Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 29:11
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:
11. the vision of all ] i.e. the revelation of all this (cf. Psa 49:17, “all that”).
learned ] is literally “knowing letters.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
11, 12. A distinction is drawn between the ignorance of the educated and that of the uneducated classes. The man of culture is like one who will not break the seal of a sealed book that he may read it; the man in the street cannot read it even if unsealed. The passage is interesting as illustrating the diffusion of literary education in Isaiah’s time (cf. Jer 5:4-5).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And the vision of all – The vision of all the prophets; that is, all the revelations which God has made to you (see the note at Isa 1:1). The prophet refers not only to his own communications, but to those of his contemporaries, and of all who had gone before him. The sense is, that although they had the communications which God had made to them, yet they did not understand them. They were as ignorant of their true nature as a man who can read is of the contents of a letter that is sealed up, or as a man who cannot read is of the contents of a book that is handed to him.
As the words of a book – Margin, Letter. The word sepher may mean either. It properly means anything which is written (Deu 24:1, Deu 24:3; Jer 32:11; Dan 1:4), but is commonly applied to a book Exo 17:14; Jos 1:8; Jos 8:34; Psa 40:8.
That is sealed – (see the note at Isa 8:16).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 29:11-12
The vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed
The universality of spiritual blindness
What is affirmed in these verses holds so strikingly true of Gods general revelation to the world, that we deem the lesson contained in them to be not of partial, but permanent application.
I. There is A COMPLAINT uttered in these verses
(1) by the learned,
(2) by the unlearned.
1. If a book be closed down by a material seal, then, till that seal be broken, there lies a material obstacle even in the way of him who is able to read the contents of it. Is there any hindrance in virtue of which the critics, and the grammarians, and the accomplished theologians of our age, are unable to reach the real and effective understanding of the words of this prophecy? Yes, and it is wonderful to tell, how little the mere erudition of Scripture helps the real discernment of Scripture. The learned just labour as helplessly under a want of an impression of the reality of this whole matter, as the unlearned; and if this be true of many a priest and theologian, with whom Christianity is a science, and the study of the Bible the business of their profession, what can we expect of those among the learned, who, in the pursuits of a secular philosophy, never enter into contact with the Bible, either in its doctrine or in its language, except when it is obtruded on them? To make the wisdom of the New Testament his wisdom, and its spirit his spirit, and its language his best-loved and best-understood language, there must be a higher influence upon the mind, than what lies in human art, or in human explanation. And till this is brought to pass, the doctrines of the atonement and of regeneration, and of fellowship with the Father and the Son, and of a believers progressive holiness, under the moral and spiritual power of the truth as it is in Jesus, will, as to his own personal experience of its meaning, remain so many empty sounds, or so many deep and hidden mysteries: and just as effectually, as if the book were held together by an iron clasp, which he has not strength to unclose, may he say of the same book lying open and legible before him, that he cannot read it, because it is sealed.
2. As for the complaint of the unlearned, it happily, in the literal sense of it, is not applicable to the great majority of our immediate countrymen, even in the very humblest walks of society. They can read the book. There may remain a seal upon its meaning to him, who, in the ordinary sense of the term, is learned, while the seal may be removed, and the meaning lie open as the light of day to him, who in the same sense is unlearned. In pressing home the truths and overtures of Christianity on the poor, we often meet with the very answer of the text, I am not learned. They think that there is an ignorance which necessity attaches to their condition, and that this should alleviate the burden of their condemnation, in that they know not God. Now we refuse this apology altogether. The Word of the Lord is in your hands, and you can at least read it. The Gospel is preached unto you as well as unto others–and you can, at least, attend to it.
II. Let us now proceed to EXPLAIN A CIRCUMSTANCE which stands associated in our text with the incapacity both of learned and unlearned to discover the meaning of Gods communications–that is the spirit of deep sleep which had closed the eyes of the people, and buried in darkness and insensibility the prophets, the rulers, and the seers, as well as the humblest and most ignorant of the land. The connection between the one circumstance and the other is quite palpable. If a peasant and a philosopher were both literally asleep before me–and that so profoundly, as that no voice of mine could awaken them–then they are just in the same circumstances, with regard to any demonstration which I addressed to their understandings. Neither would it at all help the conveyance of my meaning to their mind, that while dead to all perception of the argument which issued from my lips, or even of the sound which is its vehicle, the minds of both of them were most busily alive and active amongst the imagery of a dream–the one dreaming too, perhaps, in the style of some high intellectual pursuit, and the other dreaming in the style of some common and illiterate occupation. Such, it is possible to conceive, may be the profoundness of this lethargy, as to be unmoved by the most loud and terrifying intimations. That the vast majority of the world are, in truth, asleep to all those realities which constitute the great materials of religion, may be abundantly proved by experience. Now, the question comes to be, how is this sleep dissipated? Not, we affirm, and all experience will go with us, by the power of natural argument–not by the demonstrations of human learning, for these are just as powerless with him who understands them, as with him who makes his want of learning the pretence for putting them away. There must be a something equivalent to the communication of a new sense, ere a reality comes to be seen in those eternal things. It is true, that along the course of our ordinary existence, we are awake to the concerns of our ordinary existence. But this is not a wakefulness which goes to disturb the profoundness of our insensibility as to the concerns of a higher existence. We are in one sense awake; but in another most entirely, and, to all human appearance, most hopelessly and irrecoverably asleep. We are just in the same condition with a man who is dreaming, and so moves for the time in a pictured world of his own. And the transition is not greater from the sleeping fancies of the night to the waking certainties of our daily business, than is the transition from the daydreams of a passing world to those substantial considerations which wield s presiding authority over the conduct of him who walketh not by the sight of that which is around him, but by the faith of the unseen things that are above him, and before him. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
The voices of life
Here, we find the picture of the two great classes of excuses men make today, when duties are urged upon them.
I. The first great answer of human nature to the call of duty–the first and readiest excuse which the easy-going, self-indulgent life has to offer–is this first excuse of the men of Jerusalem to the unpleasant vision of the future. It is as a book which is sealed, and he who is able to read it does not read it, simply because it is closed, or sealed. Here we have a definite excuse given, which looks plausible enough, but which only means, after all, the lack of will power, which so frequently lodges behind some prominent excuse. POWERLESSNESS OF WILL! Who does not make this excuse in life?
II. The other great excuse which is so freely given is the LACK OF OPPORTUNITY. He who has the will has not the one requisite, the one condition of success, the longed for opportunity. The poor man with his tastes envies the rich their command over the forces of life. The struggling student by his midnight lamp, with his book borrowed from the library, sighs as he sees the elegantly bound but unopened volumes of those who have abundant opportunities but no appreciation of their hidden treasures, or will to read them. The invalid upon the bed of pain, whose life is a dream of impossible realities, cherishing noble yearnings for the strife, sees life passing by, padlocked and bound, with every aspiration chained and fettered by the hopeless impossibility of ever achieving anything. Practical lessons–
1. This very incompleteness of our nature shows us the souls rightful demand for another life without these limiting human conditions.
2. Right in the midst of these voices of life, these excuses for our failure, from whatever source these excuses come, the religion of Jesus Christ appears as a new creation of power.
3. Just when we feel that our motive power is failing us, or that we are helpless in our surroundings, and are lacking an opportunity for the exercise of our suppressed faculties, the Spirit of God, who is the Comforter of the sanctified heart of man and the Inspirer of his better nature, appears with His Divine mission, and opens the way out of dead levels and land-locked vistas, into new and unforeseen stretches of existence. What a power there is in this thought of the souls higher deliverance by the interposing hand of the Spirit of God, lifting us out of our poor everyday life! (W. W. Newton.)
Bible neglect reproved
The general division of the learned and the unlearned is introduced as offering an excuse for the not understanding the revelation of God. There is diversity, indeed, in the excuse itself, but there is thorough agreement upon the point, that, from some reason or another, the Bible is unintelligible; the one class taking refuge in the alleged obscurity of Scripture, and the other in their own defective education. None are represented as actually throwing scorn upon the book, but all render it a kind of involuntary homage. And we believe that no truer description could be given of the great body of men, considered relative to the light in which they view Scripture. If there were anything like a general suspicion that the Bible is not what it professes itself–a revelation from God, there would be nothing to surprise us in the general neglect with which it is treated; we should quite expect that if there were doubt as to the origin there would, for the most part, be indifference as to the contents; but with the great body of men its origin is no more brought into question than is the duty of preparing for eternity. And here we have a manifest inconsistency, to be accounted for only on the supposition that men have provided themselves with some specious apology.
I. We shall consider, therefore, THE CASE AND APOLOGY OF THE LEARNED. There is something of truth in the representation that the Bible is a sealed book. We always regard it as a standing proof of the divinity of the volume, that it is not to be unfolded by the processes which we apply to a mere human composition, and that every attempt to enter deeply into its meaning, without the assistance of its Author, issues in nothing but conjecture and confusion. But in all these excuses, however specious, and however, in a certain sense, grounded on a truth, there is nothing to warrant that refusal to examine Holy Writ which they are invented to justify. We know of no conclusion which can be fairly drawn from the confessed mysteriousness of Scripture, and the consequent need of a superhuman interpreter, but that the volume should never be approached in our own wisdom, and never without prayer for the teaching of Gods Spirit. If it would be our duty to study the volume were it not sealed, it must be equally our duty to study it when, though sealed, the way is prescribed in which it may be opened. We have only to bring this consideration into the account, and there is an end of all arguing from the obscurity of the study of Scripture.
II. THE CASE AND APOLOGY OF THE UNLEARNED MAN. Here, again, the excuse is based on a truth, but nevertheless, it in no degree justifies neglect. It is of vast importance that the poor be set right in this matter, and that they be taught that there is no necessary connection, as they seem to suppose, between scholarship and salvation. It is easier for the educated man to become, what is called a skilful divine, but it is not one jot easier for him to discover and follow the narrow path of life. Indeed, if there be advantage at all, it is on the side of the unlearned. If the understanding the Bible, so as to become morally advantaged by its statements, depend on the influences of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that the learned may read much and gain no spiritual benefit, and the unlearned read little and yet be mightily profited. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Learned and unlearned
The passage is interesting as illustrating the diffusion of literary education in Isaiahs time (Jer 5:4-5).(Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Gradual revelation
Sir Joshua Reynolds says that when he first visited Italy to make the acquaintance of the celebrated masterpieces of art he was much cast down. The renowned masters maintained towards him quiet and dignified silence; they refused to confide to him their thoughts. He gazed steadfastly at the wondrous pictures whose fame had filled the world, and could not behold their glory. Persevering, however, in his studies, the pictures gradually began, one after another, to raise their veils and permit him to have an occasional peep at their rare beauty; they softly whispered to him a few of their secrets; and as he continued unwavering in his devotion, they at last flung away their reserve, showed themselves with an open face, and revealed to him the wealth of beautiful ideas that was lodged in them. (J. C. Jones.)
The Holy Spirit the Illuminator
I remember to have heard from one who was a spectator at the time, of his having once seen a little child playing upon a headland over the sea, who took a telescope from the hand of one near him, and handed it to a blind old sailor who was sitting on the cliff, and the child asked the blind man to sweep the far horizon and tell him with the glass what ships were them. The old man, however, could only turn bitterly towards the child with those sightless eyes of his; and, it seems to me, that you might as well give a telescope to a sightless man as to give the Bible to a man whom you do not suppose to possess the guidance of the Spirit. (Bp. W. Alexander.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. I cannot; for it is sealed – “I cannot read it; for it is sealed up.”] An ancient MS. and the Septuagint have preserved a word here, lost out of the text; likroth, (for ,) , read it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
11. of allrather, “thewhole vision.” “Vision” is the same here as”revelation,” or “law”; in Isa28:15, the same Hebrew word is translated, “covenant”[MAURER].
sealed (Isa8:16), God seals up the truth so that even the learned, becausethey lack believing docility, cannot discern it (Mat 13:10-17;Mat 11:25). Prophecy remainedcomparatively 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).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 Lu 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
11. Therefore every vision hath become to you. The Prophet expresses still more clearly what he had formerly said, that the blindness of the Jews will be so great that, though the Lord enlightens them by the clearest light of his word, they will understand nothing. Nor does he mean that this will happen to the common people alone, but even to the rulers and teachers, who ought to have been wiser than others, and to have held out an example to them. (268) In short, he means that this stupidity will pervade all ranks; for both “learned and unlearned,” he declares, will be so dull and stupid as to be altogether dazzled by the word of God, and to see no more in it than in a “sealed letter.” He makes the same statement, but in different words, which he had made in the former chapter, that the Lord will be to them as “precept upon precept, line upon line;” for they will always remain in the first rudiments, and will never arrive at solid doctrine. (Isa 28:13.)
In the same sense he now shews that, from the highest to the lowest, they will derive no benefit from the word of God. He does not say that doctrine will be taken away, but that, though it be in their possession, they will not have reason and understanding. In two ways the Lord punishes the wickedness of men; for sometimes he takes away entirely the use of the word, and sometimes, when he leaves it, he takes away understanding, and blinds the minds of men, so that “seeing they do not see.” (Isa 6:9.) First, therefore, he deprives them of reading, either by taking away the books through the tyranny of wicked men, as frequently happens, or by a false conviction of men, which leads them to think that the books were not delivered to be read universally by all. Secondly, although he allows them to handle and read the books, yet, because men abuse them, and are ungrateful, and do not look straight to the glory of God, they are blinded, and see no more than if not a single ray of the word had shone upon them. We must not boast, therefore, of the outward preaching of the word; for it will be of no avail unless it produce its fruit by enlightening our minds. It is as if he had said,
“
On account of that covenant which he made with your fathers, the Lord will leave to you the tables of that covenant; but they shall be to you ‘a sealed letter,’ for you shall learn nothing from them.” (Deu 4:20.)
When we see that these things happened to the Jews, as Isaiah threatened, and when we take into view the condition of that people, which God had adopted and separated, it is impossible that we should not altogether tremble at such dreadful vengeance. Though they had been instructed both by the law and by the prophets, and had been enlightened by a light of surpassing brightness, yet they fell into frightful superstitions and shocking impiety; the worship of God was corrupted, all religion was scattered and overthrown, and they were rent and divided into various and monstrous sects. At length, when the Sadducees, the most wicked of them all, held the chief power, when all faith and all hope of a resurrection, and even of immortality, had been taken away, what, I ask, could they resemble but cattle or swine? for what is left to man if the hope of a blessed and eternal life be taken from him?
And yet the Evangelists (Mat 22:23; Mar 12:18; Luk 20:27; Act 23:8) plainly tell us that there were such persons when Christ came; for at that time these things were actually fulfilled, as they had been foretold by the Prophet, that we may know that these threatening were not thrown out at random or by chance, and that they did not fail of accomplishment, because at that time they were obstinately and rebelliously despised and scorned by wicked men. At that time, therefore, both their unbelief and their folly were clearly seen, when the true light was revealed to the whole world, that is, Christ, the only light of truth, the soul of the law, the end of all the prophets. At that time, I say, there was, in an especial manner, placed before the eyes of the Jews “that vail which was shadowed out in Moses,” (Exo 34:30,) whom they could not look at on account of his excessive brightness; and it was actually fulfilled in Christ, to whom it belonged, as Paul tells us, to take away and destroy that vail. (2Co 3:16.) Till now, therefore, the vail lies on their hearts when they read Moses; for they reject Christ, to whom Moses ought to be viewed as related. In that passage “Moses” must be viewed as denoting the law; and if it be referred to its end, that is, to Christ, that vail will be taken away.
While we contemplate these judgments of God, let us also acknowledge, that he who was formerly the Judge is still the Judge, and that the same vengeance is prepared for those who shall refuse to lend their ear to his most holy warnings. When he expressly names the “learned and unlearned,” (269) it ought to be observed, that we do not understand spiritual doctrine, in consequence of possessing an acute understanding, or having received a superior education in the schools. Learning did not prevent them from being blinded. We ought, therefore, to embrace the word sincerely and earnestly, if we wish to escape this vengeance, which is threatened not only against the ignorant but also against the “learned.”
(268) “ Et monstrer le chemin aux autres;” — “And point out the way to others.”
(269) “The common version, I am not learned, is too comprehensive and definite. A man might read a letter without being learned, at least in the modern sense, although the word was once the opposite of illiterate or wholly ignorant. In this case it is necessary, to the full effect of the comparison, that the phrase should be distinctly understood to mean, I cannot read. ” — Alexander.
FT526 “ Par le jugement de Dieu;” — “By the judgment of God.”
FT527 “Retirer.”
FT528 “ Qui signifie enseigné;” — “Which signifies taught.”
FT529 “ Qu’on renverse tout ordre.”
FT530 “I will proceed to do. (Heb. I will add).” — Eng. Ver.
FT531 “ C’est à dire, Fonisseurs.”
FT532 This corresponds with the English version. — Ed
FT533 In almost all the ancient versions הפככם, ( hŏphchĕchĕm,) generally rendered “your turning,” is construed as the nominative to the verb “shall be.” Modern critics treat it as a separate clause, and exclamation. “Perverse as ye are!” — Lowth. “Perverseness of yours!” — Stock. “Your perversion!” — Alexander. The same meaning had been brought out by Luther, though in a paraphrastic form, Wie seyb ihr so verfehrt ! “How are you so perverse!” — Ed
FT534 This rendering is followed by Lowth and Stock. “Ere Lebanon beams like Carmel. A mashal, or proverbial saying, expressing any great revolution of things, and, when respecting two subjects, an entire reciprocal change.” — Lowth. “And Lebanon shall be turned into a Carmel. That which is now desert shall become a fruitful field, and the reverse. Or, to quit the figure, the poor and illiterate shall change conditions with the great ones and the wise of this world, with respect to happiness, when the gospel shall be promulgated.” — Stock. Jarchi, on the other hand, views “Carmel” as meaning “a fruitful field,” and Alexander regards this point as decided by the use of the article. “That הכרמל ( hăkkărmĕl) is not the proper name of the mountain, may be inferred from the article, which is not prefixed to ‘Lebanon.’” “The mention of the latter,” he adds, “no doubt suggested that of the ambiguous term Carmel, which is both a proper name and an appellative.” — Ed
FT535 “ Ceux qui n’ont point honte de commettre leurs meschancetez devant tous;” — “Those who are not ashamed to commit their acts of wickedness in presence of all.”
FT536 “ Ceux qui se levoyent de matin pour mal faire;” — “They who rose early to do evil.”
FT537 “ Il dit aussi que le juste est renversé sans raison;” — “He says also, that the righteous man is overthrown without any good reason.”
FT538 Both of the above quotations are made inaccurately. The words of Jeremiah are, “He putteth his mouth in the dust,” and of Micah, “They shall lay their hand upon their mouth.” But while the Author, quoting from memory, has altered the words, the passages are exceedingly apposite to his purpose. — Ed
FT539 “ Qu’ils peuvent savoir ce que nous faisons au monde;” — “That they can know what we are doing in the world.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) The vision of all . . .Better, the whole vision, i.e., the entire substance of Isaiahs teaching. The words perhaps imply that this had been committed to writing, but that to the unbelievers they were as the roll of a sealed book. The same imagery meets us in Rev. 5:2. The wise of this world treated its dark sayings as seals, which forbade their making any attempt to study it. The poorer unlearned class could plead a more genuine and less guilty ignorance, but the effect was the same with both.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 29:11-12. And the vision, &c. These words set forth the consequence of the common blindness of the whole Jewish nation, learned and unlearned, teacher and people; namely, their universal incapacity to interpret and to understand the word of God, especially the prophetic word; which incapacity Isaiah exposes in a parable no less plain than beautiful. How remarkably this prophesy has been and is fulfilled, we learn abundantly from those teachers of the Jews to whom the prophetic vision is to this day a sealed book, and of which the people, incapable of gaining instruction from their teachers, are equally ignorant, each being alike in gross and judicial darkness.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The Unread Vision
Isa 29:11-12
So the vision remains unread. There are two roads to this insuperable and invincible “cannot.” We are always breaking our heads against that granite “cannot.” Surely the learned man can do it? He says, No: I could read it if somebody else would break the seal, but the book is sealed; I cannot get at it, my learning is not available. Then take it to the ignorant man: he says, I have the poetic faculty, I can idealise, but as for reading, I do not know even letters, much less syllables, I am no scholar; if you want anything out of my own consciousness, you can have it, but as to reading a vision written by Isaiah or Jeremiah or flaming Ezekiel, it is all mist and cloud to me; the writing has no shape. All writing is alike to ignorance. Then has it come to this? Yes, exactly to this, in our age, in the Church, in the family. Here we have one man saying, I can read, but I cannot break seals: and another saying, I could break the seal, but it would be useless, for having broken the seal the page would just be one blur to my unlearned eyes; I cannot read. To this has the vision of God come in our day! This is the Lord’s doing. Is the Lord to be credited or discredited with this “cannot”? Yes:
“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” ( Isa 29:10 ).
We live in a constructed universe, not in a desolate chaos. We are at liberty to build within certain lines, but we cannot transgress the greater geometry. We think we are building when we are only playing at toy-houses. All building was done before we began to disport ourselves in the quarries and in the forests of the earth: the geometry was settled before the stones were put together by human hands. Who is responsible for the fallen wall? God. Why is he responsible for the wall that has fallen? Because he is the Author of the true geometry; he has so constructed the universe that it we do not walk and work according to all his provisions our walls will tumble down, and every tumbling stone is a tribute to the throne of God. Do not suppose that you are little accidents, occasional appearances and disappearances on the surface of the earth; do not imagine that you are the mere sport of the statistician and the census-taker; you are here because God is Lord and Ruler. The Lord reigneth; he fixeth the bounds of our habitation; we say we will live here or there, and we will hasten to yonder city, and we call this liberty. In a narrow, subordinate sense, convenient for the interchange of human promise and opinion, this is true; yet it is only part of the truth: the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Men misuse or disuse their religious faculties, drink themselves into stupidity, lose their sensitiveness: this is the divine law; God is responsible. He is responsible for the law. He will not he cannot change it. We are constituted that we cannot allow a limb to fail into desuetude, and retain its vigour. Who is responsible for the numbness, the paralysis? God is. He has not made a law we can play with; he did not make the law merely for the sake of making it; law expresses himself: and God is love. Who is responsible for this issue? Man is. But you have just said that God is responsible. That is true; and so is man. You can start the argument from either of two points; you must neither exclude the divine nor the human: “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: Therefore” ( Isa 29:13-14 ). That is precisely how this mysterious life stands. Can there be evil in the city, and the Lord not have done it? No. Can there be evil in the city, and man be held guiltless? No: God did it; man did it; these would be irreconcilable paradoxes in words: we come down upon their meaning through the agony, the shame, the disappointment, and occasionally the joy of our lives. Experience keeps her school: life is its own university.
Here, then, we have men representing two classes. The learned man has been making too much of his learning. He would rest upon it; he would be his own deity: and the Lord says, This cannot be, and “Therefore… the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” You have put the lamp in the wrong place; you have endeavoured to supersede the sun: what shall I do to you? O vain, vain soul, what shall I do? this will I do, I will blow out your candle. There comes a point when it is useless to reason with men; they are neither above the line of argument nor below it; they are wholly outside of it, it has no relation to them: the only thing left even for God’s almightiness to do is to blow out the artificial flame. So great men become imbeciles, men who yesterday governed the world are today asking little children to help them across the busy thoroughfare, for a sudden dizziness has seized their heads; men who yesternight presided at the board and dictated the policy of the consultation, are this morning asking what day of the week it is. What has happened an earthquake? No; some subtle action has taken place in the brain: the inner eyes are dull of sight. See these wise men reel; they have been early at their cups today, they must have been sitting up overnight and drinking deep. No, they are quite sober; yet they are drunk they are drunk, but not with wine. The Lord keeps us all under him: beyond there is no finite power; it is in the under-world that finiteness plays its little game of invention and rushes upon its blasphemy of trying to be infinite. Here, then, is a responsibility on the one side divine and on the other side wholly human. It is a law fixed by God. “Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Who made the hedge? God. Who made the serpent? God. Who made the serpent bite just at that moment? God. Who broke through the hedge? Man. It is a marvellous education, a mixed and manifold discipline, full of eccentricity and self-contradiction, and yet ending in reconciliation, if not literal, yet experiential, attested by the judgment and the conscience of men.
The inabilities and confusions of the world are of man’s creating. We have spoiled our faculties, we have blinded ourselves by indulgence, we have stupefied ourselves by excesses; and now the quality of men reveals itself. In vino veritas , and in this other drink that is not wine there is also truth. Having risen from the banqueting of self-indulgence what happens? Two things. How does the banqueting tell upon the learned man? He says, “I cannot.” How does it tell upon the ignorant man? He says, “I cannot.” Can neither of you do this thing? No: but you are two totally different men. Yes, but this banqueting and rioting develops the quality of each, and the learned man is as the fool, and the fool is as the learned man; and the wisdom of God remains unread. Why palter about the diversity of the roads when they both come to the same point? Self-degradation is the answer. We have taken things into our own hands, and therefore we are drunken but not with wine; we stagger but not with strong drink. God will not have us share his throne. We cannot be both God and men. We must know our place, and our place is that of scholars; our disposition should be that which says, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. To that disposition God never returned any answer but the reply of love. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot see the kingdom of God. You may even be talking about it without seeing it The age is cursed with sermons about the Gospel. We do not want to hear anything more “about” the Gospel, we want to hear the Gospel itself.
Then our hope is not in the learned man as such, nor is our hope in the unlearned man. There are persons who will tell you that the pulpit is enfeebled because of the learning that is in it now, the literal learning; the brain of the pulpit is overloaded with literature; the references to literature are all displays of intellectual vanity, and therefore we must turn to the simple, the unlearned, and the ignorant. Very good; let us go to them: will you read us the vision of God? The answer is, if they be honest men, We cannot read it. When learning has drunk itself into stupidity by the wine of its own vanity, and when ignorance has done the same thing, taking refuge in indolence rather than accepting the discipline of industry, genius and stupidity confront one another at the same point, and say, What! you here? Yes! both here, both fools.
All this accounts for the religious weakness and powerlessness of the times. We have not sufficiently waited upon God; we have not lived and moved, and had our being in the Cross. We have become an inventive Church. We must, at least, have now nearly five-and-twenty different theories of every doctrine supposed to be contained in the Bible. There is the catechism view, with proof and without proofs, mainly the latter; there is the trust-deed view, in which some man has been paid so much in silver and pence for writing out the faith of God’s own heart, minting the thought of infinity into phrases that have been engrossed and docketed in chancery. We have trusted too much to mechanism, and too little to simple childlike faith in God; we have placed upon the mountains of knowledge and progress and holiness a number of whitewashed posts, and we have said, Follow these posts, and inquire when you get to the last of them where you are. All this means that the vision is being lost. The real reading, the poetical, idealistic, spiritual meaning, the moral penetration, the function of conscience, the prerogative of sanctified judgment, all the noblest aspects and powers of man are being subordinated to these little tricks of management and vanity, these little bubbles of ambition. Is it not well to have a post or two on the mountains? Under some circumstances, yes; but when there is a living Guide to take you home, you trust to the life and not the timber. We are living in the reign and dispensation of God the Holy Ghost. How seldom do we hear him referred to! We hear much exclamation about preaching Christ; we uphold that exclamation with the vehemence of the most excited love; but such preaching is impossible apart from the direct and continual action of God the Holy Ghost. Who are the men that run down anything that is really spiritual, even if it be an imposture or misconception of spirituality? The men whom we have most difficulty in convincing that there is a spiritual universe are professing Christians. Of course the whole spiritual conception of things has been debased, impoverished, dishonoured; there have been quacks and impostors innumerable in the interpretation of spiritual realities. Who ought to preserve that great department of thought, and secure it as far as possible from invasion and violation? Christian teachers. Do not let imposture cheat you out of your inheritance. What you have heard of spiritualism or debased spirituality may be lies from beginning to end, and probably is; but that ought not to quench your faith in the fact that God is a Spirit, and that we are now under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.
There is only one cure for this loss of faith, and that cure is in two things, leading to a third, penitence. That old word penitence is dropping into disuse. In a letter recently received a man said: “When people are converted (whatever that may mean).” It was a fool’s parenthesis; every man ought to know what converted means. We know it in politics, we know it in art, we ought to know it also in the soul. “Converted” why it means turned round, turned up, turned God-ward. “Whatever that may mean” thou poor simpleton, if not thou meaner knave; it means change in soul, life, thought, purpose, point of vision, point of aspiration, and range of service. The penitence will go when the word conversion goes. Penitence ought to mean brokenheartedness, shame on account of sin, bitterness of soul because of the broken law, self-renunciation, self-repudiation. Then after penitence will come obedience. Oh, the sweetness of obedience! that is the great scholar; obedience has all the certificates of heaven, obedience wins all the prizes of God. If we could be obedient we should have great visions every day above the brightness of the sun. If we would know the doctrine we must do the will; some things come to us in the act of doing them; our doing is very imperfect, but still it is doing, it is action; we are on the way towards the happy conclusion. If you would understand the Cross you must first die upon it. Oh, thou who hast not tasted the agony, do not try to preach the Gospel! Words of passion on lips of ice are the basest blasphemy against God and man. First go, be reconciled to God through Christ; then come, and with the music of thankful love tell us what his face is like: hath he marks to lead us to him, if he be our Guide? and you will say, “In his feet and hands are wound-prints, and his side,” and we shall know then that thou hast been in communion with the Cross.
Out of penitence and out of obedience will come self-distrust Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We shall then know how to read the Bible. Many men can only parse it; they think parsing is reading. You begin Milton’s “Paradise Lost” by parsing it, and you will never touch the music. The parsing is right, no man has a word to say against grammar, but do keep them both in their own places; above all that is literal, wooden, mechanical, and essential to human convenience above all that, there is light. What is light? No man knows. Love what is love? No man knows. Music what is music? Music!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Isa 29:11 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:
Ver. 11. And the vision of all is become unto you, &c. ] The Scriptures were so to the scribes and elders of the people, who although, when Herod asked them of the Messiah, they could give such descriptions of him as agreed to none but the babe of Bethlehem, Mat 2:5-6 yet would they by no means be drawn to believe in his name. And the like woeful obstinace is found in the Rabbis and other Jews to this day. The like spiritual judgment hath befallen the Papists also, both the learned and unlearned; and yet one of them sticks not to tell us to our heads, that our damnation is so plainly and plentifully set down in our own English Bibles, that no man needeth to doubt of it who hath but a book, and can read English. Thus, who so bold as blind Bayard? who so blind as those that will not see?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
of all = of the whole, or altogether.
book = scroll, or document, in writing.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
book: or, letter
that is sealed: Isa 8:16
I cannot: Dan 12:4, Dan 12:9, Mat 11:25, Mat 13:11, Mat 16:17, Rev 5:1-9, Rev 6:1
Reciprocal: Isa 29:24 – also Isa 48:8 – thou heardest Luk 7:32 – are Luk 14:18 – all 1Co 14:16 – unlearned Rev 5:2 – Who Rev 10:4 – Seal up
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE SEALED BOOK
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, etc.
Isa 29:11-12
I. There is something of truth in the representation that the Bible is a sealed book.We always regard it as a standing proof of the Divine origin of the volume, that it is not to be unfolded by the processes which we apply to a merely human composition, and that every attempt to enter deeply into its meaning, without the assistance of its Author, issues in nothing but conjecture and confusion. The Bible is addressed to the heart, not merely to the head. The very fact that unless the Holy Spirit explains the Bible it is impossible for the student to enter into its meaning may be seized on by those who seek an apology for neglect; and men may retort upon an adviser who says, Read this, I pray you, by asking, How can we, since on your own showing the book is sealed? The Bible is a sealed book to all who interpret it by their own unaided strength. But, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. Hence the key is within reach. You are taught how the flame may be kindled by which the seals shall be dissolved. Can it, then, be any justification for the neglect with which Scripture is treated that any of its statements overpass our unassisted comprehensions?
II. If one great body of men excuse themselves by pleading that the volume is sealed, another will take refuge in their own want of scholarship.Here, again, the excuse is based on a truth; but yet it in no degree justifies neglect. The well-educated man has undoubtedly advantages over the uneducated, when both are considered as students of Scripture. Even where there has not been a total want of common instruction, and the poor cottager is able to read the Bible for himself, it is not to be questioned that he will find many difficulties which never meet the better educated. Here comes in with fresh force all our preceding argument in regard to the office of the Spirit as the interpreter of Scripture. If the understanding of the Bible, so as to become morally advantaged by its statements, depend on the influences of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that the learned may search much and gain no spiritual benefit, and the unlearned may read little and yet be mightily profited. The instant you ascertain that the Book cannot be unsealed by mere human instrumentality, but that an agency is needed which is promised to all without exception who seek it by prayer, you place rich and poor on the same level, so far as life eternal is concerned, which is the knowing God and Jesus Christ Whom He hath sent.
Canon Melvill.
Illustration
To all those who bring to the reading of the Holy Scripture not the Spirit, from Whom it proceeded, but the opposite spirit, the spirit of the world, the Scripture must be a sealed book, into which they can stare with plastered eyes, which see and yet do not see, which watch and yet at the same time sleep.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Isa 29:11-12. And the vision of all Of all your prophets, or every vision; is unto you as the words of a book that is sealed Which no man can read while it is sealed up, as books then sometimes were, being in the form of rolls. Which men deliver to one that is learned That understands the language in which the book is written; saying, Read this he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed Mere human learning, without supernatural illumination, will not enable any man rightly to understand the word of God, and things divine: see 1Co 2:11; 1Co 2:14. The book is delivered Unsealed and opened; to him that is unlearned and he saith, I cannot read it; for I am unlearned. Thus, neither the learned nor the unlearned among the Jews were any better for the messages which God sent them by his servants the prophets, nor desired to be better.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
29:11 And the vision of all is become to 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 {i} cannot; for it [is] sealed:
(i) Meaning, that it is all alike, either to read, or not to read, unless God open the heart to understand.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"The entire vision" probably refers to the whole Book of Isaiah. [Note: Watts, p. 386.] God would hide His will from those who could know it but did not have the spiritual discernment to understand it. This would lead the people to appeal for an interpretation of His will for those who did not even have the intellectual ability to understand it. In other words, God would hide His plans from the people completely because all of them were spiritually obtuse, the literate and the illiterate.