Isaiah 29:9

f the proud" - For זריך zarayich, thy strangers, read זדים zedim, the proud, according to the Septuagint; parallel to and synonymous with עריצים aritsim, the terrible, in the next line: the ר resh was at first ד daleth in a MS. See note on Isa 25:2. The fifth, sixth, and seventh verses contain an admirable description of the destruction of Sennacherib's army, with a beautiful variety of the most expressive and sublime images: perhaps more adapted to show the greatness, the suddenness, and horror of the event, than the means and manner by which it was effected. Compare Isa 30:30-33. Verse 7 As a dream - This is the beginning of the comparison, which is pursued and applied in the next verse. Sennacherib and his mighty army are not compared to a dream because of their sudden disappearance; but the disappointment of their eager hopes is compared to what happens to a hungry and thirsty man, when he awakes from a dream in which fancy had presented to him meat and drink in abundance, and finds it nothing but a vain illusion. The comparison is elegant and beautiful in the highest degree, well wrought up, and perfectly suited to the end proposed. The image is extremely natural, but not obvious: it appeals to our inward feelings, not to our outward senses; and is applied to an event in its concomitant circumstances exactly similar, but in its nature totally different. See De S. Poes. Hebr. Praelect. 12. For beauty and ingenuity it may fairly come in competition with one of the most elegant of Virgil, greatly improved from Homer, Iliad 22:199, where he has applied to a different purpose, but not so happily, the same image of the ineffectual working of imagination in a dream: - Ac veluti in somnis, oculos ubi languida pressit Nocte quies, necquicquam avidos extendere cursus Velle videmur, et in mediis conatibus aegri Succidimus; non lingua valet, non corpore notae Sufficiunt vires, nec vox, nec verba sequuntur. Aen., 12:908. "And as, when slumber seals the closing sight, The sick wild fancy labors in the night; Some dreadful visionary foe we shun With airy strides, but strive in vain to run; In vain our baffled limbs their powers essay; We faint, we struggle, sink, and fall away; Drain'd of our strength, we neither fight nor fly, And on the tongue the struggling accents die." Pitt. Lucretius expresses the very same image with Isaiah: - Ut bibere in somnis sitiens quum quaerit, et humor Non datur, ardorem in membris qui stinguere possit; Sed laticum simulacra petit, frustraque laborat, In medioque sitit torrenti flumine potans. As a thirsty man desires to drink in his sleep, And has no fluid to allay the heat within, But vainly labors to catch the image of rivers, And is parched up while fancying that he is drinking at a full stream. Bishop Stock's translation of the prophet's text is both elegant and just: - "As when a hungry man dreameth; and, lo! he is eating: And he awaketh; and his appetite is unsatisfied. And as a thirsty man dreameth; and, lo! he is drinking: And he awaketh; and, lo! he is faint, And his appetite craveth." Lucretius almost copies the original. All that fight against her and her munition "And all their armies and their towers" - For צביה ומצדתה tsobeyha umetsodathah, I read, with the Chaldee, צבאם ומצדתם tsebaam umetsodatham. Verse 9 Stay yourselves, and wonder - התמהמהו hithmahmehu, go on what-what-whatting, in a state of mental indetermination, till the overflowing scourge take you away. See the note on Psa 119:60 (note). They are drunken, but not with wine - See note on Isa 51:21. 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; לקרות likroth, (for לקראות), αναγνωναι, read it. Verse 13 The Lord "Jehovah" - For אדני Adonai, sixty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and four editions, read יהוה Yehovah, and five MSS. add יהוה. Kimchi makes some just observations on this verse. The vision, meaning the Divine revelation of all the prophets, is a book or letter that is sealed - is not easily understood. This is delivered to one that is learned - instructed in the law. Read this; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed; a full proof that he does not wish to know the contents else he would apply to the prophet to get it explained. See Kimchi on the place. And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men "And vain is their fear of me teaching the commandments of men" - I read for ותהי vattehi, ותהו vethohu, with the Septuagint, Mat 15:9; Mar 8:7; and for מלמדה melummedah, מלמדים melummedim, with the Chaldee. Verse 17 And Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field "Ere Lebanon become like Carmel" - A mashal, or proverbial saying, expressing any great revolution of things; and, when respecting two subjects, an entire reciprocal change: explained here by some interpreters, I think with great probability, as having its principal view beyond the revolutions then near at hand, to the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles. The first were the vineyard of God, כרם אל kerem El, (if the prophet, who loves an allusion to words of like sounds, may be supposed to have intended one here), cultivated and watered by him in vain, to be given up, and to become a wilderness: compare Isa 5:1-7. The last had been hitherto barren; but were, by the grace of God, to be rendered fruitful. See Mat 21:43; Rom 11:30, Rom 11:31. Carmel stands here opposed to Lebanon, and therefore is to be taken as a proper name. Verse 21 Him that reproveth in the gate "Him that pleaded in the gate" - "They are heard by the treasurer, master of the horse, and other principal officers of the regency of Algiers, who sit constantly in the gate of the palace for that purpose:" that is, the distribution of justice. - Shaw's Travels, p. 315, fol. He adds in the note, "That we read of the elders in the gate. Deu 21:15; Deu 25:7; and, Isa 29:21; Amo 5:10, of him that reproveth and rebuketh in the gate. The Ottoman court likewise seems to have been called the Porte, from the distribution of justice and the dispatch of public business that is carried on in the gates of it." Verse 22 Who redeemed Abraham - As God redeemed Abraham from among idolaters and workers of iniquity, so will he redeem those who hear the words of the Book, and are humbled before him, Isa 29:18, Isa 29:19. Concerning the house of Jacob "The God of the house of Jacob" - I read אל El as a noun, not a preposition: the parallel line favors this sense; and there is no address to the house of Jacob to justify the other. Neither shall his face now wax pale "His face shall no more be covered with confusion" - "יחורו yechoro, Chald. ut ὁ μεταβαλει, Theod. εντραπησεται, Syr. נחפרו necaphro, videtur legendum יחפרו yechepheru: hic enim solum legitur verbum, חור chavar, nec in linguis affinibus habet pudoris significationem." - Secker. "Here alone is the verb חור charar read; nor has it in the cognate languages the signification of shame." Verse 23 But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands "For when his children shall see the work of my hands" - For בראותו birotho I read בראות biroth, with the Septuagint and Syriac. Introduction The Jews reproved for their reliance on Egypt, Isa 30:1-7. Threatened for their obstinate adherence to this alliance, Isa 30:8-17. Images the most elegant and lofty, by which the intense gloriousness of Messiah's reign at the period when all Israel shall be added to the Church is beautifully set forth, Isa 30:18-26. Dreadful fall of Sennacherib's army, an event most manifestly typical of the terrible and sudden overthrow of Antichrist; as, unless this typical reference be admitted, no possible connection can be imagined between the stupendous events which took place in Hezekiah's reign, and the very remote and inconceivably more glorious displays of Divine vengeance and mercy in the days of the Messiah, Isa 30:27-33. Verse 1 And that cover with a covering "Who ratify covenants" - Hebrews "Who pour out a libation." Sacrifice and libation were ceremonies constantly used, in ancient times by most nations in the ratifying of covenants: a libation therefore is used for a covenant, as in Greek the word σπονδη, for the same reason, stands for both. This seems to be the most easy explication of the Hebrew phrase, and it has the authority of the Septuagint, εποιησατε συνθηκας. Verse 4 Hanes - Six MSS. of Kennicott's, and perhaps six others, with four of De Rossi's, read חנם chinnam, in vain, for הנס Hanes; and so also the Septuagint, who read likewise יגעו yageu, labored, for יגיעו yaggiu, arrived at. Verse 5 Were - ashamed - Eight MSS. (one ancient) of Kennicott's, and ten of De Rossi's, read הביש hobish, without א aleph. So the Chaldee and Vulgate. But a shame "But proved even a shame" - Four MSS. (three ancient) after כי ki, add אם im, unless, which seems wanted to complete the phrase in its usual form. Verse 6 The burden - משא massa seems here to be taken in its proper sense; the load, not the oracle. The same subject is continued; and there seems to be no place here for a new title to a distinct prophecy. Does not burden of the beasts of the South in this place relate to the presents sent by Hoshea king of Israel to the South - to Egypt, which lay south of Judea, to engage the Egyptians to succor him against the king of Assyria? Into the land of trouble and anguish "Through a land of distress and difficulty" - The same deserts are here spoken of which the Israelites passed through when they came out of Egypt, which Moses describes, Deu 8:15, as "that great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought; where there was no water. "And which was designed to be a kind of barrier between them and Egypt, of which the Lord had said, "Ye shall henceforth return no more that way," Deu 17:16. Shall not profit them - A MS. adds in the margin the word למו lamo, them, which seems to have been lost out of the text: it is authorized by the Septuagint and Vulgate. Verse 7 Their strength is to sit still "Rahab the Inactive" - The two last words, הם שבת hem shabeth, joined into one, make the participle pihel המשבת hammeshabbeth. I find the learned Professor Doederlein, in his version of Isaiah, and note on this place, has given the same conjecture; which he speaks of as having been formerly published by him. A concurrence of different persons in the same conjecture adds to it a greater degree of probability. Verse 8 For ever and ever "For a testimony for ever" - לעד leed. So the Syriac, Chaldee, Vulgate, and Septuagint, in MSS. Pachom. and 1. D. 2: εις μαρτυριον, which two words have been lost out of the other copies of the Septuagint. Verse 12 In oppression "In obliquity" - בעקש beakesh, transposing the two last letters of בעשק beoshek, in oppression, which seems not to belong to this place: a very probable conjecture of Houbigant. Verse 13 Swelling out to a high wall "A swelling in a high wall" - It has been observed before, that the buildings of Asia generally consist of little better than what we call mud walls. "All the houses at Ispahan, "says Thevenot, Vol. II., p. 159, "are built of bricks made of clay and straw, and dried in the sun; and covered with a plaster made of a fine white stone. In other places in Persia the houses are built with nothing else but such bricks, made with tempered clay and chopped straw, well mingled together, and dried in the sun, and then used: but the least rain dissolves them. "Sir John Chardin's MS. remark on this place of Isaiah is very apposite: Murs en Asie etant faits de terre se fendent ainsi par milieu et de haut en bas. "The walls in Asia being made of earth often cleave from top to bottom." This shouts clearly how obvious and expressive the image is. The psalmist has in the same manner made use of it, to express sudden and utter destruction: - "Ye shall be slain all of you; Ye shall be like an inclining wall, like a shattered fence." Psa 62:4. Verse 14 He shall not spare "And spareth it not" - Five MSS. add the conjunction ו vau to the negative; ולא velo. Verse 17 At the rebuke of five shall ye flee "At the rebuke of five, ten thousand of you shall flee" - In the second line of this verse a word is manifestly omitted, which should answer to one thousand in the first: the Septuagint supply πολλοι, רבים rabbim. But the true word is רבבה rebabah, as I am persuaded any one will be convinced, who will compare the following passages with this place: - "How should one chase a thousand; And two put ten thousand (רבבה) to flight?" Deu 32:30. "And five of you shall chase a hundred; And a hundred of you shall chase (רבבה) ten thousand." Lev 26:8. Verse 18 And therefore will he be exalted "Even for this shall he expect in silence" - For ירום yarum, he shall be exalted, which belongs not to this place, Houbigant reads ידום yadum, he shall be silent: and so it seems to be in a MS. Another MS. instead of it reads ישוב yashub, he shall return. The mistakes occasioned by the similitude of the

Wonder - At the stupidity of this people. Cry - Cry out again and again through astonishment. They stagger - With giddiness or stupidity, which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger.

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 ( v. 11, 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, v. 13, 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, Matt. xv. 8, 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; Ps. xciv. 7 ; Ezek. viii. 12 ; ix. 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, ( Ps. cxxxix. 1 , 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 .