophet apparently soliloquizes: “Here they stagger and are stupefied by something quite different from the usual wine.” Isa 28:7. What this something is he now states to them. Jehovah hath poured deep sleep, etc. God creates not moral evil; but when projected from the creature, he causes it to react upon and punish itself. Sin stupefies the moral nature. It works “a deep sleep.” It makes dull, or even blind, the intellectual and the spiritual eye. Since, therefore, ye will blind yourselves to divine prophecy, Jehovah allows you all the results of your wilful blindness.
The prophets They are not God’s prophets. Pretending to be prophets they are not true men. They pander to popular vices for popular favour and applause.
Your rulers Your head men, men who have wickedly attained to leadership, claiming to be seers, that is, statesmen.
Hath he covered Covered as to the eyes. They see not the plain truths of God. (It is the same over again in all ages, down to Christ’s time, down to these times.) God leaves them in their blindness. “Like priest, like people.”
The vision of all is become as a book that is sealed Parabolic words, these, which teach that what God reveals avails the people nothing. Prophecy by God’s true men is thrown away through the corrupting influence of such leaders.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Unbelieving Response of the Majority To God ( Isa 29:9-14 ).
There are at least two ways of looking at this passage. One is to see it as Isaiah’s words prior to God’s amazing deliverance, seeking to inculcate faith but seeing instead obstinacy, in which case Isa 29:14 points to that event, the other is to see it as Isaiah’s words after that amazing deliverance when the careless final response of the majority of the people to it has left him baffled. The modern Christian is similarly amazed that men do not see the glory of Christ and follow Him.
Analysis.
a Make yourselves hesitate, and wonder. Blind yourselves (literally ‘be smeared’, and to do with the eyes), and be blind (Isa 29:9 b).
b They are drunk, but not with wine, they stagger, but not with strong drink, for Yahweh has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets, and has covered your heads, the seers (Isa 29:10).
c And all vision has become to you as the words of a book which is sealed, which men deliver over to one who is learned, saying, “Read this, I beg you”. And he says, “I cannot for it is sealed”. And the book is delivered to him who is not learned, saying, “Read this I pray you”, and he says, “I am not learned” (Isa 29:12).
c And the Lord said, “Forasmuch as these people draw near to me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is but a commandment of men which has been taught them,
b Therefore behold I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder.
a And the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their astute men will be hid.
In ‘a’ the people are seen at work making themselves hesitate and wonder and then putting a blind on their eyes and blinding their own eyes, and in the parallel the wisdom and understanding of both their wise and astute men will cease and be hidden. In ‘b’ their state is seen to be the action of Yahweh who has poured out on them the spirit of stupor and in the parallel it is described as a marvellous work, a work and a wonder. There is nothing as wondrous as the unbelief of men in the face of God revealing His mighty works as he did at Jerusalem with Sennacherib. Or alternately the parallel may mean that He did a marvellous work and a wonder, but because of their stupor they did not appreciate it. In ‘c’ all vision has been hid from them because of their unwillingness to see, and in the parallel it is because they have withdrawn their hearts from Him.
Isa 29:9-12
‘Make yourselves hesitate, and wonder,
Blind yourselves (literally ‘be smeared’, and to do with the eyes), and be blind.
They are drunk, but not with wine,
They stagger, but not with strong drink,
For Yahweh has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep,
And has closed your eyes, the prophets, and has covered your heads, the seers.
And all vision has become to you as the words of a book which is sealed,
Which men deliver over to one who is learned,
Saying, “Read this, I beg you”. And he says, “I cannot for it is sealed.”
And the book is delivered to him who is not learned,
Saying, “Read this I pray you”, and he says, “I am not learned”.
The use of the imperative vividly brings out Isaiah’s own perplexity and growing awareness of the obduracy of the people. Although God had warned Him that the people would mainly continue to be blind he still found it difficult to take in. If this was before the great deliverance it expresses his growing awareness of their deliberate blindness. If this was after the event, the wonder of what happened at the deliverance of Jerusalem would have come home strongly to him, and it represents him as seeing that it had left many of them unchanged. Momentarily, in the exultation of the moment, they might have become convinced but they will soon deliberately begin to hesitate, and then wonder if it ever happened. They will smear over their own eyes by means of their doubt and unwillingness to believe, thus they will finish up blind. They will convince themselves that there was a natural explanation, talk it down and shrug off its effects. They will have seen a wonder of the world and will remain unchanged, even hardened. (Just as the Pharisees will later do with Jesus in the face of even greater wonders).
In either case Isaiah cannot understand it. He is baffled. So he speaks to them almost as in a daze. ‘Make yourselves hesitate (reflexive) and wonder.’ He is warning them that if they make themselves hesitate, they will soon begin to wonder whether God will indeed work, or whether He has so worked. Rather they should respond to Yahweh’s amazing act, or His past acts, with full belief and gladness of heart. But he senses their hesitation, and fears what the result will be. They will go on hesitating and then they will begin to wonder in the end whether it meant anything significant at all. His words are drawn out of him almost unwillingly, as he warns them what the result of their attitude will be. By smearing up their own vision they will become blind. It is always dangerous to hesitate when the call comes to ‘follow Me’.
If this refers to before the event then the words are to be seen as a rebuke at their continuing unwillingness to trust Yahweh. As he sees their determined opposition to his position of trusting in Yahweh, the One Who in the past has acted so mightily on behalf of their people as their past history reveals, he can only see it as fulfilling what God had said to him at his inauguration as a prophet (Isa 6:8-12), that they would be subject to blind unbelief. If after then it is even more incredible, and the rebuke is to be seen as even stronger.
And so in either case he decides that there can be only one explanation for their attitude, it must be because they are drunk. But as he recognises that it must be with something more permanent than wine, he concludes that they must be staggering about, seemingly incapable of understanding, not because of what they have drunk, but because Yahweh has poured out on them a spirit of deep sleep. They are in a divinely wrought coma. It is the only explanation that comes to hand. Indeed on top of their own obduracy he sees an even deeper wonder, that those who profess to be their eyes, who should have helped them to appreciate what had happened, the prophets, seem to have their own eyes closed, while those who should have been in a position to explain everything, the seers, seem to have had their heads covered over lest they see.
His perplexity is understandable. It is always difficult for one who believes to understand deep doubt. Everything seems so clear to believers. Thus they can only then conclude that if there is doubt it is Yahweh’s work. It must be because He wants it that way. And in the end they are right. Not because He wants men to be blind and directly acts, but because He has made mankind as he is, to grow in doubt if he refuses to believe. So such blindness and hesitation are not Yahweh’s direct work. They are the result of sin and rebellion, and of an unwillingness to be in submission to God. They are the result of man’s obstinate free will. And Isaiah sees that that is the case here.
‘And all vision has become to you as the words of a book which is sealed, which men deliver over to one who is learned, saying, “Read this, I beg you”. And he says, “I cannot. The book is sealed.” But he recognises that this is not the result of their extra intelligence. It is because they have closed minds. So he tells these men that they are like those who have a sealed book, which is full of knowledge, but to them it is hidden knowledge because they will not open the seal. In the same way, something has clearly sealed their minds so that they have failed to grasp the significance of what God’s activity past or present really means. And when they go to the learned (the prophet and the seer) and beg them to read it, they will demur. They cannot, they say, for the book is sealed, that is, they cannot understand it. But this would not be humility, it would be stubbornness and unwillingness, a further example of blindness. They do not want to see God’s ways, they prefer their own.
Then in their perfidy the people take the book to one who is unlearned, and ask him to read, and he refuses, saying, “I am not learned (cannot read fluently)”. No one wants to make the attempt.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 29:9-10. Stay yourselves, and wonder Or, Stay, &c.Make blind and be ye blind; they are drunken, &c. The prophet here proceeds to describe the spiritual judgment; the first gradation of which is contained in Isa 29:9-12. The two former expressing this judgment both mystically and properly; the two latter the unhappy consequence of it. Upon the whole, this period describes the same judgment with that mentioned, chap. Isa 6:9, &c. Isa 8:14-15. See also chap. Isa 28:7-8. Vitringa supposes that the event which the people are called upon to stay and wonder at, is the manifestation of the kingdom of Christ; their rejection whereof should be attended with the spiritual blindness and hardness of heart here predicted, and which we learn sufficiently to have been the case from the Gospel. See Vitringa.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 29:9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
Ver. 9. Stay yourselves, and wonder. ] Sistite gradum, stand still, and stand amazed at this people’s stupendous stupidity and desperate security. Piscator rendereth the text thus: Cunctantur, itaque admiramini; deliciantur, itaque vociferamini. They delay (to return), therefore wonder ye at it; they sport at it, but cry ye out, as lamenting their folly. Eze 9:4 , where the original is very elegant Some translate the words thus: Obstupefacite vos ipsi, et sitis stupidi, et excaecate vos ipsi et sitis caeci, stupify yourselves and be stupid; blind yourselves and be blind; do so, I say, for you will do so undoubtedly. And here begin their spiritual miseries. See Isa 29:1 ; Isa 6:9-10 .
They are drunk, but not with wine.
a Homil. de plaga grandinis.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 29:9-12
9Be delayed and wait,
Blind yourselves and be blind;
They become drunk, but not with wine,
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
10For the LORD has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep,
He has shut your eyes, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, the seers.
11The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, Please read this, he will say, I cannot, for it is sealed. 12Then the book will be given to the one who is illiterate, saying, Please read this. And he will say, I cannot read.
Isa 29:9 Be delayed and wait,
Blind yourselves and be blind The first two poetic lines of this verse have four IMPERATIVES.
1. be delayed, BDB 554, KB 552, Hithpalpel IMPERATIVE, MASCULINE PLURAL
2. wait, BDB 1069, KB 1744, Qal IMPERATIVE, MASCULINE PLURAL; lit. be astounded, cf. Hab 1:5
NASB wait
NKJV wonder
NRSV be in a stupor
NJB stunned
LXX, Peshitta be amazed
3. blind yourselves, BDB 1044 I, KB 1612, Hithpalpel IMPERATIVE, MASCULINE PLURAL
4. be blind, BDB 1044, KB 1612, Qal IMPERATIVE, MASCULINE PLURAL, cf. Isa 6:9-10; Mic 3:6-7
It is possible that #3 and #4 are from the Hebrew root to delight in (BDB 1044 II), if so then the phrase is sarcasm.
Notice the balance between human freedom, Isa 29:9 and divine sovereignty, Isa 29:10. Both are true! See Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan .
They became drunk This is another use of the term drunkenness (BDB 1016, KB 1500, Qal PERFECT) to describe the apostasy of the political and religious leaders of God’s people (cf. Isa 28:1-4; Isa 28:7-8).
Isa 29:10-12 Notice YHWH’s activities in removing His message from His people (cf. Isa 6:9-10; Mic 3:6-7).
1. the LORD has poured on you (BDB 650, KB 703, Qal PERFECT) a spirit of deep sleep (BDB 924 CONSTRUCT BDB 922)
2. He has shut (BDB 783, KB 868, Piel IMPERFECT) the eyes of your prophets
3. He has covered (BDB 491, KB 487, Piel PERFECT, TEV blindfolded) both the civic and religious leadership’s eyes (cf. Isa 29:11-12; Isa 6:9-10; Isa 8:16)
Isa 29:10 is quoted by Paul in his discussion of Israel’s failure to believe/trust in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah in Rom 11:8.
Isa 29:11 sealed This VERBAL (BDB 367, KB 364, Qal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE) is also used by Isaiah in Isa 8:16, where it refers to a revelatory scroll written by the prophet at God’s direction. The sealing referred to a way of
1. indicating ownership
2. assuring security
This was accomplished by
1. blob of wax (or clay) on the rolled up edge with a signet ring of the sender impressed in it
2. two blobs of wax (or clay) with a string between them and both impressed with the sender’s ring or symbol
As Isaiah was told to seal up the message in Isa 8:16, so too, Daniel in Dan 12:4. However, in Isa 29:11 it is simply a metaphor for the ceasing of God’s revelation.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
wine. Hebrew. yayin. App-27.
strong drink. Hebrew. shekar. App-27.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 29:9-12
Isa 29:9-12
THE JUDICIAL HARDENING OF ISRAEL
“Tarry ye and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For Jehovah hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, he hath covered. And all vision has become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I cannot for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to one that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I am not learned.”
These verses are parallel to Isa 6:9-10, the passage so frequently quoted in the New Testament, being another reference to the source of Israel’s perverse and rebellious behavior. God had judicially hardened the nation. This condition is here spoken of as “a deep sleep,” an intellectual and spiritual “drunkenness,” but not of wine or strong drink, and as “blindness.” Widespread ignorance and misunderstanding prevail with regard to this condition.
Who causes it? There are no less than three centers of responsibility for the development of this condition. These are: (a) men themselves; (b) Satan; and (c) God.
A. Initially, it is the hatred of God’s Word in human hearts that results in hardening. Yes, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart; but the Bible did not mention this at all until it had been recorded no less than ten times, that, “Pharaoh hardened his heart.”
Paul mentioned the judicial hardening of the whole pre-Christian Gentile world as caused by the people themselves, citing a number of reasons.
(1) They knew God, but because they did not glorify him, nor give thanks (Rom 1:21), their senseless heart was darkened, and they became fools.
(2) They perverted and corrupted their knowledge of God (Rom 1:22-23), and … God gave them up to lusts and uncleanness (Rom 1:24).
(3) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served themselves, rather than God (Rom 1:25); … and for this cause God gave them up unto vile passions (Rom 1:26).
(4) They refused to have God in their knowledge; and, for this cause, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind.
Thus, there cannot be any doubt that judicial hardening occurs only when the human will itself has deliberately rejected the knowledge of God and has fully determined to follow a course of rebellion against God. Kidner’s comment on the passage here notes that, “The reflexive verbs in Isa 29:9 suggest that the hardening is judicial; self-will has brought its own punishment.
People are still being hardened today, exactly as they were in ancient times, and for exactly the same reason. Why? The best answer was given by Paul:
“They received not the love of the truth that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2Th 2:10-12, KJV).
We chose the KJV in this passage because “strong delusion” in our version has been watered down to “working of error,” which is unintelligible.
B. Satan also has a hand in this phenomenon. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them” (2Co 4:3-4). Of course, Satan is able to blind only those persons whose hearts have already been given to evil. In this action, Satan is an instrument of God.
C. God Himself blinds, hardens, darkens, gives men up to reprobacy, sends a strong delusion etc. This never means that God actually causes men to sin. It means that all heavenly restraint is finally removed from evil men whose course of life against God is already set. It is certain that the actual intelligence of men is severely and negatively affected by judicial hardening. Unless this is true, no one could ever explain how Pharaoh could have been induced to lead his men into the Red Sea! Right here is the explanation of why so many individuals who are honored by high office or distinguished achievements are actually morons with reference to understanding the Bible. No one knows how many there are who have already suffered the removal of the very “bud” of their central intelligence through this thing called judicial hardening. It is actually impossible to understand the Bible apart from Jesus Christ; and that is not merely a personal opinion; it is so stated in 2Co 3:12-18.
In all ages of Israel’s history, there were false prophets, and these were the ones addressed in this passage.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
and wonder: Isa 1:2, Isa 33:13, Isa 33:14, Jer 2:12, Hab 1:5, Act 13:40, Act 13:41, Rev 17:6
cry ye out, and cry: or, take your pleasure and riot, Isa 22:12, Isa 22:13, Mat 26:45, Mar 14:41
they are: Isa 29:10, Isa 19:14, Isa 28:7, Isa 28:8, Isa 49:26, Isa 51:21, Isa 51:22, Jer 23:9, Jer 25:27, Jer 51:7, Lam 4:21
Reciprocal: Psa 69:23 – Their eyes Psa 107:27 – stagger Isa 24:20 – reel Isa 29:14 – I will Isa 42:19 – Who is blind Isa 51:20 – full Jer 4:9 – and the priests Jer 13:13 – I will Jer 48:26 – ye him Eze 12:2 – which Amo 8:9 – that I Nah 3:11 – shalt be drunken Mar 11:33 – We Luk 20:7 – that 2Th 2:11 – for Rev 14:10 – drink
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 29:9-10. Stay yourselves and wonder The prophet, having described the temporal judgment coming on the Jews, (see the contents of the chapter,) proceeds now to predict the spiritual one, the first gradation of which is contained in these and the two following verses, which both describe the judgment and the consequence of it. It is the same with that predicted Isa 6:9-12; and Isa 8:14-15. On which see the notes. Hebrew, , Pause and be astonished. Stop and consider the stupidity of this people, and you cannot but wonder at it. Cry ye out, and cry Through amazement and horror. They are drunken, but not with wine But with stupidity and folly, which makes them, like drunken men, insensible of their danger, and not knowing what to do. For the Lord hath poured out upon you Hath suffered to come upon you, in a way of righteous judgment, and as a punishment for your loving, darkness rather than light; the spirit of deep sleep Hardness of heart, and insensibility of your danger and misery. The prophets and your rulers Your magistrates and ministers, whose blindness and stupidity are a great curse to the people; hath he covered Permitted to be covered with the veil of ignorance and stupidity; that is, he hath withdrawn his abused light and grace from them, so that they no more see things in a true light than if a thick veil were spread over them. The prophets and seers here mean the same persons.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 29:9-12. The people are stupefied, for Yahweh has drenched their senses with a trance-slumber (Gen 2:21*). He has shut their eyes and muffled their heads. All alike fail to understand the prophetic vision; to the educated it is a sealed book which they cannot read, the illiterate cannot read it, though no seal is upon it.
Isa 29:9. Substitute margins.
Isa 29:10. Omit the prophets, the seers, glosses which miss the meaning.
Isa 29:13 f. On account of the formalism and hypocrisy of Judahs religion, Yahweh will achieve a marvellous work which will bring all their foresight to nought.
Isa 29:13. Substitute AV draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me.taught them: they have learnt their religion by rote (mg.), but have no intelligent interest in it.
Isa 29:15-24. Woe to those who seek to conceal their plans of Egyptian alliance from Yahweh by hiding them from His prophet. What perversity! (cf. mg.). They reverse the true order; the creature passive in the Creators hand dares to act on the fancy that it is independent of Him, as if He too was of no understanding (Isa 10:15). Soon the land will become so fruitful that the forest will be as fertile as garden land, and what is now garden land will be thought no more of than forest land. Those now deaf and blind (Isa 29:9 f.), unable to understand the prophets vision (Isa 29:11 f.), will both hear and see. The humble and poor will rejoice, for the foreign oppressor, and the irreligious, tyrannical Jew, and those who are on the alert to catch men tripping, will all be brought to nought. Jacob shall no longer be abashed. The sight of Yahwehs work shall lead him to hallow Israels God, and those who have no insight and intelligence will then have right understanding.
Isa 29:22. who redeemed Abraham: perhaps an insertion.concerning: read, the god of.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
29:9 {h} Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
(h) Muse on this a long as ye like, yet you will find nothing but opportunity to be astonished for your prophets are blind, and therefore cannot direct you.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The reason for coming judgment 29:9-14
Isa 29:9-14 explain the reason for Jerusalem’s judgment (cf. Isa 28:7-13).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Jerusalem’s leaders would delay (actually, "be delayed," by their lack of perception) and wait to act in faith because they were spiritually blind and drunk (cf. Isa 6:9-10). Isaiah was apparently speaking to them ironically again (cf. Isa 29:1). If the people of Jerusalem failed to see the importance of trusting God in the face of enemy attack, and failed to trust Him, they would find it even more difficult to see His will and do it later. When people see the will of God and refuse to do it, they become incapable of seeing it and doing it further (cf. Act 28:26-28; Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26; Rom 1:28; Heb 4:1-11). This is serious spiritual blindness and drunkenness.