Chapter 29

This is the second of five sections called the five woes of Isaiah. The first woe — Isaiah 28, the fall of Samaria; the second woe — Isaiah 29, the fall of Jerusalem; the third woe — Isaiah 30, against false counsellors in Israel; the fourth woe — Isaiah 31 and 32, against the Egyptian alliance; the fifth woe — Isaiah 33, the judgment of Assyria.

Isaiah has just prophesied of the fall of Samaria in chapter 28 and now he turns back to his own nation and to the capital of his nation which is Jerusalem. There have been many sieges of Jerusalem in history but perhaps four of them are of great significance. The great one in 701 BC was Sennacherib’s .Nebuchadnezzar’s siege is the next important one in 586 BC, the third time he had besieged it and it begun the first administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to the Jews. The third of the great sieges of Jerusalem in history is 70 AD, the siege of the Romans, which began the second administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to Judah, and it continues until the second advent. The fourth and final siege in the entire history of Jerusalem will take place at the end of the Tribulation and will terminate will the second advent and the termination of the fifth cycle of discipline to the Jews. All four of these sieges are mentioned in this section of Isaiah.

Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem is described biblically in Jeremiah chapters 39 and 40, and 2 Kings chapter five. The Roman siege of Jerusalem is best described by Jesus Christ, recorded in Luke 21:20-24. One of the best descriptions of the final siege of Jerusalem is found in Zecharaiah chapters 12 and 14.

Verse 1 — “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices” .There are four thoughts here and Isaiah fires them all in in one breath.

“Woe” — this is an announcement of the fifth cycle of discipline. It is a special word for judgment and it announces the fifth cycle to Jerusalem and to Judah.

“Ariel” — the word means God’s hearth, God’s burning place. It sometimes means God’s altar fire. So God’s altar or God’s burning place is one of the titles for Jerusalem because at this time the temple of Jerusalem was located there and this is the place where the sacrifices were offered. So Ariel is a reference to the place where the temple was located, the place of the brazen altar, the place of the animal sacrifices. The same word occurs in one section of Ezekiel — 14:15,16 — where the word actually occurs three times. Actually, to us it has the connotation of the cross because all of these animal sacrifices were shadows of the cross. The cross was portrayed by these animal sacrifices in the temple. So the verse begins by saying, in effect, “Woe to the place where Christ is declared.” This refers to Jerusalem.

Now why would a place where Christ is declared be under any kind of judgment? The answer is very simple: Christ is declared but there will come a time when Christ is rejected. And even though He is clearly declared — Ariel — He is going to be rejected and His rejection will lead to judgment.

And notice how often Christ is declared — “add ye year to year.” Every year these sacrifices are offered constantly. The condemnation comes because they offered sacrifices which portray Christ and yet they do not accept the person who is depicted by the sacrifices. In other words, you have a case of ritual without reality or the infiltration of religion; “add ye year to year” simply indicates that Christ is constantly presented and yet He is rejected; “let them kill sacrifices” is a reference to the five Levitical sacrifices.

There were two great failures which would inevitably lead to the fifth cycle of discipline. The first three Levitical offerings indicate that large segments of the population heard the Gospel but rejected it. And the last two offerings indicate that believers were not using rebound.

“the city where David dwelt” — Why bring David in? In the first place this wasn’t David’s home town, Bethelehem. You have to remember David conquered Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the last city in the land to be conquered, 500 years after Joshua took the Jews across the Jordan. After David conquered Jerusalem he made it his home. What is the significance of the fact, “the city where David dwelt”? When David lived in Jerusalem what kind of a person was he? Well, David was a wonderful believer as the scripture says later on, a great King like Hezekiah was “like his father David", etc. The phrase indicates that David was a great believer, he always came back when he failed. The point is simply this: If David, without the temple [the hearth of God] could live in Jerusalem and live a wonderful life, you should be able to live twice as good a life because you have the hearth of God. David did in practice what they have rejected in principle. David didn’t have all of the training aids of the temple, yet he was a successful believer.

Verse 2 — “Yet I will distress Ariel.” “Yet” means that in spite of the fact that the Gospel is portrayed so clearly through the modus operandi of the priests in the temple, the hearth of God, the animal sacrifices. The communication of the Gospel was clear and yet it was rejected.

“I will distress” is the hiphil stem in the Hebrew, the causative stem [active voice here], and it should be translated, “I will cause distress” — 5th cycle of discipline. This is one of those phrases that has a dual fulfilment. Not only does it refer to 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar will come, but it also refers to 70 AD when Titus and the Romans will destroy Jerusalem. You can always tell when the 5th cycle of discipline starts for the Jews of the southern kingdom because Ariel falls. Ariel is the altar or the hearth of God. Ariel is not in existence today and the next time Ariel will be in existence is at the second advent of Jesus Christ when Ariel will be revived as a memorial to the grace of God — Ezekiel 40-48 tell us the story of animal sacrifices in the Millennium.

“and there shall be heaviness and sorrow” — this refers to extreme suffering which comes with the 5th cycle of discipline. “Heaviness” means maximum pressure and extreme sorrow under conditions of slavery and/or national pressure.

“and it [Jerusalem] shall be unto me as Ariel.” This is a pun. Ariel also means a great fire in a hearth. And so he says, Ariel is going to become Ariel! The altar is going to be converted into a big fire which will destroy everything. And this is exactly what happened when Nebuchadnezzar came in, and it is exactly what happened when the Romans came in 70 AD. The fire on the altar which speaks of judging Christ is going to become the fire of judgment.

Verse 3 — The siege of Jerusalem. “And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a guard post, and I will raise up mounds of fortifications against you.” “I will camp against thee” simply means that God will bring in armies; “with a mound [or fort]” is a guard-post. While building siege works against the walls it was necessary to build a guard tower from which it was possible to shoot down onto the walls, and so protect the work of building the siege works.

Verse 4 — The fall of Jerusalem. “And thou shalt be brought down” means to fall, to be prostrated — “and thou shalt speak [piel stem — to scream] out of the ground.” This is a person flat on his face begging for mercy; “and thy speech shall be low out of the dust; and thy voice shall be as” — the word “as” introduces an analogy. How can he describe this phenomenon of people prostrated with their faces in the ground , screaming and begging for mercy out of the dust? The analogy is to demonism. In this case people would be down on the ground prostrated with their ear to the ground so that they could hear the spirit with whom they were trying to make contact from underneath the ground or under the grave. When they did this there was a demon in one of them, a witch or a wizard, called Ob [pronounced Ov], the ventriloquist demon who threw his voice out of the ground so they could hear him; “out of the dust [ground].” In other words, the demon possesses the necromancer and taking over [demon possession] the voice comes up out of the ground; “and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust” — sometimes the speech would be a whispering out of the dust. So Isaiah is telling them their screams for mercy would be like whisperings out of the dust, just like operation necromancy in which a ventriloquist demon throws a voice out of the dust.

Verses 5-8 — a contrast with a future deliverance of Israel. Up to this point everything is bad news. Jerusalem is going to fall twice, and that is bad news. Now we have a passage which says it will not always be like this. Isaiah jumps down to the greatest of all the sieges of Jerusalem and describes it, the siege of Jerusalem at the end of the Tribulation.

Verse 5 — A description of the final siege of Jerusalem at the end of the Tribulation. “Moreover, the multitude of foreigners shall be like small dust.” You will have your faces in the dust when Nebuchadnezzar comes, begging for mercy. But in the future the dust will fly from the tramp of hundreds of thousands of troops [the army of the king of the north] which will be stopped in Jerusalem; “and the multitude of terrible ones.” The words “terrible ones” refers to tyrants, and the “multitude of tyrants” gives us the time when this will occur. The Tribulation is the age of the multitude of tyrants. There will be more tyrants [dictators] on the earth at one time in the Tribulation than in all the history of the human race; “as chaff that passeth away” — all of these dictators will have a brief moment of exercising unlimited power and then they will pass away. “Chaff” refers to the final judgment of these dictators; “it shall be instant, suddenly” — the Hebrew indicates a dead stop. These dictators will be brought to a crashing halt by the second advent.

Verse 6 — The means of judging the invading armies and the dictators of the Tribulation is given as the second advent. In other words, “instant suddenly” is now amplified in verse 6. “Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts” — visited in judgment is what is meant here. This is a niphal stem which means passive voice. And the phrase means to receive a visitation. When Christ comes there will be two kinds of people receiving a visitation: the unbeliever will receive a visitation of judgment; the believers will receive a visitation of deliverance.

“with thunder, and with earthquake [Zechariah 14:4ff], and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire [Revelation 19:15]” — the way in which the enemies who besiege in that future day will be destroyed.

Verse 7 — “And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her fortification, and that distress [besiege] her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.”

Verse 8 — The dream of verse 7 is developed. We have two analogies meant by this in verse 8. Remember that the hostile forces of the king of the north are going to be annihilated and this analogy is designed to portray that total destruction.

The first analogy: “And it shall even be as when a hungry man dreams” .When a person is really hungry, about what does he dream? “and behold, he eateth; but when he awakeneth his soul is empty.” This is a picture of terrible frustration.

The second analogy: “or when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he is drinking water; but he wakes up, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has desire: so shall [both of these analogies indicate a great desire, thinking about it, and waking up not having it. Indicating, again, great frustration] the multitude of the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.” This is a perfect description of what happens to the armies around Jerusalem. They are the victims of a system and a series of frustrations.

First of all they [the army of the king of the north] are in North Africa, and when his supply line is cut off by the sea [the navy of the king of the west], and when the kings of the sun rising cut off his supply line in the middle east by land, he turns around and he goes north, and he gets to Jerusalem. Now he is frustrated in his design to conquer Africa [Daniel 11], he is cut off, so he turns around with his great armies by land to open a supply line. He comes to Jerusalem and he decides to take his anger and his frustration out on the Jews. In Zechariah 12 we learn that he succeeds in capturing part of the city and we have a group of people who surrender and are raped and tortured and all of their possessions taken away. These are the unbelievers. But the believers refuse to surrender and they fight. And just when part of the city is taken and they are cut down to a small section of the city the whole area is covered with a complete blackout. Just as at the cross no one saw Jesus Christ bearing our sins, so on this day in Jerusalem the area will be covered with a complete darkness and all of these military organisations will be stopped totally. This darkness is so dark that there is no light in the darkness, it is a supernatural darkness and, again, great frustration comes to the king of the north. The only light that will be seen that day will be the light of the Lord Jesus Christ returning, and Revelation 1:7 says “every eye shall see him.” So these two analogies to frustration in verse eight are very appropriate.

The reasons for the fall of Jerusalem

And, of course, we are talking about two falls of Jerusalem: the first and second administrations of the fifth cycle of discipline. First reason, rejection of Bible doctrine — verses 9-12. The application is obvious. Whenever Bible doctrine is rejected by an individual believer the result is misery and difficulty in the life. And whenever a group, any kind of an entity, gets into the principle of rejection of Bible doctrine, same problem.

Verse 9 — the shock of the fall of Jerusalem described. “Stay yourselves” — this is a command to be shocked. It should be translated, “Be shocked.” The terrible shock of judgment when it comes is the principle here and the passage develops the concept of the terrible shock that will exist among the people in Jerusalem on two occasions, in 586 BC and in 70 AD.

“and wonder” — this means to stare. Often when a people go into shock they have a tendency to stare into space. So the translation so far should be, “Be shocked and stare.” This is the first reaction to watching your friends being killed and slaughtered and tortured and raped. This is showing the Jews that because of their rejection of Bible doctrine and because of their rejection of the Word, if they survive at all then are going to live and be in abject misery. And their misery will begin with shock.

“cry ye out and cry” — this means to have the eyes blinded with puss, painful blindness. The painful process which begins blindness followed by total blindness. Blindness always refers to negative volition.

How is this accomplished? First they are told to be shocked and stare, stare at a horrible scene. And yet he says, I’m telling this to people who are blind. So they are not people who are literally blind. They are people who have gone on negative volition and as a result they are doctrinally blind and, therefore, they are not prepared for what they are going to see. The eyes that should have been gathering in doctrine from the Word of God did not and so now all the eyes can do is a combination of seeing something and being shocked and just stare.

“be drunken, but not with wine” — here is the picture of people looking for kicks — “they stagger, but not with strong drink.” The words “they stagger” means that all of their lives as believers they’d sought a substitute for doctrine. And this means they went into operation emotionalism. So to be drunk but not with wine simply means to be stimulated apart from drinking something stimulating. In other words, go out and try the tongues movement! “They stagger” means they are filled with emotional patterns. These people had been singing “Do Lord” and throwing faggots on the fire and having the “second blessing” and “speaking in

tongues", and now they can’t take it when they catastrophe comes, simply because they have operated on their emotions instead of operating on doctrine.

Verse 10 — The judgment of negative volition is pronounced. “For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep.” The land was filled with false prophets who rejected the Word of God and these false prophets are identical today with preachers in the nation’s churches. These are the preachers who preach brotherhood, socialism, internationalism, etc. These are the preachers who think you can wave the flag for some cause and everything is solved. These are the preachers who know nothing about salvation, they are not saved themselves, they are the children of hell, and they think they can go to heaven by doing a few good deeds along the way.

What is “sleep” ?Sleep here is used as an escape from reality. The land was filled with false prophets who rejected the Word. [This passage is quoted in Romans 11:8 to indicate the judicial blindness of the unbelieving Jews] Negative volition to the point of ending all restraint in the field of negative volition, the same as the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart. The Word is rejected, rejected, rejected until there is total apathy toward the Word and people will listen to false doctrine. Therefore, when they listen to false doctrine they are disoriented, and when they are disoriented this is the same as being in a deep sleep, they are not in touch with the situation at all. Principle: When you become disoriented from the Word of God you become disoriented from life.

“and hath closed your eyes” — Whose eyes have been closed here? Three types of leadership had become apathetic toward the Word. First, the prophets, the preachers of Isaiah’s day; secondly, the rulers and the political leadership of the land; thirdly, the seers [the one who sees, who studies and interprets, the theologians]. Their eyes are covered; they have rejected doctrine; they are disoriented. When you have a leadership like that it finally influences the land.

Verse 11 — “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed.” The words “vision of all” simply means revelation in the Word of God, Bible prophecy, and in this case prophecy with regard to the fifth cycle of discipline. In other words they cannot deal with the prophecies of the Word, they cannot deal with Isaiah’s prophecy, and later on they will not be able to deal with Jeremiah’s prophecy. They cannot even deal with the prophecies of men like Moses and David.

“which when delivered to one that is learned [a theologian], saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed” .In other words, he just can’t handle the Word of God.

Verse 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.” So he goes to one who is not a theologian, the leader of the land, and he can’t explain it either. Yet it is very simple for one who studies the Word and sticks with the Word and is oriented to doctrine. So this is the first reason why the judgment came — rejection of Bible doctrine.

Verses 13 and 14, the second reason why the judgment came: religion instead of regeneration. This is a logical progression. When you reject the Word, which is the only warning, then you get into religion. Religion obscures the Word; religion rejects the Word; religion sets up ideas in direct opposition to the Word; religion is the enemy of doctrine.

Verse 13 — the existence of religion during the fourth cycle of discipline during Isaiah’s ministry. By the way, religion had its back broken during Isaiah’s ministry and then it resurged again. “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 taught by the precept of men.” Rejection of the Word leads to apostasy which leads to religion, is the principle.

Religion is described in terms of ritual here in two ways: “with their mouth [verbal homage in ritual] and with their lips [verbal formalism in ritual].”

“but their heart is far from me” — the heart here refers to doctrine in the frontal lobe. They have no doctrine in their frontal lobes so in their thinking they are against the Lord.

“their fear” — the word “fear” means their attitude toward God, their respect, their trust — “is taught by the precept of men” — that is, the human tradition of religion. They have accepted human viewpoint. Religion emphasises the overt while, of course, regeneration emphasises the mental attitude. The Jews go through the ritual but they do not personally accept Christ as saviour. And the saved ones do not learn doctrine, so having accepted Christ as saviour they go no further. The phrase “precept of men” means human tradition of religion, externalism, legalism, self-righteousness. So without doctrine in the frontal lobe this constitutes hypocrisy of religion. Same principle that is found in Matthew 23:27,28, whitewashed tombstones, beautiful on the outside but full of dead men’s bones on the inside.

Verse 14 — the judgment upon religion. “Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous thing [lit. “terrifying thing” .Judgment.] among this people.” The principle behind this perpetuation of religion is the fourth cycle of discipline. There are two characteristics of the fourth cycle of discipline: military domination or occupation of the land and the predominance of religion — idolatry or legalism. Always under the fourth cycle of discipline you have these two factors.

“even a terrifying work and a wonder [a shocking thing]: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent man shall be hid.” There is a person who knows the right answer and his wisdom shall be hid. Notice the difference between “prudent” and “wise,” two different words indicating two concepts. The wise man is the human viewpoint type who thinks he has the answer and does not; the prudent is the person who has the biblical viewpoint, knows the answer, but his answer is hidden.

Verse 15-16, the third cause for judgment: dependence on man. This is logical progression again. Rejection of Bible doctrine leads to apostasy which spawns religion. Religion leads to a depending upon man instead of upon God and God’s Word.

Verse 15 — “Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel.” The word “woe” is simply a Hebrew phrase for a pronouncement of judgment. This time the judgment is pronounced upon those Jews who seek to preserve their nation by the Egyptian alliance. The principle of going down to Egypt is the principle of dependence upon man. When chapter 29 was actually being spoken by Isaiah to the people they were going down to Egypt for help. Already the Cabinet was meeting and they had decided that the way to get out from under Assyria is to go to Egypt for help, and they do, and eventually they will be destroyed because of it. So Isaiah says, “Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel.” And since Isaiah’s revival was now breaking out the tried to keep this thing a secret from the people, that they were depending upon Egypt.

“and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” In other words, No one knows what we are doing here, We are really pulling a fast one.” The warning in this case is about going down to Egypt for an alliance. And so to hide their counsel means to hide their plans for the Egyptian alliance; “in the dark” is idiomatic for plotting secretly, and “they say” refers to the plotters.

Verse 16 — “Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay.” “Turning things upside down” means that they are in opposition to the will of God, depending upon Egypt rather than depending upon the Lord and His Word. In other words, he is telling them they are all mixed up. It is a reference to disorientation; “for shall the work say to him that made it, He made me not” — going down to Egypt for help is ignoring the potter, and it is the pot saying, I am going to another pot for help. The secret to the strength of Israel, the secret to the prosperity of Israel, the secret to everything that existed in Israel, was the fact that God provided, God made it, that is grace.

“or shall the thing framed [a thing made by a carpenter] say to the carpenter, He hath no understanding?” In other words, this carpenter didn’t know what he was doing! So for these Jews who are in leadership, who have decided that their policy will be to go down to Egypt, is just exactly like being a beautiful object made by a carpenter, turning around and saying, He didn’t know what he was doing. Jeremiah faced the same problem one hundred years later — Jer. 17:5-8.