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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.”

17. Is it not yet a little while? The Lord now declares that he will make those wicked men to know who they are; as if he had said, “You are now asleep in your pride, but I shall speedily awake you.” Men indulge themselves, till they feel the powerful hand of God; and therefore the Prophet threatens that the judgment of God will overtake such profound indifference.

And Lebanon shall be turned into Carmel. ²⁷⁸²⁷⁸ {Bogus footnote} Under the names “Lebanon” and “Carmel” he intended to express a renovation of the world and a change of affairs. But as to the object of the allusion, commentators differ widely from each other. As Mount “Lebanon” was clothed with trees and forests, and “Carmel” had fruitful and fertile fields. Many think that the Jews are compared to “Carmel,” because they will be barren, and Christians to “Lebanon,” because they will yield a great abundance of fruits. That opinion is certainly plausible, as men are usually gratified by everything that is ingenious; but a parallel passage, which we shall afterwards see, (Isaiah 32:15), will shew that the Prophet here employs the comparison for the purpose of magnifying the grace of God; for, when he shall again begin to bless his people, the vast abundance of all blessings will take away from “Carmel” the celebrity which it possessed. He therefore threatens that he will turn “Lebanon” into “Carmel,” that is, a forest will become a cultivated field, and will produce corn, and the cultivated fields shall yield so great an abundance of fruits that, if their present and future conditions be compared, they may now be pronounced to be unfruitful and barren. This mode of expression will be more fully explained when we come to consider Isaiah 32:15

Others view “Carmel” as an appellative, but I prefer to regard it as a proper name; for it means that those fruitful fields may now be reckoned uncultivated and barren, in comparison of the new and unwonted fertility. Others explain it allegorically, and take “Lebanon” as denoting proud men, and “Carmel” as denoting mean and ordinary persons. This may be thought to be acute and ingenious, but I choose rather to follow that more simple interpretation which I have already stated. That the godly may not be discouraged, he passes from threatenings to proclaim grace, and declares that when, by enduring for a little the cross laid on them, they shall have given evidence of the obedience of their faith, a sudden renovation is at hand to fill them with joy. And yet, by shutting out the ungodly from this hope, he intimates that, when they are at ease, and promise to themselves peace or a truce, destruction is very near at hand; for, “when they shall say, Peace and Safety,” as Paul tells us, “then sudden destruction will overtake them.” (1 Thessalonians 5:3.)