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Isaiah 29:12

and the book is delivered to one who is not educated, saying, “Read this, please;” and he says, “I can’t read.”

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    and the book is delivered to one who is not educated, saying, “Read this, please;” and he says, “I can’t read.”

  • KJV King James Version

    And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    and the writing is delivered to him that is not learned, saying: 'Read this, I pray thee'; and he saith: 'I am not learned.'

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Cross-references (5)

Passages linked to Isaiah 29:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • John 7:15-16 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How does this man know letters, having never been educated?” Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
  • Isaiah 29:18 In that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
  • Isaiah 28:12-13 to whom he said, “This is the resting place. Give rest to weary,” and “This is the refreshing;” yet they would not hear. Therefore Yahweh’s word will be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, fall backward, be broken, be snared, and be taken.
  • Jeremiah 5:4 Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the Yahweh’s way, nor the law of their God.
  • Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

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Explain this verse (7 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 29:12 And the book is delivered to him…

Isa 29:12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Ver. 12. And the book is delivered to one that is not learned.] Heb., Knoweth not to read. By the learned is meant, say some, the rulers in Church and State; by the unlearned, the common people: all were in a pickle. Nicodemus had oft read in this our prophet, in Ezekiel and elsewhere, of regeneration, though not under that term; but how little he understood it, see Joh 3:4; Joh 3:9 And what a buzzard is Bellarmine himself in some such fundamentals as whereof it is a shame for a very child to be ignorant! I must needs confess, said a learned Papist to the Bishop of Cavaillon, that I have often been at the schools of Sorbonne in Paris, where I have heard the disputations of the divines, but yet I never learned so much as I have done by hearing these young children at Merindol posing one another before the bishop about points of religion. The poor men of Lyons in France were enlightened when the great doctors were blinded and besotted in their superstitious tenets and practices. {a}

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{a} Acts and Mon, 865.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The vision of all; of all your prophets, whether…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the book is delivered to him that is…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Of all - Of all, your prophets. As a…
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And the book is delivered ... - That is,…
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The unlearned succeed no better than the learned, not…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Him that is not learned; i.e. "that cannot read…

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