PRONE TO WANDER
Opening Prayer
Thank you, Loving Father, that when I read your Word, I will always find reason to rejoice, reason to hope, and reason to trust as I follow you in faith.
Read ISAIAH 29
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Woe to David’s City
29 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.[a]
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.[b]
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.”
Footnotes
- Isaiah 29:2 The Hebrew for altar hearth sounds like the Hebrew for Ariel.
- Isaiah 29:13 Hebrew; Septuagint They worship me in vain; / their teachings are merely human rules
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
‘Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.’1 Open your eyes, smile, and begin with a time of praise.
As we’ve discovered over the past week, the big themes of Isaiah’s prophetic message are judgment and hope. In this chapter, which seems to be a compilation of several oracles, he bounces back and forth between the two.
The first target of judgment is the people of Jerusalem, which Isaiah calls ‘Ariel’ because it sounds like ‘altar hearth’ in Hebrew (vv. 1–4), a defining feature of the city. The people were maintaining lots of religious traditions (v. 1) but were oblivious to their impending punishment – like straightening pews in the chapel of the Titanic. Let this deepen your times of confession in church. Jerusalem’s enemies are in for judgment, too (vv. 5–8), which reminds us that God uses corrupt leaders and nations to forward his plans, though he doesn’t condone their actions and will eventually bring them to justice. Finally, Jerusalem’s leaders face judgment (vv. 9–16). Their worship had become superficial and heartless (v. 13), the opposite of the two-way relationship God intended. Jesus even quoted this passage to rebuke the religious leaders of his day.2 Bottom line: this is an evergreen warning not to let our form of religion displace what author Dallas Willard described as a ‘conversational relationship with God.’3
Fortunately, Isaiah finishes with a message of hope, as he envisions a time in the future when things will be as they ought to be (vv. 17–24). It’s like a breath of fresh air! I am particularly struck, though, by the phrase, ‘wayward in spirit’ (v. 24). God knows that humans are prone to wander and in his great mercy he has made a way for us to be reconciled to him forever.4 He knows all about our sin patterns and yet he rejoices when we turn back to him.5 Let that energize your praise in church.
Apply
Find a hymnal or go online and read, hum, or sing the lyrics to ‘Come, thou fount of every blessing.’6
Closing prayer
Thank you Father, for communicating your love for me through your Word, and even through prayer. I confess that I do not respond with the gratitude and faithfulness you deserve. Forgive me; help me to seek you more diligently, to listen for your voice, and to follow you more closely.
1 Ps 100:2 2 Mark 7:5–8 3 Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, IVP, 1984, p16 4 Rom 5:10 5 Luke 15:11–32 6 Robert Robinson, 1735–90
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