29:1 Woe to a Ariel, to Ariel, the city [where] David dwelt!
add ye year to year; b let them kill sacrifices.
(a) Or Ariel: the Hebrew word Ariel signifies the Lion of
God, and signifies the Altar, because the altar seemed
to devour the sacrifice that was offered to God, as in
(Eze 43:16).
(b) Your vain confidence in your sacrifices will not last
long.
29:2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and
sorrow: and it shall be to me c as Ariel.
(c) Your city will be full of blood as an altar on which
they sacrifice.
29:4 And thou shalt be brought down, [and] shalt speak out of
the d ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the
dust, and thy voice shall be, like a medium, out of the
ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.
(d) Your speech will be no longer be so lofty but abased
and low as the very charmers who are in low places and
whisper, so that their voice can scarcely by heard.
29:5 Moreover the multitude of thy e strangers shall be like
small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones [shall
be] as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an
instant suddenly.
(e) Your hired soldiers in whom you trusted, will be
destroyed as dust or chaff in a whirlwind.
29:7 And the f multitude of all the nations that fight against
Ariel, even all that fight against her and her strong hold,
and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night
vision.
(f) The enemies that I will bring to destroy you, and that
which you place your vain trust in will come at
unawares even as a dream in the night. Some read as if
this was a comfort to the Church for the destruction of
their enemies.
29:8 It shall even be as when an hungry [man] dreameth, and,
behold, g he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is
empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he
drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, [he is] faint, and
his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the
nations be, that fight against mount Zion.
(g) That is, he thinks that he eats.
29:9h 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.
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.
29:13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people k draw
near [me] with their mouth, and with their lips do honour
me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their
l fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
(k) Because they are hypocrites and not sincere in heart,
as in (Mt 15:7,8).
(l) That is, their religion was learned by man's doctrine,
and not by my word.
29:14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work
among this people, [even] an wonderful work and a wonder:
for the wisdom of their wise [men] shall m perish, and
the understanding of their prudent [men] shall be hid.
(m) Meaning, where God is not worshipped according to his
word, both magistrates and ministers are fools and
without understanding.
29:15 Woe to them that n 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?
(n) This is spoken of them who in heart despised God's
word, and mocked at the admonitions but outwardly bore
a good face.
29:16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be
esteemed o as the potter's clay: for shall the work say
of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing
formed say of him that formed it, He had no understanding?
(o) For all your craft says the Lord, you are not able to
escape my hands any more than the clay that is in the
potter's hands has power to deliver itself.
29:17 [Is] it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be
p turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field
shall be esteemed as a forest?
(p) Will there not be a change of all things? Carmel is a
plentiful place in respect to what it will be then and
may be taken for a forest, as in (Isa 32:15) and
thus he speaks to comfort the faithful.
29:21 That make a man an offender for a q word, and lay a
snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside
the just for a thing of nothing.
(q) They who went about to find fault with the prophets
words, and would not abide admonitions, but would
entangle them and bring them into danger.
29:24 They also that erred in spirit r shall come to
understanding, and they that murmured shall learn
doctrine.
(r) Signifying that unless God gives understanding and
knowledge, man cannot but still err and murmur against
him.
