Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

29. Woe to David's City

¹ Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,
   the city where David settled!
Add year to year
   and let your cycle of festivals go on.
² Yet I will besiege Ariel;
   she will mourn and lament,
   she will be to me like an altar hearth. The Hebrew for altar hearth sounds like the Hebrew for Ariel.
³ I will encamp against you on all sides;
   I will encircle you with towers
   and set up my siege works against you.
⁴ Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
   your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
   out of the dust your speech will whisper.

    ⁵ But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
   the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,
    ⁶ the LORD Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
   with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
⁷ Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
   that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
   with a vision in the night—
⁸ as when a hungry person dreams of eating,
   but awakens hungry still;
as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking,
   but awakens faint and thirsty still.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations
   that fight against Mount Zion.

    ⁹ Be stunned and amazed,
   blind yourselves and be sightless;
be drunk, but not from wine,
   stagger, but not from beer.
¹⁰ The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep:
   He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
   he has covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹ For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” ¹² Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”

¹³ The Lord says:

   “These people come near to me with their mouth
   and honor me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
   is based on merely human rules they have been taught. Hebrew; Septuagint They worship me in vain; / their teachings are merely human rules
¹⁴ Therefore once more I will astound these people
   with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
   the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
¹⁵ Woe to those who go to great depths
   to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
   “Who sees us? Who will know?”
¹⁶ You turn things upside down,
   as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
   “You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter,
   “You know nothing”?

    ¹⁷ In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
   and the fertile field seem like a forest?
¹⁸ In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
   and out of gloom and darkness
   the eyes of the blind will see.
¹⁹ Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD;
   the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰ The ruthless will vanish,
   the mockers will disappear,
   and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—
²¹ those who with a word make someone out to be guilty,
   who ensnare the defender in court
   and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

²² Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the descendants of Jacob:

   “No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
   no longer will their faces grow pale.
²³ When they see among them their children,
   the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
   they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
   and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴ Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
   those who complain will accept instruction.”

20. For the violent man is brought to nought. He states more clearly what we have already mentioned in the former verse, namely, that the restoration of the Church consists in this, that the Lord raises up those who are cast down, and has compassion on the poor. But that purification of the Church, of which we have already spoken, is first necessary; for so long as the Lord does not execute his judgment against the wicked, and the bad are mixed with the good, so as even to hold the highest place in the Church, everything is soiled and corrupted, God is not worshipped or feared, and even godliness is trampled under feet. When therefore the ungodly are removed or subdued, the Church is restored to its splendour, and the godly, freed from distresses and calamities, leap for joy.

First, he calls them עריצים, (gnărītzīm,) “violent.” There are various interpretations of this word; but I think that the Prophet distinguishes between those who are openly wicked, and have no shame, ²⁷⁹²⁷⁹ {Bogus footnote} and those who have some appearance of goodness, and yet are not better than others, for they mock at God in their hearts. But perhaps by the two adjectives, “violent” and “scorners,” he describes the same persons; because, like robbers among men, they seize, oppress, treat with cruelty, and commit every kind of outrage, and yet are not withheld by any fear of God, because they regard religion as a fable.

And they who hastened early to iniquity. ²⁸⁰²⁸⁰ {Bogus footnote} Under this class he includes other crimes. He speaks not of the Chaldeans or Assyrians, but of those who wished to be reckoned in the number of the godly, and boasted of being the seed of Abraham.