13The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;14therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”
15Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh, and whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”16You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”
13 The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;
14 therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”
15 Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh, and whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”
16 You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t make me;” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”
KJVKing James Version
13 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 is taught by the precept of men:
14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
13 And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment of men learned by rote;
14 Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the prudence of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say: 'Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?'
16 O your perversity! Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it: 'He made me not'; or the thing framed say of him that framed it: 'He hath no understanding?'
Jeremiah 12:2(v13)You have planted them. Yes, they have taken root. They grow. Yes, they produce fruit. You are near in their mouth, and far from their heart.
Ezekiel 33:31-33(v13)They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their…
Mark 7:2-13(v13)Now when they saw some of his disciples eating bread with defiled, that is unwashed, hands, they found fault. (For the Pharisees and all…
Matthew 15:2-9(v13)“Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat bread.” He answered them, “Why do…
Jeremiah 3:10(v13)Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says Yahweh.
Show all 64 cross-references
Isaiah 58:2-3(v13)Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways. As a nation that did righteousness, and didn’t forsake the ordinance of their God,…
Romans 9:19-21(v16)You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?…
Ezekiel 8:12(v15)Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery?…
Isaiah 64:8(v16)But now, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are the clay and you our potter. We all are the work of your hand.
Proverbs 30:6(v13)Don’t you add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.
Isaiah 47:10(v15)For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said…
Jeremiah 5:2(v13)Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”
Habakkuk 1:5(v14)“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told…
Isaiah 30:1(v15)“Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that…
Isaiah 45:9-11(v16)Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you…
Isaiah 48:1-2(v13)“Hear this, house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, and have come out of the waters of Judah. You swear by Yahweh’s name,…
Jeremiah 42:2-4(v13)and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all…
1 Corinthians 1:19-24(v14)For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.” Where is the wise?…
Colossians 2:22(v13)(all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?
Psalms 94:7-9(v15)They say, “Yah will not see, neither will Jacob’s God consider.” Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be…
Psalms 10:11-13(v15)He says in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it.” Arise, Yahweh! God, lift up your hand! Don’t forget the…
Psalms 59:7(v15)Behold, they spew with their mouth. Swords are in their lips, “For”, they say, “who hears us?”
Psalms 94:8-9(v16)Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise? He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear? He who formed the eye,…
Psalms 139:1-8(v15)Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search…
Isaiah 28:15(v15)“Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes…
Isaiah 28:21(v14)For Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and…
Jeremiah 23:24(v15)Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
Ezekiel 9:9(v15)Then he said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full…
Zephaniah 1:12(v15)It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in…
Malachi 2:17(v15)You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in…
Luke 12:1-3(v15)Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, he began to tell his…
Job 22:13-14(v15)You say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness? Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see. He walks…
Job 24:13-17(v15)“These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths. The murderer rises with the light. He…
Job 34:22(v15)There is no darkness, nor thick gloom, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
Jeremiah 18:1-10(v16)The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my…
Jeremiah 42:20(v13)For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and…
Jeremiah 49:7(v14)Of Edom, Yahweh of Armies says: “Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?
John 9:39-41(v14)Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the…
1 Corinthians 4:5(v15)Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the…
2 Chronicles 29:1-31(v13)Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the…
Job 5:13(v14)He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.
Psalms 17:1(v13)Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea; Give ear to my prayer, that doesn’t go out of deceitful lips.
Psalms 64:5-6(v15)They encourage themselves in evil plans. They talk about laying snares secretly. They say, “Who will see them?” They plot injustice,…
Psalms 73:11(v15)They say, “How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
Isaiah 5:18-19(v15)Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope, who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his…
Isaiah 6:9-10(v14)He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’ Make the heart of this…
Isaiah 57:12(v15)I will declare your righteousness; and as for your works, they will not benefit you.
Obadiah 1:8(v14)“Won’t I in that day”, says Yahweh, “destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mountain of Esau?
Luke 10:24(v14)for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which you see, and didn’t see them, and to hear the things which you…
John 9:29-34(v14)We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don’t know where he comes from.” The man answered them, “How amazing! You…
2 Corinthians 4:2(v15)But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the…
Isaiah 19:3(v14)The spirit of Egypt will fail within it. I will destroy its counsel. They will seek the idols, the charmers, those who have familiar…
Isaiah 19:11-14(v14)The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I…
Isaiah 28:17(v15)I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will…
Isaiah 29:9-10(v14)Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For Yahweh…
Jeremiah 8:7-9(v14)Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my…
John 3:19(v15)This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.
Acts 28:26-27(v14)saying, ‘Go to this people and say, in hearing, you will hear, but will in no way understand. In seeing, you will see, but will in no way…
Romans 1:28(v14)Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
1 Corinthians 3:19(v14)For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”
Revelation 2:23(v15)I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each…
Romans 1:21-22(v14)Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart…
Isaiah 10:6(v13)I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the…
Isaiah 24:1(v16)Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Because they are hypocrites and not sincere in heart,…
Because they are hypocrites and not sincere in heart, as Matt. 15:8.
That is, their religion was learned by man’s doctrine, and not by my word.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Isa 29:13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this…
Isa 29:13 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 is taught by the precept of men:
Ver. 13. Because this people draweth near to me, &c.] For their putid hypocrisy and outsidedness in God’s service, they were given up by him to be further hardened by the devil, and to have their necks possessed by an iron sinew, Hypocritis nihil stupidius. {See Trapp on "Mat 15:8"}
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Their fear towards me.] See on Mat 15:9.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Draw near me, to wit, in acts of worship,
Draw near me, to wit, in acts of worship,
with their mouth and with their lips; with outward devotions, and the profession of religion.
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But have removed their heart far from me; they do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience which I require, and prefer before all sacrifices and external services.
Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men; they worship me not in such way and manner as I have commanded and prescribed, but according to their own and other men’s inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets before my institutions. For this was a common error among the Jews, as we learn from Jer 7:31; Hos 5:11, and many other scriptures; and thus our blessed Saviour expounds this very place, Mat 15:7-9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Wherefore the Lord said,.... Concerning the hypocritical people of…
Wherefore the Lord said,.... Concerning the hypocritical people of the Jews in Christ's time, as the words are applied by our Lord himself, Mat 15:7,
Forasmuch as this people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me; Kimchi observes, there is a double reading of the word rendered "draw near": in one reading of it, it signifies to be "afflicted"; and then the sense is, "when this people are afflicted, with their mouth, and with their lips, they honour me"; that is, when they are in distress, they pray unto him, and profess a great regard for him, speak honourably of him, and reverently to him, hoping he will help and relieve them; see Isa 26:16 but the other reading of the word, in which it has the signification of "drawing near", is confirmed, not only by the Masora on the text, but by the citation of it in Mat 15:7 and designs the approach of these people to God, in acts of religion and devotion, in praying to him, and praising of him, and expressing great love and affection for him, and zeal for his cause and interest; but were all outwardly, with their lips and mouths only:
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but have removed their heart far from me; these were not employed in his service, which is the main thing he requires and regards, but were engaged elsewhere; while their bodies were presented before him, and their mouths and lips were moving to him, their affections were not set upon him, nor the desires of their souls unto him, nor had they any real hearty concern for his glory:
and their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men; their worship of God was not according to the prescription of God, and his revealed will; but according to the traditions of the elders, which they preferred to the word of God, and, by observing them, transgressed it, and made it of no effect; see Mat 15:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Draw near - Namely, in acts of worship. With…
Draw near - Namely, in acts of worship. With lips - With outward devotions. But - They do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience, which I require. And - They worship me not in such a manner, as I have prescribed, but according to mens inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets, before my institutions.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn v13Verse 13. The Lord - "JEHOVAH"] For אדני Adonai,…
Verse 13. The Lord - "JEHOVAH"] For אדני Adonai, sixty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and four editions, read יהוה Yehovah, and five MSS. add יהוה.
Kimchi makes some just observations on this verse. The vision, meaning the Divine revelation of all the prophets, is a book or letter that is sealed - is not easily understood. This is delivered to one that is learned - instructed in the law. Read this; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed; a full proof that he does not wish to know the contents, else he would apply to the prophet to get it explained. See Kimchi on the place.
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And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men - "And vain is their fear of me teaching the commandments of men"] I read for ותהי vattehi, ותהו vethohu, with the Septuagint, Mt 15:9; Mr 8:7; and for מלמדה melummedah, מלמדים melummedim, with the Chaldee.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv13, 15Isa 29:13-14. Forasmuch as this people draw near to…
Isa 29:13-14. Forasmuch as this people draw near to me — Namely, in acts of worship; with their mouth — Speaking to me in prayer and praise, and promising and professing to serve me; and with their lips do honour me — With mere outward devotion and bodily worship; but have removed their heart far from me — Do not render me that love and gratitude, that regard and obedience, which I require; and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men — By mere human wisdom, and not by my word and Spirit. They worship and serve me, not in such a manner as I have prescribed, but according to men’s inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets before my institutions. Or, their religion is merely of human, not of divine, origin: it is the fruit of corrupt nature, and not of renewing grace. I will proceed to do a marvellous work — A thing that will scarce be believed; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish — Shall disappear and vanish. A veil shall be cast upon the eyes of their minds, and their folly shall be made manifest to all. The most refined arts of their politicians shall not avail their authors, nor be able to preserve them from God’s judgments; and their most wise and learned men shall lose their usual discretion, and be infatuated. This threatening was remarkably fulfilled in the Jews of our Lord’s time, who crucified him out of fear of the Romans, and thereby brought the Romans upon them! And “their learned rabbis, ever since, have minded little else but fabulous stories, and the Cabbalists have vented trifles for profound mysteries.” As, in rejecting Christ and his gospel, they removed their hearts far from God, therefore God justly removed wisdom far from them, and hid from their eyes the things that belonged even to their temporal peace.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Wherefore the Lord said - This verse, with the…
Wherefore the Lord said - This verse, with the following, is designed to denounce the divine judgment on their formality of worship. They kept up the forms of religion, but they witcheld the affections of their hearts from God; and he, therefore, says that he will proceed to inflict on them exemplary and deserved punishment.
This people draw near me - That is, in the temple, and in the forms of external devotion.
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And with their lips do honor me - They professedly celebrate my praise, and acknowledge me in the forms of devotion.
But have removed their heart - Have witcheld the affections of their hearts.
And their fear toward me - The worship of God is often represented as “fear” Job 28:28; Psa 19:9; Psa 34:11; Pro 1:7.
Is taught by the precept of men - That is, their views, instead of having been derived from the Scriptures, were drawn from the doctrines of mankind. Our Saviour referred to this passage, and applied it to the hypocrites of his own time Mat 15:8-9. The latter part of it is, however, not quoted literally from the Hebrew, nor from the Septuagint, but retains the sense: ‘But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ He quoted it as strikingly descriptive of the people when he lived, not as saying that Isaiah referred directly to his times.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv13, 14, 16Men. Our Saviour applies this to the Jews. The…
Men. Our Saviour applies this to the Jews. The evangelists follow the Septuagint, Matthew xv. 8., and Mark vii. 6. (Calmet) --- "This people approacheth to me, (Grabe adds, with its mouth and with) their lips they honour me, but their heart is far from me. Yet in vain do they honour me, teaching the commands of men and doctrines." (Haydock) --- They still continue to corrupt God’s word by their false interpretations.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1313 Wherefore the Lord said,
2. THE SECRET COUNSEL OF MEN, AND THE SECRET COUNSEL OF GOD
Isa_29:13-24
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13 Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
And with their lips do honor me,
But have removed their heart far from me,
And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men;
14 Therefore, behold, 16I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people,
Even a marvellous work and a wonder;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord,
And their works are in the dark,
And they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
16 17Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay;
For shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not?
Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
17 Is it not yet a very little while,
And Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book,
And the eyes of the blind shall see
Out of obscurity, and out of darkness.
19 The meek also 18shall increase their joy in the Lord,
And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the terrible one is brought to nought,
And the scorner is consumed,
And all that watch for 19iniquity are cut off:
21 That make a man an offender 20for a word,
And lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate,
And turn aside the just 21for a thing of nought.
22 Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham,
Concerning the house of Jacob,
Jacob shall not now be ashamed,
Neither shall his face now wax pale.
23 22But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him,
They shall sanctify my name,
And sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
And shall fear the God of Israel.
24 They also that erred in spirit 23shall come to understanding,
And they that murmured shall learn doctrine.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_29:13. That we are to read not נִגַשׂ (with the Targum and many MSS. and Editions, in the sense of “to urge, trouble, torment one’s self,”) but נִגַשׁ, is shown by the antithetic רִחַק. That contrary to the accentuation בפיו is to be connected with נגשׁ, is apparent from this, that the people are to be reproached, not with drawing near to God in general, but with the outward, deceitful approach to Him. The great liberty which in Hebrew is indulged in with reference to person and number, is seen from כבדוני and יראתם in relation to בפיו, שׂפּתיו and לבו. We have to take רחק as a causative, and at the same time intensive Piel (to make removal with zeal = to strive to get away).
Isa_29:14. On יוֹסִף as the third person comp. on Isa_28:16. [יוֹסִף is the third person of the future. There is an ellipsis to be supplied: Behold, I (am he who) will add, etc.—D. M.]. אֵת after הפליא is not the sign of the accusative, but is the preposition. Instead of a second infinitive, a noun of the same stem פלא is attached to the infinitive absolute (comp. Isa_22:17-18; Isa_24:19).
Isa_29:15. חעמיק is the proper causative Hiphil=to make a deepening, a sinking. At the same time the construction with מִן is a pregnant one; but לסתיר [syncopated Hiphil comp. Isa_23:11—D. M.] is not a statement of the design, but is the ablative or gerundine infinitivus modalis, which when united with a causative conjugation, can be expressed by us by a verb with any adverb, as here: who deep from Jehovah hide, etc. Comp. Jer_49:8; Jer_49:30, and as to the usus loquendi Isa_7:11; Isa_30:33; Isa_31:6. אִם in Isa_29:16 corresponds to the Latin an, and marks the second member of a disjunctive question, the first of which is to be supplied.
Isa_29:20. שָׁקֵד σπουδάζειν, alacrem esse, vigilare, invigilare, is elsewhere always construed with עַל (Jer_1:12; Jer_5:6; Jer_31:28; Jer_44:27; Pro_8:34; Job_21:32). This word is found in Isaiah only here. The construction in this place is to be judged according to such forms of expression as שָׁבֵי פֶשַׁע (Isa_59:20), חֲלוּץ צָבָא (Num_32:27) and similar phrases. The form יְקשׁוּן might, considered by itself, be the perfect (comp. יָקשְׁתִּי Jer_50:24), as the form יָקשֽׁוּ with the primitive ן must be יְקשֽׁוּן according to the rule that a closed syllable can be without the tone only when it has a short vowel, and an open syllable precedes (comp. יְקוּמֽוּן—יָֽקוּמוּ Ewald, § 85, a; 88, c). But if we have regard to the syntax, the imperfect (future) is more correct, because the Prophet has in his mind not merely single definite facts, but the permanent habit of those people. The form is in this case to be derived from קוֹשׁ, which occurs only here.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Prophet urges the people to fear Jehovah, and to trust in Him alone. Even in Hezekiah’s times the people were not pleased to do so. On this account the preceding announcement (Isa_29:1-8), notwithstanding the glorious promise with which it ends, was to so many an offence (Isa_29:9-12). The Prophet, therefore, directs now his discourse against those who honor the Lord with merely external, ceremonial service, and not from the heart (Isa_29:13), and announces that the Lord will deal strangely with them, and that their wisdom will be brought to shame (Isa_29:14). He further reproves those who imagine that they can carry out in the most profound secresy the plans of their untheocratic policy (Isa_29:15), by reminding them that the clay can never be equal to the potter, or the work formed from clay be able to deny the potter, or accuse him of ignorance (Isa_29:16). A great change will soon happen: Assyria, which is like Lebanon, shall be brought low; Judah, which resembles only Carmel, shall be highly exalted. Then people will understand the words of the Prophet, which they had before despised, and will perceive that they are true and salutary. But behind that deliverance, which belongs to the history of the nation, the Prophet discerns also Messianic blessing. The comparison has therefore this meaning also for him, that the wilderness shall become uncultivated land, while uncultivated land shall become a wilderness (Isa_29:17). This means that a poor condition of external nature shall be remedied by the divine favor, and, conversely, a condition of high culture shall, by the withdrawal of the divine favor, pass into a state of wildness; the deaf shall hear, the blind see (Isa_29:18); the poor and oppressed shall become strong and joyful in the Lord (Isa_29:19). The violent and false shall be exterminated (Isa_29:20-21). For the Lord, who redeemed Abraham will bring Jacob to honor (Isa_29:22). For when Jacob shall see the Lord’s wonderful work for his salvation, he will sanctify the Lord (Isa_29:23), and understand what makes for his peace (Isa_29:24).
2. Wherefore the Lord said——be hid.
Isa_29:13-14. By means of ויאמר the Prophet connects what he has to say with the immediately foregoing. He indicates by this verbal form that what follows is occasioned by the stupid and perverse behaviour of the people (Isa_29:9-10). That perversity had its root in the people trusting more in themselves and their wisdom than in the Lord. They, therefore, thought that they could satisfy the Lord, whose worship Hezekiah lately imposed on them, by the performance of outward ceremonial service. For the rest, in what concerned their life and conduct, and especially in their policy, they went their own ways. The Lord had already said (Deu_6:4 sqq.), that He is not satisfied with mere ceremonial service, but desires hearty love from His people. But it was this chief and greatest commandment (Mat_22:38) which Israel never learned. Hence till the time of the exile the inclination to idolatry prevailed, and if they at times served the Lord, this was only as a pause in the song. And the reformations of Hezekiah and Josiah were no expression of the mind of the people, and were consequently not of long duration. Manasseh followed Hezekiah, and Jehoiakim and Zedekiah followed Josiah. But Isaiah here takes up earlier utterances (Psalms 50; Amo_5:21 sqq.; Mic_6:6 sq.). He afterwards returns to this subject (Isa_58:2 sqq., comp. Isa_1:11 sqq.). The expression מצוה מלמדה is found only here. When we compare such expressions as עֶגְלָה מלמדה. Hos_10:11, מְלֻמּדֵי שִׁיר1Ch_25:7, מלמדי מלהמהSon_3:8, we perceive that in מלמדה as here used, there lies the idea of training, of external discipline and accustoming. [The complaint is that their religion, instead of being founded on the authority of God’s word, rested on human ordinances.—D. M.]. The punishment for this hypocritical conduct of the people towards Jehovah is that the Lordcontinues to deal with them in a wonderful way. Wonderful had been all the ways which the Lord had from the beginning pursued towards the people. The Prophet seems to wish by the word הסתתר to prepare the transition to Isa_29:15. From the wisdom, which must hide itself, because it is brought to disgrace, he passes over to the wisdom which desires to hide itself, while it cannot do so.
3. Woe unto them——understanding.
Isa_29:15-16. We clearly perceive here how significant was the position of the great Prophets. They might be said to be the eye and the mouth of Jehovah. They watched over the course of the theocracy, and the leaders of it could not but respect them. If then the policy approved by the leaders was untheocratic, they must fear the word of the Prophets. For their word was the word of Jehovah. When, therefore, there was a consciousness of an untheocratic aim, care was taken to conceal the political measures from the Prophets. Thus Ahaz sought to hide from Isaiah his Assyrian policy (7). Here likewise Hezekiah tries to keep secret his Egyptian policy. For even Hezekiah does not seem to have risen to the height of the only truly theocratic policy, which must consist in having the Lord alone as their support. והיה וגו׳. Not merely is the plan secretly concocted, but the execution of it, too, takes place with all secresy. מחשׁך, in Isaiah besides only Isa_42:16. מעשׂיהם, so far as the form is concerned, might be singular. But as the copula הָיָה precedes, מעשׂיחם can also be the plural, and this view corresponds better to the usus loquendi elsewhere (Isa_41:29; Isa_59:6; Isa_66:18). הפככם Isa_29:16 is an exclamation: O your perverting! That is, how ye pervert things! They act, as if their wisdom were greater than the wisdom of God, as if they could therefore review, determine, and according to their pleasure influence and direct the thoughts of the Lord, while they are but clay in the hand of the potter. The word הפככם (on account of the Dagesh lene, not from the Infin Kal, but from the substantive הֹפֶךְ, which occurs only here, comp. הֵפֶך הֶפֶךְEze_16:34) is to be taken in an active signification, so that it marks not so much perversity, as the perversion of ideas which proceeds from perversity, as is in Isa_29:15 implicitly, and in Isa_29:16 explicitly evinced. If the potter were clay, and the clay were potter, then the clay could determine and direct the potter, could for this purpose lead him astray, deceive him, etc. Either, then, the Israelites are perverse, or the potter is not clay. If indeed the clay were potter, then the former could justly say: he, the potter made me not,—or he understands and observes nothing. This is what Israel says in imagining that he is able to lead astray the Prophet, that is, the omniscient Lord Himself. While the politicians forge Hezekiah’s plans, they think that they knead them, as potters do their vessels, according to their pleasure, and unobserved by the Lord, while they themselves are yet but clay.
4. Is it not yet——a thing of nought
Isa_29:17-21. An end will be put to this evil condition. The Lord Himself will reform His people, and that thoroughly. Then the deaf will hear, and the blind see, and to the poor the Gospel will be preached. But those proud, imperious and infatuated politicians, who forcibly suppress all opposition against their line of action, will go to ruin. When the Prophet holds out the prospect of this reformation within a brief period, he does this in the exercise of that prophetic manner of contemplation which reckons the times not according to a human but a divine measure. For in fact the Prophet here beholds along with, and in what is proximate the time of the end. The prospect of blessedness which he presents belongs also to the days of the Messiah, as we clearly perceive from Isa_29:18-19. The expression עוד מעט מזער is used thus in Isa_10:25 also. Comp. Isa_26:20; Isa_54:7. In a short time, therefore, Lebanon shall become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field a forest. The expression can be variously explained. It seems to me to denote primarily that the Lord can bring down that which is high, and raise that which is low. And in this sense the word was fulfilled in the overthrow of Sennacherib. Then Assyria, the lofty Lebanon, became the low Carmel; but Judah, which was a little mount, and low plain, became a lofty wooded mountain-range. Thereby it became at the same time evident how false the untheocratic policy was in its calculation, and how truly the Lord’s mouth spoke by the Prophet. Lebanon and the forest represent wild nature, or the natural wilderness; the fruitful field again represents a state of culture (Isa_10:18; Isa_37:24). All depends on the essential character, the nature of a thing. What in its nature and essence is good, although it looks rough and wild as the wooded mountain-range, shall yet gradually, even in outward appearance, become a fruitful cultivated land; but what is in its nature rough and wild, even when it appears to be cultivated, will certainly sooner or later manifest its true nature as a wilderness, in a corresponding external appearance. In short, the true nature of things must at last be manifest. [“The only natural interpretation of the verse, is that which regards it as prophetic of a mutual change of condition, the first becoming last and the last first.”—Alexander. D. M.].
This form of speech was probably proverbial, and seems to me in the form in which it here lies to bear the meaning assigned to it. That it was used in yet another form, and then naturally in a signification modified as the case required, we can see from Isa_32:15. Instead of שָׁב we find וְהָיָה in Isa_32:15. The passage before us seems to be the only one in which שׁוּב is undoubtedly employed in this wider signification = to turn one’s self from one direction to another (it properly signifies; to turn one’s self back). The definite article before כרמל and יער is the generic (comp. Isa_29:11). כרמל is used nine times by Isa_10:18; Isa_16:10; Isa_29:17 (bis); Isa_22:15-16; Isa_33:9 and Isa_35:2 (proper name); Isa_37:24. The expression יֵחָשֵׁב לְ is not meant to affirm that the fruitful field is merely esteemed as a forest, without really being such. That it really is such, is what the Prophet means to affirm. In the following verses the proverbial and figurative expression, Isa_29:17, is illustrated. The deaf shall in that day (i. e., in the time indicated by מעט מזער) hear words of the writing, and the blind will see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.—When the bound senses of the deaf and dumb can freely unfold themselves, when the love of life, which is kept under in the poor and wretched, can display itself without impediment, then Lebanon, the wooded mountain range, has become a fruitful field, for then nature has advanced from neglected disorder to a well-ordered, cultivated condition. When it is said that the deaf will hear, דברי ספר, the word ספר seems superfluous. But the Prophet alludes evidently to Isa_29:11, from which it is at the same time clear that he is not speaking of physical deafness, etc. It was there declared of the people present that the Lord had poured out upon them a spirit of sleep (in which, as all know, one does not hear), and bound up their eyes so that the prophecy was to them as the words of a sealed book. When then Lebanon has become a fruitful field, and nature shall have given place to grace, then too the ears of the people that were previously deaf will be opened, and they will understand the דִּבְרֵי סֵפֶר הֶחָתוּם, i. e., the words of the prophecy proceeding from the Lord through His Prophets, and will emerge from gloom. (אֹפֶל only here in Isaiah) and darkness, (in which they hitherto were with their eyes bound up by the Lord), so as to behold the light (comp. 30. 5). They will, therefore, perceive also the errors of their policy, and see that the word of the Prophet which shocked them, pointed out the true way of safety. They who were deaf and blind were also unhappy, just for this cause. When they hear and see, then are they happy men, delivered from oppression and distress, and joyful in their God. ענוים outwardly and inwardly oppressed, in Isaiah besides Isa_11:4; Isa_61:1; [ענו means meek, and is to be distinguished from עניpoor.—D. M.]. יספו comp. Isa_37:31; they obtain joy not only once, but continually, i. e., they increase joy.ביהוה comp. ἐν κυρίῳ in the New Testament; it is therefore not merely = through, but = in the Lord, namely as those who are rooted and grounded in the Lord. The expression אביוני אדם is found only here, comp. Exo_23:11. קדושׁ י׳ comp. on Isa_1:4. יגילו,—the rejoicing too has the Lord first for its basis, afterwards for its object (Isa_41:16). Is not the purport of these two verses, 18 and 19, reproduced in the saying of Christ, “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Mat_11:5; Luk_7:22)? In this passage in the Gospel allusions are commonly found only to Isa_35:5; Isa_61:1. Without wishing to deny these references, we yet remark that Isa_29:18-19 contains the ideas conjoined, which the other places present apart. And when the Lord in dealing with John, who had fallen into doubt regarding His Messiahship, describes His works by pointing to this passage, are we not justified in saying that this passage is of Messianic import? We of course admit that Mat_11:5 is not an exact quotation of our passage. The joy of the pious has as its condition the removal of the wicked, whose unchecked display of themselves is identical with the deterioration of the fruitful field into a forest. Hence Isa_29:20-21, which explain Isa_29:17 b, are connected by כִּי with what immediately precedes. אָפֵס besides only Isa_16:4. לֵץ only here in Isaiah, but comp. Isa_28:14; Isa_28:22. Hiphil החטיא to make, to declare a sinner, (Deu_24:4; Ecc_5:5), only here in Isaiah. They make people sinners by words,i. e., they bring about their condemnation not by actual proofs, but merely by lying words. [The rendering of the E.V. is much more easy and natural: that make a man an offender for a word, and is justly preferred by Ewald, Alexander and Delitzsch.—D. M.]. מוֹכִיחַ the reprover, reprehensor, he who maintains the truth. Comp. Job_32:12; Job_40:2; Pro_9:7; Pro_24:25, et saepe;Eze_3:26. Isaiah seems to have had specially before him Amo_5:10. הִטָּה with the accusative of the thing (Deu_27:19; Pro_17:23; Amo_2:7), or the person (Pro_18:5; Amo_5:12), to designate a violent deed perpetrated by wresting judgment, is of frequent occurrence. But where it is joined with בְּ, it denotes the sphere in which, or the means by which the wresting of judgment is accomplished, not the terminus in quem. As moreover תֹּהוּ denotes everywhere in Isaiah what is null, vain, empty, and is synonymous with רוּחַ (wind) אֶפֶם ,הֶבֶל (comp. Isa_24:10; Isa_34:11; Isa_40:17; Isa_40:23; Isa_41:29; Isa_44:9; Isa_45:18-19; Isa_49:4; Isa_59:4), we have to regard תֹּהוּ as designating the empty lying accusations which were brought against the Prophet.
5. Therefore thus saith—doctrine.
Isa_29:22-24. These verses contain the comprehensive close. According to verses 13 and 14, Israel had omitted to serve the Lord in the proper manner, and according to verse 15, they had omitted to trust in the Lord alone. That on this double sin a double crisis must follow, which will make the good elements of the people ripe for salvation, the bad elements ripe for judgment, had been declared Isa_29:16-21. Now the close follows: As the ancestor of Israel had been delivered from the danger of idolatry like a brand plucked from the fire, so shall Israel also be delivered, when it shall have seen that judgment on the wicked. It will sanctify the name of the Lord, it will learn the true wisdom, and that will be its safety. אֶל־בֵּית י׳ Isa_29:22 = in reference to the house of Jacob (comp. Gen_20:2; Psa_2:7 et saepe), for in what follows it is spoken of in the third person. The clause אשׁר פדה וגו׳ refers to יהוה. That God, who had formerly saved Abraham, the progenitor of Israel, from the snares of idolatry (Jos_24:2; Jos_24:14-15), will also redeem Israel from the internal and external dangers which now threaten him. Israel will in the end not be put to shame (Isa_19:9; Isa_20:5; Isa_37:27; Isa_45:16-17; Isa_54:4 et saepe). חָוַר candidum esse, pallescere isἅπ. λεγ. Delitzschhere observes “that people whose faces are of a bronze color know in their language only of a growing pale for shame, and not of a blushing for shame.” Both the correction (Isa_29:20-21), and the deliverance (Isa_29:18-19), will bear fruit. The Prophet intends both when he speaks of the work of Jehovah among the people. When Israel (i.e., not the patriarch but his descendants, ילדיו is added by way of explanation to בראותו to obviate any misunderstanding) shall see this, he will sanctify the Lord,i. e., regard Him as holy (comp. on Isa_8:13, and the first petition of the Lord’s prayer). [But the E.V., which puts the work of my hands in apposition to his children, is better, comp. Isa_49:18-21.—D. M.]. The Prophet states in Isa_29:23 b, that the effect of the sanctification of the name of God will be that the people will esteem as holy the Holy One of Jacob, and will fear the God of Israel. Beside the variation of Jacob and Israel, which is so frequent in the second part of Isaiah, mark how the Prophet distinguishes between sanctifying the name of God, and sanctifying the Holy One of Jacob. This sanctification must be substantially one and the same. But when the Holy One of Jacob and the God of Israel is named as object of the second sanctification (Isa_29:23 b), a sanctifying seems to be thereby intended, which gives in a way which all men can perceive, the glory to this God above the gods of the heathen. The fruit of the inward disposition of heart which is externally perceptible and operative, seems to be thereby intended. As יּקדישׁו שׁמי refers to Isa_8:13, so יעריצו refers to Isa_8:12. Thus Israel will become truly wise. That wisdom which they thought they must conceal from God, was both foolishness and destruction. But when they shall have learnt to sanctify the Lord, then they who hitherto erred in spirit (comp. Psa_95:10), will attain the true wisdom, and they who heretofore murmured against God’s counsel and direction (רגן Kal only here), will be satisfied with the discipline of God, and let it have its effect upon them (לֶקַח what one takes, Pro_1:5; Pro_4:2 et saepe, only here in Isaiah).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_29:1-8. The Prophet designates Jerusalem as Ariel in a four-fold sense. Taking Ariel as denoting the city of God, the name suits Jerusalem as the holy, separated dwelling-place in which the church of God, and all saving ordinances have their seat and centre. Taking Ariel as the lion of God, the names applies to Jerusalem as the ecclesia militans, as the host of God fighting against the worldly power and conquering it. Taking Ariel as denoting the Altar of God, it sets forth Jerusalem as the place in which reconciliation with God, and the bestowal of all the gifts of His grace take place. And, lastly, Jerusalem appears as Ariel in the signification of Mount of God, because it is the height of God which overtops all other heights, in which He manifests His glory to all the world, and to which all nations flow in order to worship Him (Isa_2:2 sqq.). But when Jerusalem forgets these her high honors, and neglects the obligations thereby laid upon her, she is corrected and humbled as any other city. [There may be an allusion made by the Prophet to the two-fold meaning of Ariel as lion of God, and hearth of God, but sober exegesis will be slow to admit the other meanings attached to the name of Ariel, and supposed to be here significantly alluded to by Isaiah.—D. M.].
2. Isa_29:3. [“It was the enemy’s army that encamped against Jerusalem; but God says that He will do it, for they are His hand, He does it by them. God had often, and long, by a host of angels, encamped for them round about them, for their protection and deliverance; but now He was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them: The siege laid against them was of His laying, and the forts raised against them were of His raising. Note, when men fight against us, we must, in them, see God contending with us.” Henry.—D. M.].
3. On Isa_29:7 sq. “A very consolatory comparison. The Romans and all enemies of the church are as blood-thirsty dogs. But when they have drunk up a part of the blood of the saints, and imagine, that they have swallowed up the church, it is only a dream. Since we see, that Christ and His Christians are, thank God, not yet destroyed.”—Cramer.
4. On Isa_29:9-12. “Awful description of the sorest punishment from God, which is spiritual, confirmed blindness; which is at this day so manifest in the Jews. For although they are confuted by so many clear and plain Scriptures of the Prophets, although they must themselves confess that the time is past, the place no more in existence, the lineage of David extinct, so that they can have no certain hope of a Messiah, they yet remain so hardened and obstinate in their opinion, as if they were drunken, mad and drowned in the snares of the devil by which they are bound, and could not come to sober and rational thoughts. This we ought to take as a mirror of the wrath of God, that we, while the book is yet open to us, may freely and diligently look into it, that it may not be closed and sealed before our eyes also.—Cramer.
5. On Isa_29:9-12. To all those who bring to the reading of the Holy Scripture not the Spirit, from whom it proceeded, but the opposite spirit, the spirit of the world, the Scripture must be a sealed book, into which they can stare with plastered eyes, which see and yet do not see, which watch and yet at the same time sleep (Isa_6:9-10; Luk_8:10; Act_28:26-27).
6. On Isa_29:13. Ah! how pious people would be, if only piety consisted in lip-service, and external behavior! Dévotion aisée, convenient religion, that is the business of all those who would willingly give to God what is God’s, and to the devil, what is the devil’s; that is, who would like to have a religion because it is required by a voice within the breast, and the power of custom and example, without thereby paining the flesh. Comp. Isa_1:11 sqq.; Isa_58:2 sqq.; Amo_5:23; Mat_15:7 sqq.
7. On Isa_29:14. [“They did one strange thing, they removed all sincerity from their hearts; now God will go on and do another, He will remove all sagacity from their heads: the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. They played the hypocrite, and thought to put a cheat upon God, and now they are left to themselves to play the fool; and not only to put a cheat upon themselves, but to be easily cheated by all about them …. This was fulfilled in the wretched infatuation which the Jewish nation were manifestly under, after they had rejected the gospel of Christ … Judgments on the mind, though least taken notice of, are to be most wondered at.—Henry, D. M.].
8. [Formalism in worship is here assigned as the cause of the judicial blindness which has happened to Israel. Mark the logical connection between Isa_29:13-14. The same judgment inflicted for the same reason, has befallen a large part of the nominal Christian Church. They who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We are amazed at the ignorance in matters of religion displayed by men of great mental capacity and learning, who have appeared among the Jews, and professors of a corrupt Christianity. That which excites our astonishment is here accounted for.—D. M.].
9. On Isa_29:18 sqq. “Here everything is reversed. Before, he had said, the wise shall be blind. Here he says, the blind shall see. The scope of all that is said is that they who were in office and were called priests and Levites, together with the bulk of the people, should be blinded for their unbelief. On the other hand, the poor, wretched people, that had neither office nor reputation, together with the heathen, shall be called, and shall be the people of God, who truly know God, invoke His name, and have joy, comfort and help in Him.” Veit. Dietrich.
10. On Isa_29:23. [“The emphatic mention of the Holy One of Jacob and the God of Israel, as the object to be sanctified, implies a relation still existing between all believers and their spiritual ancestry, as well as a relation of identity between the Jewish and the Christian church. Alexander.—D. M.].
HOMILETICAL HINTS
On Isa_29:1-8. How the Lord regards and deals with His church. 1) She is precious in His eyes, a. as the city of God; b. as the lion of God; c. as the altar of God; d. as the mount of God. 2) He brings her very low (Isa_29:2-6). 3) He delivers her wonderfully (Isa_29:7-8).
2. On Isa_29:9-12. As the light of the sun does not illuminate, but dazzles and closes an eye which is not adapted for receiving it (e. g., that of the mole), so also the word of God is for those who are not born of God and cannot receive the Spirit of God, by no means a light which enlightens their inner sense, but rather an element which dazzles their mental eye, and confuses their senses, so that they stand before the word as one who can read stands before a sealed book, or as one who cannot read before a writing which is handed to him.
3. On Isa_29:13-14. Warning against hypocrisy. 1) Its nature (it consists in honoring God with self-invented, external, ceremonial service, while yet the heart is far from Him); 2) its punishment (the wisdom which is self-asserting and forgets God will come to shame).
4. On Isa_29:15-24. Every man has his task in this life. Some, however, are minded to transact their affairs without God. For either they do not believe that there is a God, or if they believe it, they wish to be independent of Him. They wish to execute everything according to their own mind and their own lusts. But when they imagine that they can carry out their plans as it were behind God’s back, unobserved by Him, this cannot be (Isa_29:15-16). This is great folly, too. For such a work cannot succeed. Therefore the Prophet utters a woe on such an attempt, Isa_29:15. They, on the other hand, who do everything with God, partake of the most manifold blessing; the deaf hear, the blind see, the wretched rejoice, the poor are enriched, the oppressed and despised are delivered.
Footnotes:
[16]Heb. I will add.
[17]O your perverting! Or is the clay esteemed like the potter, that the work should say to its maker, etc.
[18]Heb; shall add.
[19]mischief.
[20]by word.
[21]by deceit.
[22]For when he, when his children, see the work of my hands, etc.
[23]Heb. shall know understanding.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv13–16precept of men--instead of the precepts of God, given…
precept of men--instead of the precepts of God, given by His prophets; also worship external, and by rule, not heartfelt as God requires (Joh 4:24). Compare Christ's quotation of this verse from the Septuagint.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv13, 15, 1613, 14. Thus spiritual teaching is rejected, though formal…
13, 14. Thus spiritual teaching is rejected, though formal adherence may be observed. In this way moral blindness is self inflicted. It follows the law which God has established, that, abusing so delicate a thing as conscience, it must be blinded. They keep up the form of sacrifice and worship in Jerusalem, not from heart-assent to it, but because Hezekiah, the truly pious king at this time, has prohibited idol worship absolutely. They see no help against Assyrian invasion but from Egypt. So spiritual a thing as help from Jehovah alone they cannot appreciate.
A marvellous work and a wonder — Our Lord quotes these words as applying to the scribes and Pharisees. Mat_15:7-9. Does Isaiah forecast the times of Christ? Yes, by stating a law of the Spirit and conscience applicable on the same point at all times. Perverting truth is followed by blindness always.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv13–1613. draw near (i.e. worship) me with their mouth,…
13. draw near (i.e. worship) me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me] A.V. is here unquestionably right against R.V., which slavishly follows the Hebrew accentuation, rendering, “draw nigh, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour me.” with their mouth … their lips]—uttering the prescribed liturgical formulæ.
have removed their heart far from me] The heart is the organ of intelligence and moral obedience and inclination (cf. Pro_23:26).
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their fear towards me] R.V. their fear of me, i.e. their piety, religion.
is taught by the precept of men] Better as R.V.: is (or, has become) a commandment of men which hath been taught;—a human ordinance learned by rote (cf. Mat_15:1-9). This pregnant criticism expresses with epigrammatic force the fundamental difference between the pagan and the biblical conceptions of religion. Religion, being personal fellowship with God, cannot be “learned” from men, but only by revelation (Mat_16:17).
13, 14. This spiritual insensibility of the people is the outcome of its whole religious attitude, which is insincere, formal, and traditional. The contrast implied is that between a religion of mere ritual and one of moral fellowship with God.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv13–16(13) Wherefore the Lord said . . .—We pass…
(13) Wherefore the Lord said . . .—We pass from the effect to the cause. The blind stupor was the outcome of a long hypocrisy. Lip-homage and an estranged heart had been the notes of the religious life of Israel, and they could bear no other fruit.
Their fear toward me . . .—The words point to what we may call an anticipated Pharisaism. Side by side with the great commandments of the Law and with the incisive teaching of the prophets there was growing up even then a traditional system of ethics and religion, based upon wrong principles, ending in a dishonest casuistry and a formal devotion. Commentaries even then were darkening counsel by words without knowledge, as they did in the Mishna and the Gemara of the later days of Judaism (Mat_15:3; Mar_7:6).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv13–16Vers. 13-16. A RENEWAL OF WARNING. The inability of…
Vers. 13-16. A RENEWAL OF WARNING. The inability of the Jews to comprehend Isaiah"s threatening prophecies probably arose in part from their accomplishment seeming to be inconceivable, since they ran counter to the covenant promises made by God to Israel. Isaiah is therefore instructed to inform them that it was a most marvelous and almost inconceivable thing that God was now purposing to do, yet a thing justified by their hypocrisy (ver. 13) and their rebellion (vers. 15, 16).
Wherefore the Lord said; rather, moreover the Lord said. This people draw near me with their mouth. Samaria had been punished for open idolatry and flagrant neglect of Jehovah. (2Ki_17:7-17) Jerusalem had not gone these lengths. She still, in profession, clung to the worship of Jehovah, and had even recently accepted a purification of religion at the hand of Hezekiah, who had "removed the high places," and cut down the groves, and broken in pieces the brazen serpent," because the people burnt incense to it. (2Ki_18:4) But her religion was a mere lip-service, which God detested it was outward, formal, hypocritical. (Isa_1:11-17) Jerusalem, therefore, no less than Samaria,deserved and would receive a severe chastisement. But have removed their heart far from me. Here lies the gist of the charge. It was not that there was too much outward religion, but that there was no inward religion corresponding to it. Lip-service without inward religion is a mockery, though it is not always felt as such. Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Mr. Cheyne conjectures that ritual books had been already published by the authority of the priests, and that these were followed, on account of the human authority which had issued them, without any reference to the Law. Thus ritual obedience became mere obedience to "the precept of men.
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Vers. 13, 14. God"s hatred of mere lip-service
Lip-service is offensive to God on two accounts.
I IT IS DISHONORING TO HIMSELF. It implies, either that he has not the power of reading the heart and of perceiving when worship is rendered to him sincerely and when feignedly, or that he does not care which kind of homage he receives, whether adoration is offered to him really or formally. In the one case he must be considered as a Being of very limited power and capacity; in the other, as a Being indifferent to the gravest moral distinctions. To profess loyalty to an earthly monarch without feeling it would be to insult him grossly. How much more to seek to pass such a cheat on the King of heaven!
II IT IS DEGRADING TO THE CREATURES WHICH HE HAS MADE IN HIS OWN IMAGE. All falsehood is degrading to those who condescend to it. False pretences, flatteries, insincere professions of love and devotion for the purpose of winning favor and approval from those to whom we address them, are among the basest and most contemptible acts to which a human being can stoop. They are lies, and lies which have their origin in downright unadulterated selfishness. False professions made to God are also foolish, idiotic lies, which cannot possibly impose on the Being who is the Object of them, and which do not very often impose even on such of our fellow-men as witness them. It was their insincere "lip-service" which caused our Lord to denounce the scribes and Pharisees of his time as "actors," or "hypocrites". (Mat_15:7 Mar_7:6)
It is sometimes supposed that religious revivals are modern inventions, concessions to the weakness of the degenerate man of the nineteenth century; and no doubt there have been features in many so-called "revivals" which have justified this view of them. But, in point of fact, revivals, if we follow out the history of religion, are found to be movements which have belonged to all ages, and without which it appears more than probable that religion in this world would stagnate and lose all vital energy. The subject may he best viewed under three heads.
I REVIVALISM IS A LAW OF NATURE. Not only does Nature annually revive in spring from her winter"s trance, but throughout the universe exhaustion is continually occurring at irregular intervals, and recoveries from exhaustion, i.e. revivals, are the only mode by which Nature is recruited and enabled to maintain herself. A long series of wet and cold seasons produces at any rate the impression that Nature"s productive powers are declining and wearing out; when, suddenly, there is a complete inversion of what had come to be regarded as an established order, and a summer of brilliant sunshine causes an overflowing harvest and an agricultural reaction. The ozone in the atmosphere, so essential to human health, decreases (it may be) for months; then, all at once, there is a revival, and the average of a century is exceeded. Electrical phenomena are for a time in abeyance, and the earth seems to have "used up" the power on which her vitality principally depends; when, lo! the reaction comes, fresh electricity is developed, or conveyed to the earth from without, and electrical phenomena become more frequent and more striking than ever.
II REVIVALISM IS CONSISTENT WITH, AND CONDUCIVE TO, A CONSTANT ADVANCE. A priori we might have expected that all growth and progress would have been regular and gradual. But the fact is otherwise. In all the fields of human energy, in art, in science, in philosophy, in religion, long periods of comparative deadness and apathy occur, during which there is scarcely any perceptible advance at all, followed by shorter intervals of activity and energy, when progress is made "by leaps and bounds." The scientific energy of the last half-century is an ease in point. The artistic revival initiated by Reynolds and Gainsborough, is another. The history of the Church, dispassionately viewed, shows a manifest progress; but the progress has been far from uniform. Many centuries have been centuries of stagnation. Religion has just kept itself alive, and that has been all. Then some stir has come from within or from without, and a rush of vitality has supervened, which has exercised an influence for good on all later times. Indifference to doctrinal truth was overspreading the world, when the dogmatic revival of the fourth century at once saved the faith, and advanced it. The expansion of the Church, which is a special mark of its life, had almost ceased, when missionary zeal broke out suddenly in the West, and the seventh and eighth centuries saw the conversion of England, Scotland, Friesland, Batavia, Switzerland, and most of Germany. A general deadness and dullness had come over Christendom between the eighth and the eleventh centuries, when the Crusades, which were s political necessity, produced the revival of the twelfth and thirteenth. The greatest revival of all was the Reformation, which recovered spiritual religion when it seemed almost lost, and exerted a purifying influence even on those parts of Christendom which most opposed it. Lesser revivals have been in Germany Pietism, in France Jansenism, among ourselves Methodism and the Church movement still in progress. It seems scarcely too much to say that, without revivals, religion even the Christian religion would perish.
III REVIVALS ARE MOST COMMONLY THE RESULT OF CHASTISEMENTS. As it was with the Jews of whom Isaiah wrote, so in the Christian Church generally, revivals have been produced by judgments. The blasphemies of Arius, and the patronage of Afianism by the court, gave rise to the counter-movement of Athanasius. The contraction of Christendom in the East by the conquests of Mohammed and his immediate successors led on to its expansion in the West by renewed missionary effort. The alarming progress of the Saracens and Turks caused the revival connected with the Crusades. The exactions and tyranny of the court of Rome, being felt as a burden that could no longer be borne, brought about the Reformation. Among ourselves, the revival which dates from 1830 was due to the loss of ten Irish bishoprics and the other attacks made on the Church by her enemies at that period. Methodism is about the only Christian revival not provoked by some manifest calamity.
Vers. 13-16. Lip-service and dissimulation.
I THE SEMBLANCE WITHOUT THE REALITY OF RELIGION. To "draw men" is a Scripture phrase full of expressiveness for true worship. To draw near to God is to assume our holiest mood of feeling; it is to humble one"s self in the presence of the Highest and Holiest. The distance between ourselves and the Supreme is not to be overcome by an effort of thought; it is in the sphere of intelligence that that distance is most deeply felt, which mere thought and study only increase. In the region of feeling only can that distance be diminished or made to disappear. As we kneel in our weakness and abandon all our self-supports, the heavens seem to stoop to us, and the arms of the Almighty are thrown about us. Pride, dishonesty, low self-seeking, these throw the soul far, far asunder from its God. From the reverent and the obedient he is never far off. But so beautiful is this action of drawing near to God, so truly ennobling to our manhood, it is certain, like all the genuine moods and acts of religion, to be mimicked and counterfeited. All hypocrisy is a testimony to the grandeur of that which is copied or caricatured. This imitation of true religion may be carried out in speech. Nothing more easy than to learn by heart the great phrases of Scripture concerning spiritual religion, and to repeat them; and make the verbal not express, but hide the absence of, the real. And so magical is-the effect of sacred and beautiful words on the ear and on the heart, for the time they may create an illusion, and it may seem that we have really felt what we have done little more than utter. Again, respect for mere custom may take the place of respect for God. "Their fear of me is nothing but a commandment of men, which is taught." Religion is part of social institutions it is decorous, it is advantageous to pay it outward respect, unsafe to contemn it. Thus fear of men and self-interest may really pass under the outward guise of the fear of God and his Law.
II THE DEALING OF JEHOVAH WITH THE PEOPLE. It will be "wonderful, very wonderful." Inconceivable, as it seems, running counter to all his ancient covenant-promises. Already the Assyrian invasion had broken in on them; and the visitation was not to cease, but to continue. These judgments will baffle their intelligence. The wisdom of the wise will perish, and the understanding of the intelligent be obscured. The politicians think to hide their thoughts and deeds from Jehovah, "to throw the veil of secrecy over their pursuit of worldly alliances. The prophet divines their purpose and exposes its perversity. The favorite comparison of the potter is introduced" (cf. Isa_45:9 Isa_64:8 Jer_18:6 Rom_9:20) (Cheyne). Hiding from Jehovah means here the same thing as hiding from the prophet of Jehovah. They did not wish to listen to Isaiah"s reproof. We seem to see them watching the prophet. (cf. Isa_8:12) And he, from amidst the light of the higher or eternal policy, sees through their time-serving intrigues. "They think they can dispense with Jehovah, and yet they are his creatures; they attribute cleverness to themselves, and practically disown him, as if the pot should say to the potter who has turned it, "He does not understand it (Delitzsch). The great lessons aye:
1. The short-sightedness of worldly wisdom. It sees so clearly the immediate interest to be gained, it ignores the distant future, and falls headlong into fallacy.
2. The far-sightedness of conscience. The prophet represents conscience. What is now right is profitable now and ever will be. And only the real and the sincere is the right. Men may be deceived and mocked for a time; but "be not deceived: God is not mocked. J.
Insincerity.
"Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me." Sincerity is the life of devotion. Eloquence in prayer is execrable if the heart be worldly and vain. Here we have Divine insight into man"s soul.
I HERE IS THE BENDED KNEE WITHOUT THE PROSTRATE HEART. Reverential manner and sacred solemnities of speech may deceive others, but with God all hearts are open, all desires known. It is mere mouth-worship. It is the trick of the muscles, not the tone of the heart. We resent the false man. Nothing offends the better instincts of humanity so much as deceitful mannerism. Better the "drawn sword" that the disguised enemy with fawning friendship on his lips.
II HERE IS THE HONOR OF THE LIPS WITHOUT THE DEVOTION OF THE LIFE. To give a place of "honor" to religion is common to the worldliest men. It is like the compliment that vice pays to virtue by imitation of its manner, and hiding of itself. What should we think of men who did not honor religion? They would be losers, Men would not trust them. They would be suspected of indifference to those bonds which hold society together. So they pay outward honor to the Almighty, they join in the Church anthem, and in the public confession of the great Christian Creeds. But in their life there is no honor paid to religion, inasmuch as they serve and worship other gods.
III HERE IS THE TRUE RENDING OF THE HEART, WHICH IS THE MICROCOSM OF THE MAN. The heart is removed far from God. It does not thrill with his love, nor best in sympathy with his claims. This is the loadstone that leads us everywhere. We can prophesy where the footsteps will be if we know the longings of the spirit. The heart that he made capable of so much endurance and affection is far from him. Then it must be somewhere else. It will find some object. The ivy torn down from the old church tower will cling to the nearest object in its path. Cling it must. "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. W.M.S.
Vers. 13-17. The Church which God condemns.
Here is
I A CHURCH CONDEMNED OF GOD. It has four characteristics of which the Lord complains.
1. Unspiritual worship. "This people draw near me with their mouth," etc. (ver. 13). The service of the lip without the homage of the heart is an unacceptable sacrifice to God. (see Psa 50:78:36, 37 Isa 50 Eze_33:31 Mat_15:8, 9 Joh_4:24) To take sacred words into the lips with nothing of their meaning in the mind, to assume the attitude without cherishing the spirit of devotion, is not to propitiate but to offend the Holy One.
2. Unauthorized doctrine. "Their fear toward me is taught," etc. rendered in the New Testament, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men". (Mat_15:9) This was an early departure from the will of Christ. (see Col 2:18-22Ti Col_1:14 Act_20:30) The Church has always been in danger from men who have represented, first to their own minds and then to the minds of others, their own reasonings or imaginations as if they were the pure truth of God. So the mind and will of Christ have been grievously and mischievously perverted.
3. Incapable teachers. "The wisdom of their wise shall perish," etc. (ver. 14). A Church fallen under the rebuke of its Lord is usually one that has wholly unsuitable and incompetent teachers men who have lost their way, who have failed to discover or have abandoned heavenly wisdom, who cannot declare the way of life.
4. Unenlightened members. (Ver. 15.) So destitute of the very rudiments of religion as to ask such a question as this, as to entertain such a thought as this. With a faulty and incapable ministry you may have a Church ignorant of those elements of the gospel with which it seems impossible that men should not be familiar.
II THE DIVINE WANING WHICH IS ALSO A DIVINE PROMISE. (Vers. 16, 17.) He says You have perverted everything, turned everything upside down, made nothing of my Word when you should have made everything of it, elevated the outward and visible above the inward and spiritual, acted as if you could conceal your doings from the all-beholding God, treated me as the clay might treat the potter, unworthily and irreverently. I will bring it to pass that things shall be turned upside down in your experience: "Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field," etc. The humble shall be exalted and the proud abased. Your false confidence shall be cast down, and that which you have neglected shall be honored in the eyes of all. The Church that has lost its first estate of truth, spirituality, wisdom, must expect a terrible reversal.
1. Its mistaken notions will be shaken from its mind to make way for God"s living truth.
2. Its incapable leaders will be compelled to step down and give place to those whom they have arrogantly disregarded.
3. Its pompous but unspiritual rites will be exchanged for simpler and spiritual engagements.
4. Its luxurious religious enjoyments will be lost in earnest self-denying labors, or even in trying hardships. Thus will the fruitful field become a forest, while Lebanon is turned into a fruitful field. The revolution in the character and condition of the Church will be very intimately connected with, will be immediately followed by, a revolution in the character and condition of the world. C.
Lip-service; or, the peril of losing the heart out of our piety.
There was a time when Israel rendered heart-service to God. There was a life in the Mosaic system. Taking a figure from the sacrifice which Noah offered as consecrating a regenerate earth unto God, there was "a savor of a sweet smell" to rise up to God. The reproach of Isaiah is that the sacrifice was left, but the savor was gone; the husk was left, but the kernel was gone; the form was left, the heart was gone; the voice still spoke, but it had no message to deliver. "They draw near with lip, but heart is far away." And still, whensoever personal piety is failing, men fall back on some past experiences, or else they exaggerate the mere formalities of religious worship and ordinance. Ages of strong faith are very independent of forms. Ages of failing faith always exaggerate forms, If we have little heart for obedience, we put in its place much bowing and kneeling and offering as if God could not see very deep, and would be taken by appearances. (see 1Sa_16:7)
I LIE-SERVICE IS THE REQUIREMENT or GOD. "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me," saith the Lord. Hoses expresses a right feeling when he leads the people to say, "So will we render the calves of our lips". (Hos_14:2) To worship God is to make our approaches to him, and to present our adorations to him; it is to draw nigh to him as those that have business with him, with an intention therein to honor him. This we are to do with our mouth and with our lips in speaking of him and in speaking to him. And, if the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of that heart the mouth will speak. It should be carefully pointed out that the modern neglect of meetings for worship, praise, and prayer is as sad a sign of failing heart-love for God as is the exaggeration of formal rites and ceremonies. It must be plainly and forcibly urged that God calls for due expression of our piety; he asks for "life-service.
II LIP-SERVICE ONLY IS AN OFFENCE UNTO GOD. Because it is worthless. God the Spirit cannot be satisfied with things; he asks for spirit, for emotion, affection, thankfulness, and trust. "Voice and nothing else" must be mockery to him who can only heed a voice when the heart speaks by means of it. We call that false, in relation to ourselves, which is warm expression of affection for us when there is no heart-love; and such falseness is an offence. And Isaiah tells the rulers that the secret of their falseness is that they have taken to ordering their daily conduct by "the precepts of men," and did not want to obey the Law of God; so they gave him words in place of works. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv13, 15This people draw near Me with their mouth
Isa_29:13-14
This people draw near Me with their mouth
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Ritualism
When any form so obtrudes itself as to be a hindrance instead of a help to the worshipper, that is ritualism.
(Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone.)
Formalism
All vice is said to be an abuse of virtue; all evil, good run mad. Generosity may become extravagance. So formalism really consists in the abuse of that which, up to a certain point, is absolutely necessary, which, up to a further point, may be helpful, but which, carried to an extreme, becomes a snare and a sin. (D. Jones Hamar.)
Formalism in doctrine and life
That we may see clearly who the formalist is, think of this truth: that there are formalism of doctrine, and formalism of life and practice, distinguishable and yet connected.
1. Formalism of doctrine--what is that? In one of its lowest phases we frequently meet with it. Have you not come across men who say Yes to every assertion of truth that you make; men who make you almost angry by their persistency in declaration of agreement? There are very few of all the thousands who are not, and know they are not, servants of Christ, who take the pains to deny what they nevertheless do not really accept. What can you say to such men? You cannot argue, for they agree with you already. You cannot appeal to them, for their creed seems to compass all that you hold as true.
2. There is such a thing as formality of worship and life. Just as truth must be put into words, but the word is not the truth, so worship has to be put into some expression, but the expression is not the worship. Isaiahs great charge against the people was that they had reversed the thing entirely. (D. JonesHamar.)
Formalism unsatisfying
What must be the creed of the formalist in worship and in life! This: that what is said to be the means of grace is grace itself; that the mechanical reading of the Bible, without any reverent, hungering spirit, communicates in some mysterious fashion heavenly truth; that the prostration of the body, while another offers prayer, brings blessing; that to sing a hymn, be its meaning felt or not, is an expression of praise; that these things, with the enduring of the infliction of half an hours sermon, constitute Christianity. There is too much of formalism in the best of us. What is the creed of the formal worshipper This: God doth not know, neither is there knowledge in the Meet High; that He who receives the humble adorations of archangels will accept from men not only the imperfect praises they can render, not only the scarce articulate waiting of the troubled spirit, panting forth its prayer for help, but the sound of song without the spirit, the utterance of petition without desire; that He who searches all hearts is deceived, as men prostrate their bodies, and accepts that as homage; or that He cares for nothing, and to mock His presence is no insult. Does that creed shape itself in accordance with your ideas of God? Yet it is just an interpretation of the practice of the man whose worship is nothing more than a form. And as it affects yourself is it satisfactory? Does it do you any good? The sin in the heart is not to be cured by any sort of outward observance. The truth of God is not to be reached by any sort of mechanical contrivance. This Book has no mysterious sanctity in its paper and print, or in the sound of its words. It is the meaning and the spirit that alone are valuable. Our faith passes on the wings of the things that are seen and temporal, up to the things that are unseen and eternal, through the word to catch the revelation, through prayer and praise to hold communion with God. Why trifle with your natures deepest wants? Why mock the everlasting love? There is a reality in prayer. There is an expression of gratitude which Inspires praise. There is a Saviour of sinners. Come to Him. He only, appearing and speaking through the means He has appointed, can take away the burden and the sting of sin, and give to the weary rest. (D. Jones Hamar.)
The danger of formal worship
The best commentary on our text is just the history of the reigns during which Isaiah prophesied.
I. IT WAS NO SLIGHT CRIME WITH WHICH THE PEOPLE OF JUDAH WERE ACTUALLY CHARGEABLE--it Was, indeed, a denial of Gods sovereignty, although by that very sovereignty it was that they and their fathers had for seven hundred years been in possession of the land of Canaan. Though they might make an outward profession of respect for the ordinances of God, yet the spirit by which they were actuated was essentially an atheistical spirit, inasmuch as with all the outward observance of Divine ordinances they looked for continued prosperity or deliverance from adversity, not to the wisdom of God, but to their own counsels, and the help promised to them by their idolatrous allies.
II. THE JUDGMENT THREATENED. Was in accordance with the nature and manifestation of their sin. They were not to be overwhelmed with irresistible calamity, in order to punish their flagrant idolatry; but they were to be left to the effect of their own devices. They were to work by their own skill, and in so doing to be working their own ruin: and when all their plans were brought to their completion, the effect was to be to bring utter desolation on the land (verse 14).
III. MANKIND, WITH ALL THEIR VARIETIES OF CHARACTER, ARE ESSENTIALLY SO MUCH THE SAME IN ALL AGES, and the Scriptures do, on the one hand, so graphically portray the leading features of human nature, and, on the other, set forth so clearly the great unchangeable principles of the Divine administration, that none who read that book with soberness and attention, and look around them on the world with ordinary observation, can fail to see that the sins of individuals or of nations there reproved are, with some modifications it may be, the same sins which are still prevalent, and that, if unrepented of and unforgiven, their consequences must in the end be the same. No nation, it is true, is precisely in the same circumstances with the kingdom of Judah, but still the great principles of the Divine government are unchangeable and eternal. It is one of these, that sin is the reproach of any people. If there be among us, possessing as we do a full revelation of the will of God, a disposition to deny or overlook His supremacy as Sovereign Disposer of all events, and to trust to the wisdom of human counsels for national deliverance or prosperity, without any devout recognition of absolute dependence upon Him, are we not chargeable with the very sin with which Judah of old was charged, and which was the source of all their multiplied offences? And if, along with this, there be a profession of faith--an external compliance with the ordinances of the Gospel, are we not in the condition of drawing near to God with our months, and honouring Him with our lips, while our heart is far removed from Him? (R. Gordon, D. D.)
A wrong religious attitude
This spiritual insensibility of the people is the outcome of its whole religious attitude, which is insincere, formal, and traditional. (J. Skinner, D. D.)
Plain speaking
Let us use these words (Isa_29:13) as Jesus Christ used them in Matthew (Mat_15:7). There are three points--
1. The importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the interests of truth. Jesus Christ was preeminently a plain speaker.
2. The far-seeing spirit of prophecy. Jesus Christ said to the men of His day, Esaias prophesied of you. Observe the unity of the moral world; observe the unchangeableness of Gods laws; see how right is ever right and wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil. If any man would see himself as he really is, let him look into the mirror of Holy Scripture. Gods book never gets out of date, because it deals with eternal principles and covers the necessities of all mankind let us then study the Word of God more closely. No man can truly know human nature who does not read two Bibles,--namely, the Bible of God as written in the Holy Scriptures, and the Bible of God as written in his own heart and conscience. Human nature was never so expounded as it is expounded in holy writ.
3. The high authority of the righteous censor. When Jesus Christ spoke in this case He did not speak altogether in His own name. He used the name of Esaias. All time is on the side of the righteous man; all history puts weapons into the hands of the man who would be valiant for truth. The righteous man does not draw his authority from yesterday. The credentials of the righteous man are not written with ink that is hardly dry yet. It draws from all the past. (J. Parlor, D. D.)
True prayer
The power of a petition is not in the roof of the mouth, but in the root of the heart. (J. Trapp.)
Lip service
Panchcowrie, a Hindu convert, thus spoke one day in the market: Some think they will avert Gods displeasure by frequently taking His name on their lips, and saying, O excellent God! O Ocean of Wisdom! O Sea of Love! and so on. To be sure, God is all this; but who ever heard of a debt being paid in words instead of rupees! (Sunday at Home.)
The best treasure
A rabbi, who lived nearly twenty years before Christ was born, set his pupils thinking by asking them, What is the best thing for a man to possess? One of them replied, A kind nature; another, A good companion; another, A good neighbour. But one of them, named Eleazer, said, A good heart. I like your answer best, Eleazer, said the master, for it includes all the rest. (Christian Age.)
Heartless prayers
I met in India an intelligent Sikh from the Punjab, and asked him about his religion. He replied, I believe in one God, and I repeat my prayers, called Japji every morning and evening. These prayers occupy six pages of print, but I can get through them in little more than ten minutes. He seemed to pride himself on this rapid recitation as a work of increased merit.
Fashionable church going
M. went to church because it was the right thing to do: God was one of the heads of society, and His drawing rooms had to be attended. (G. Macdonald, LL. D.)
Their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men
A fear of God taught by the precept of men
I. THERE IS A FEAR TOWARDS GOD WHICH IS TAUGHT BY THE PRECEPT OF MEN. It is unquestionable that, although it is nothing but the recklessness of infidelity which would speak of religion as an engine of state policy, still no state policy can be effective which looks not to religion as an auxiliary. If there could be taken off from a community those restraints which are imposed on it by the doctrine of the souls immortality, and of a future dispensation of rewards and punishments, there would be done more towards the introduction of a universal lawlessness and profligacy than if the statute books of the land were torn up and the courts of justice levelled with the ground. But if religion be thus susceptible of being employed with advantage as an auxiliary, there is a corresponding risk of its being resorted to as a human engine and not as a Divine. All inculcations of religion which are dictated by the consciousness that it is politic to stand by religion would turn into inculcations of infidelity the moment it should appear that it would be politic to stand by infidelity. It is a possible case that rulers might do on the political principle what Hezekiah did on the God-fearing principle--they might busy themselves with exacting from their subjects attention to the laws of the Almighty, and so might bring round great outward conformity to many commands of the Bible. The result in the two eases might be similar: the tokens of the absence of Gods fear might be swept from the land; and there might, on the contrary, be seen on the whole outspread of the population, appearances of the maintenance of that fear. What is to be said of that fear of God which seems to discover itself in its attention to ordinances, but which is only dictated by habit--or respect for appearances--or concern for religion as an engine of state! If we could mark each individual, as he enters the house, who is only brought hither by custom--by the feeling that it is decorous to come--by the sense that it is right that old institutions should be upheld, why, since in the whole assemblage of such motives there is no real recognition of the authority of Jehovah, we should be bound to say of all those who thus render to God a spurious and inferior homage, that their fear towards Him was taught by the precept of men. The motive or sentiment which is the prime energy in producing that fear towards God which is not according to His word is the opinion of merit, the attachment of worth to this or that action, which is ordinarily described as self-righteousness. The cases of the fear towards God, which is taught by the Precept of men, might be further multiplied. If you went the round of even the religious world you would find much of a restless endeavour to bring down godliness to something of the human standard.
II. THE FEAR TOWARDS GOD, TAUGHT BY MANS PRECEPT, IS MOST OFFENSIVE IN THE SIGHT OF THE ALMIGHTY. We conclude the fact of the offensiveness from Gods express determination of punishing the Jews with a signal punishment. Our simple business is therefore to search after the reason of this offensiveness.
1. The fear must be a defective fear. If you take your standard from aught else than the Bible, you will necessarily have a standard which is low and imperfect; and although you may act unflinchingly up to this standard, where it is the standard of other mens opinions or long practice or custom, you stand accountable for the adoption of the standard.
2. This fear involves a contempt of revelation; and on this account as well as on the former most peculiarly incurs the wrath of Jehovah. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Their fear toward Me R.V.
Their fear of Me, i.e., their piety, religion. Is taught by the precept of men. Better as R.V. is (or, has become) a commandment of men which hath been taught;--a human ordinance learned by rote (Mat_15:1-9). This pregnant criticism expresses with epigrammatic force the fundamental difference between the pagan and the biblical conceptions of religion. Religion, being personal fellowship with God, cannot be learned from men, but only by revelation Mat_16:17). (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v13Isa_29:13-14. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people…
LIP-SERVICE INSTEAD OF HEART-WORSHIP
Isa_29:13-14. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near to Me with their mouth, &c.
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The charge against the people is clear; it is that of a heartless religion, formal and full of hypocrisy. “Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.” That is, their religion is a mechanical following of human directions, instead of the spontaneous uprising of a heart inspired with the fear and love of God.
I. The charge against the Jews in Isaiah’s day. It is twofold—the removal of the heart and the substitution of a lip-service.
1. The removal of the heart. God demands the service of the heart (Pro_23:26; Jer_29:13). The Psalmist felt how reasonable was this demand when he said, “I will praise Thee, O Lord, with the whole heart” (Psa_9:1). A man may do some things with a slack hand and yet be blameless, but to steer an Atlantic steamer in a storm, he needs the whole force of both hands. Unless our whole soul be in God’s service, our worship will be thrown back upon us with the withering words, “Who hath demanded this at your hands?” This worthless thing! “Bring no more vain oblations.” How strikingly our Lord put this principle of supremacy (Luk_14:26): “In every man’s heart I must be supreme, or therein I cannot dwell.” Infidels most ignorantly misread this passage. One of their counts against Christianity is that it frowns on family joys; while every day’s facts prove that the truest Christian is the best husband, father, &c. God being first in a man’s heart, that heart is humanised, its generosity enlarged, so as to take in, not only the family, but “all mankind.” But some, after having given their hearts to the Lord, withdraw them from His service (Mat_13:22; 2Ti_4:10).
II. This charge has been true in every generation. The heart’s weakness and the world’s force are ever the same. This evil existed in our Lord’s day (Mat_15:8-9). For long years before the Reformation whole nations of Christendom presented to God a mere formal worship. And to-day, of how many congregations may the words of Ezekiel be said! (Eze_33:31).
III. The worthless substitution presented to God. “And with their lips do honour Me.” The instinct of worship is so strong within the soul that men everywhere worship something. It may be the hideous fetish of the African or the artistic statue of the refined Greek, but something the Greek and the barbarian must have. When that young mother, in the days of Solomon, arose in the morning and found a dead child by her side instead of her own living one, how severe must have been the shock! Had there been no child by her side, no dead substitute, she might have thought that her own child lived somewhere and might sometime be found. But that dead substitute at first nearly killed her by despair. It is bad to withdraw a living heart from the Lord, but to substitute a dead one is first to rob God and then wickedly insult Him (H. E. I., 5066–5070).
IV. The threat (Isa_29:14). The threat is that of cherished expectations bitterly disappointed. In times of extremity, full of confidence in the wisdom of their leaders, they shall seek light and leading, and behold nothing but darkness and folly. How often have the leaders of a nation been stricken with folly, and, like a blinded steersman, have driven the ship to destruction! “The wisdom of their wise men shall perish.” Disappointment! It is only another expression about the foolish man disappointed in his false security, his house resting on the sand, and of those who “make lies their refuge, and under falsehood hide themselves.” The threat is that “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.” Though men may not admit that their worship is mere lip-service, and their neighbours not see their hypocrisy, yet to the eye of God
“The painted hypocrites are known
Through the disguise they wear.”
—William Parkes, F.R.G.S.
Two conditions under which religion is in a declining state.
1. When the ordinances of divine worship are generally neglected.
2. When the attendance on worship, however large, does not represent a religious state of mind, but is simply an outward performance. The latter was the state into which religion had fallen in Judea. The religious observances of the people were not inspired by knowledge of God’s Word, but by human authority. The text—
I. Describes a great privilege. “This people draw near me.” God speaks after the manner of men. When we desire to speak closely to a friend we get near him. This is coming close to God (Psa_73:28; Heb_10:22; Heb_7:19; Jas_4:8). Is it not a wonder that the Almighty permits us to draw nigh to Him? Men make it difficult for their inferiors to obtain access; but the Infinite and Eternal One makes Himself accessible to His creatures. Not only so; He has made a way for creatures stained by sin. The Lord Jesus Christ stands between God and man by virtue of His atoning death and interceding life. The guilty, condemned, utterly impure, have only to renounce their sinfulness and avail themselves of this new and living way. If there is truthfulness and sincerity, they will be welcome. In the sanctuary, in meeting for prayer, in the family, in the closet, in the round of daily duty, we may draw near to God. Do you know anything of the blessedness of this privilege? Enjoyment, comfort, purity, fitness for intercourse with men, for the battle of life, for the work of the world, do they not all come through this privilege?
II. Points out a serious abuse (Isa_29:13). Their sin was not the abandonment of worship. That is a measure of ungodliness not reached without a long process. Unsettled faith, indifference to spiritual blessings, habits of sinful indulgence, conduct to it. What multitudes have reduced themselves to this predicament? But it was not their case. They had not relinquished the ordinances of worship; they observed them. But there was a twofold defect: the heart was absent and the motive was wrong.
1. Something was present that ought to have been absent. “Their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men.” Their piety was only out of respect for some human authority. Our Lord quoted this part of the text in His exposure of externalism as exemplified by the Pharisees of His time (Mat_15:9). Human authority in religion is here distinctly denounced. One man may hand the Word of God to another, but no man must impose his notions of religion on another by his mere authority. A man’s religious service must be the result of his personal conviction. If he is religious because some one else is, or because it is respectable, or because it may promote his worldly interest, or because it is recognised and imposed by the authority of the state, it is not really the honour and worship of God at all, but of man.
2. Something was absent that ought to have been present. “But have removed their heart far from Me.” God must be worshipped with the heart. Apart from the outward expression of inward reality, the movement of the lips and the utterance of the mouth are nothing. Real worship is the consent of the understanding, will, affections, to the homage which is paid by the lips. Without this they are mockery, as when one who stands in the king’s presence is alienated from his allegiance.
III. Utters a solemn warning (Isa_29:14). Their religion was only the counsel of man. It was unavailing for its purpose, and would come to nothing (1Co_1:19). Such worship is:
1. Unacceptable. God is not deceived. Realise the terribleness of being rejected. He says, “It is not the kind of worship I require.” After all your wisdom (Isa_1:11-15).
2. Unsuccessful. The prayers offered only by the lips are not heard. No answer comes, no blessing descends. This comes of the policy which followed the precepts of men.
3. Unstable. After such religion reaction may be expected. There is no inward life to sustain the outward exercises. Does not the test point to that deeper spiritual blindness which follows the attempt to put the wisdom of man in the place of the wisdom of God?
In religion and at its worship take care:
1. That there is sincerity. See that the heart is right with God. “Ye must be born again.”
2. That there is simplicity. Let there be no superfluous externalism in worship; only what is necessary to the suitable expression of the heart’s worship.
3. That there is earnestness.
And if a merely formal worship is rejected, what is the predicament of those who do not even offer that, but who live without any acknowledgment of God?—John Rawlinson.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v13The Counsel of God
The Counsel of God
v. 13. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people, the men of the Southern Kingdom, the children of Judah, draw near Me with their mouth and with their lips do honor Me, in a mere outward form of worship, but have removed their heart far from Me, faith being lost entirely, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men, their outward morality being based wholly upon the rules of conduct in vogue among men, not upon the way of sanctification prescribed by God, Cf Mat 15:8-9,
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v. 14. therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder, by an exceptional act of judgment; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, so that the counsel and help of those upon whom Judah depended would no longer appear, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid, their leaders becoming dull and stupid without knowing it.
v. 15. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, trying to conceal their object from the eyes of God, as even Hezekiah did at times, and their works are in the dark, as they think, hidden from the omniscience of the Lord, and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?
v. 16. Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay, the sentence being like an exclamation: "Alas upon your perversion! As clay is the potter to be considered?" For shall the work, the vessel as it comes from the potter’s hands, say of him that made it, He made me not? Or shall the thing framed, that which is formed by the artist’s skill, say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? The leaders of Judah were turning things upside down, ignoring God and even placing themselves in His stead.
v. 17. Is it not yet a very little while and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? The reference is to the time of the Messiah, when the hearts of men, moral deserts without the Lord, will be reclaimed so as to bear fruits of righteousness.
v. 18. And In that day shall the deaf, those whose ears had, by their natural perversity, been closed to the voice of the Lord, hear the words of the Book, of the written revelation, and the eyes of the blind, those suffering with spiritual blindness, shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness, for the Lord Himself would enlighten the eyes of their understanding.
v. 19. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, the godly among the afflicted finding their one satisfaction in communion with Him, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Cf Mat 5:3; Luk 6:20.
v. 20. For the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, both the tyrants and the mockers, the enemies of Jehovah being laid low, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off, their wickedness in watching for opportunities to commit iniquity being duly punished,
v. 21. that make a man an offender for a word, unjustly condemning him, no matter what his cause may he, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, one who has a matter at issue in the courts, which were commonly held in the gates of the cities, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught, bringing lying accusations against him, this being the way of the world everywhere.
v. 22. Therefore, thus saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham, by calling him away from his father’s house, out of the midst of idolatry, concerning the house of Jacob, the congregation of people chosen by Him, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale, the Church of the Lord no longer being subject to shame and disappointment.
v. 23. But when he seeth his children, the work of Mine hands, a new generation of sincere believers in Him, in the midst of him, as a new congregation and assembly of saints, they shall sanctify My name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel, the lesson of Judah’s punishment and of the overthrow of the Lord’s enemies serving to make the hearts more willing to accept the doctrines of the Lord.
v. 24. They also that erred in spirit, those whose spirit had forsaken the way of the Lord, shall come to understanding, namely, that of God’s will and ways, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine, receive the discipline or instruction of the Lord. God desires His children of all times to learn the true wisdom from Him, to hear and heed His Word and be found on the ways of sanctification.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv13, 15, 16This people comes close to me with their mouths…
This people comes close to me with their mouths and honors me with their lips
The words "mouths" and "lips" represent what people say. Here it also represents saying something but not truly meaning it. AT: "The people of Jerusalem pretend to worship me and honor me with what they say" (See: Metonymy)
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but their heart is far from me
Here "heart" is a metonym that represents a person's thoughts and emotions. The people not being truly devoted to Yahweh is spoken of as if their hearts were far away from him. AT: "but they do not honor me in their thoughts" or "but they are not truly devoted to me" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
Their honor for me is only a commandment of men that has been taught
This can be stated in active form. AT: "They honor me only because that is what people tell them to do" (See: Active or Passive)
Therefore, see, I will proceed to do a marvelous thing among this people, wonder after wonder
"Therefore, look and see! I am going to do wonderful and marvelous things among you that you will not be able to explain"
The wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will disappear
Both of these statements mean the same thing. Yahweh showing that the wise people cannot understand or explain what Yahweh does is spoken of as if their wisdom and understanding will vanish. (See: Parallelism and Metaphor)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv13–1629:13 These people used pious-sounding language in their prayers…
29:13 These people used pious-sounding language in their prayers and talk (see Matt 15:8; Mark 7:6-7), but they did not truly honor God. • In their hearts, they were not committed to the Lord at all. • In their worship, they followed man-made rules and regulations rather than God’s word.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Because they are hypocrites and not sincere in heart,…
Because they are hypocrites and not sincere in heart, as Matt. 15:8.
That is, their religion was learned by man’s doctrine, and not by my word.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Isa 29:13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this…
Isa 29:13 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 is taught by the precept of men:
Ver. 13. Because this people draweth near to me, &c.] For their putid hypocrisy and outsidedness in God’s service, they were given up by him to be further hardened by the devil, and to have their necks possessed by an iron sinew, Hypocritis nihil stupidius. {See Trapp on "Mat 15:8"}
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Their fear towards me.] See on Mat 15:9.
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 On vv13–16 Draw near me, to wit, in acts of worship,
Draw near me, to wit, in acts of worship,
with their mouth and with their lips; with outward devotions, and the profession of religion.
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But have removed their heart far from me; they do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience which I require, and prefer before all sacrifices and external services.
Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men; they worship me not in such way and manner as I have commanded and prescribed, but according to their own and other men’s inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets before my institutions. For this was a common error among the Jews, as we learn from Jer 7:31; Hos 5:11, and many other scriptures; and thus our blessed Saviour expounds this very place, Mat 15:7-9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Wherefore the Lord said,.... Concerning the hypocritical people of…
Wherefore the Lord said,.... Concerning the hypocritical people of the Jews in Christ's time, as the words are applied by our Lord himself, Mat 15:7,
Forasmuch as this people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me; Kimchi observes, there is a double reading of the word rendered "draw near": in one reading of it, it signifies to be "afflicted"; and then the sense is, "when this people are afflicted, with their mouth, and with their lips, they honour me"; that is, when they are in distress, they pray unto him, and profess a great regard for him, speak honourably of him, and reverently to him, hoping he will help and relieve them; see Isa 26:16 but the other reading of the word, in which it has the signification of "drawing near", is confirmed, not only by the Masora on the text, but by the citation of it in Mat 15:7 and designs the approach of these people to God, in acts of religion and devotion, in praying to him, and praising of him, and expressing great love and affection for him, and zeal for his cause and interest; but were all outwardly, with their lips and mouths only:
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but have removed their heart far from me; these were not employed in his service, which is the main thing he requires and regards, but were engaged elsewhere; while their bodies were presented before him, and their mouths and lips were moving to him, their affections were not set upon him, nor the desires of their souls unto him, nor had they any real hearty concern for his glory:
and their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men; their worship of God was not according to the prescription of God, and his revealed will; but according to the traditions of the elders, which they preferred to the word of God, and, by observing them, transgressed it, and made it of no effect; see Mat 15:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Draw near - Namely, in acts of worship. With…
Draw near - Namely, in acts of worship. With lips - With outward devotions. But - They do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience, which I require. And - They worship me not in such a manner, as I have prescribed, but according to mens inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets, before my institutions.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v13 Verse 13. The Lord - "JEHOVAH"] For אדני Adonai,…
Verse 13. The Lord - "JEHOVAH"] For אדני Adonai, sixty-three MSS. of Kennicott's, and many of De Rossi's, and four editions, read יהוה Yehovah, and five MSS. add יהוה.
Kimchi makes some just observations on this verse. The vision, meaning the Divine revelation of all the prophets, is a book or letter that is sealed - is not easily understood. This is delivered to one that is learned - instructed in the law. Read this; and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed; a full proof that he does not wish to know the contents, else he would apply to the prophet to get it explained. See Kimchi on the place.
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And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men - "And vain is their fear of me teaching the commandments of men"] I read for ותהי vattehi, ותהו vethohu, with the Septuagint, Mt 15:9; Mr 8:7; and for מלמדה melummedah, מלמדים melummedim, with the Chaldee.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv13, 15 Isa 29:13-14. Forasmuch as this people draw near to…
Isa 29:13-14. Forasmuch as this people draw near to me — Namely, in acts of worship; with their mouth — Speaking to me in prayer and praise, and promising and professing to serve me; and with their lips do honour me — With mere outward devotion and bodily worship; but have removed their heart far from me — Do not render me that love and gratitude, that regard and obedience, which I require; and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men — By mere human wisdom, and not by my word and Spirit. They worship and serve me, not in such a manner as I have prescribed, but according to men’s inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets before my institutions. Or, their religion is merely of human, not of divine, origin: it is the fruit of corrupt nature, and not of renewing grace. I will proceed to do a marvellous work — A thing that will scarce be believed; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish — Shall disappear and vanish. A veil shall be cast upon the eyes of their minds, and their folly shall be made manifest to all. The most refined arts of their politicians shall not avail their authors, nor be able to preserve them from God’s judgments; and their most wise and learned men shall lose their usual discretion, and be infatuated. This threatening was remarkably fulfilled in the Jews of our Lord’s time, who crucified him out of fear of the Romans, and thereby brought the Romans upon them! And “their learned rabbis, ever since, have minded little else but fabulous stories, and the Cabbalists have vented trifles for profound mysteries.” As, in rejecting Christ and his gospel, they removed their hearts far from God, therefore God justly removed wisdom far from them, and hid from their eyes the things that belonged even to their temporal peace.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Wherefore the Lord said - This verse, with the…
Wherefore the Lord said - This verse, with the following, is designed to denounce the divine judgment on their formality of worship. They kept up the forms of religion, but they witcheld the affections of their hearts from God; and he, therefore, says that he will proceed to inflict on them exemplary and deserved punishment.
This people draw near me - That is, in the temple, and in the forms of external devotion.
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And with their lips do honor me - They professedly celebrate my praise, and acknowledge me in the forms of devotion.
But have removed their heart - Have witcheld the affections of their hearts.
And their fear toward me - The worship of God is often represented as “fear” Job 28:28; Psa 19:9; Psa 34:11; Pro 1:7.
Is taught by the precept of men - That is, their views, instead of having been derived from the Scriptures, were drawn from the doctrines of mankind. Our Saviour referred to this passage, and applied it to the hypocrites of his own time Mat 15:8-9. The latter part of it is, however, not quoted literally from the Hebrew, nor from the Septuagint, but retains the sense: ‘But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ He quoted it as strikingly descriptive of the people when he lived, not as saying that Isaiah referred directly to his times.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv13, 14, 16 Men. Our Saviour applies this to the Jews. The…
Men. Our Saviour applies this to the Jews. The evangelists follow the Septuagint, Matthew xv. 8., and Mark vii. 6. (Calmet) --- "This people approacheth to me, (Grabe adds, with its mouth and with) their lips they honour me, but their heart is far from me. Yet in vain do they honour me, teaching the commands of men and doctrines." (Haydock) --- They still continue to corrupt God’s word by their false interpretations.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v13 13 Wherefore the Lord said,
2. THE SECRET COUNSEL OF MEN, AND THE SECRET COUNSEL OF GOD
Isa_29:13-24
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13 Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
And with their lips do honor me,
But have removed their heart far from me,
And their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men;
14 Therefore, behold, 16I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people,
Even a marvellous work and a wonder;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.
15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord,
And their works are in the dark,
And they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?
16 17Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay;
For shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not?
Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
17 Is it not yet a very little while,
And Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?
18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book,
And the eyes of the blind shall see
Out of obscurity, and out of darkness.
19 The meek also 18shall increase their joy in the Lord,
And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the terrible one is brought to nought,
And the scorner is consumed,
And all that watch for 19iniquity are cut off:
21 That make a man an offender 20for a word,
And lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate,
And turn aside the just 21for a thing of nought.
22 Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham,
Concerning the house of Jacob,
Jacob shall not now be ashamed,
Neither shall his face now wax pale.
23 22But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him,
They shall sanctify my name,
And sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
And shall fear the God of Israel.
24 They also that erred in spirit 23shall come to understanding,
And they that murmured shall learn doctrine.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_29:13. That we are to read not נִגַשׂ (with the Targum and many MSS. and Editions, in the sense of “to urge, trouble, torment one’s self,”) but נִגַשׁ, is shown by the antithetic רִחַק. That contrary to the accentuation בפיו is to be connected with נגשׁ, is apparent from this, that the people are to be reproached, not with drawing near to God in general, but with the outward, deceitful approach to Him. The great liberty which in Hebrew is indulged in with reference to person and number, is seen from כבדוני and יראתם in relation to בפיו, שׂפּתיו and לבו. We have to take רחק as a causative, and at the same time intensive Piel (to make removal with zeal = to strive to get away).
Isa_29:14. On יוֹסִף as the third person comp. on Isa_28:16. [יוֹסִף is the third person of the future. There is an ellipsis to be supplied: Behold, I (am he who) will add, etc.—D. M.]. אֵת after הפליא is not the sign of the accusative, but is the preposition. Instead of a second infinitive, a noun of the same stem פלא is attached to the infinitive absolute (comp. Isa_22:17-18; Isa_24:19).
Isa_29:15. חעמיק is the proper causative Hiphil=to make a deepening, a sinking. At the same time the construction with מִן is a pregnant one; but לסתיר [syncopated Hiphil comp. Isa_23:11—D. M.] is not a statement of the design, but is the ablative or gerundine infinitivus modalis, which when united with a causative conjugation, can be expressed by us by a verb with any adverb, as here: who deep from Jehovah hide, etc. Comp. Jer_49:8; Jer_49:30, and as to the usus loquendi Isa_7:11; Isa_30:33; Isa_31:6. אִם in Isa_29:16 corresponds to the Latin an, and marks the second member of a disjunctive question, the first of which is to be supplied.
Isa_29:20. שָׁקֵד σπουδάζειν, alacrem esse, vigilare, invigilare, is elsewhere always construed with עַל (Jer_1:12; Jer_5:6; Jer_31:28; Jer_44:27; Pro_8:34; Job_21:32). This word is found in Isaiah only here. The construction in this place is to be judged according to such forms of expression as שָׁבֵי פֶשַׁע (Isa_59:20), חֲלוּץ צָבָא (Num_32:27) and similar phrases. The form יְקשׁוּן might, considered by itself, be the perfect (comp. יָקשְׁתִּי Jer_50:24), as the form יָקשֽׁוּ with the primitive ן must be יְקשֽׁוּן according to the rule that a closed syllable can be without the tone only when it has a short vowel, and an open syllable precedes (comp. יְקוּמֽוּן—יָֽקוּמוּ Ewald, § 85, a; 88, c). But if we have regard to the syntax, the imperfect (future) is more correct, because the Prophet has in his mind not merely single definite facts, but the permanent habit of those people. The form is in this case to be derived from קוֹשׁ, which occurs only here.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Prophet urges the people to fear Jehovah, and to trust in Him alone. Even in Hezekiah’s times the people were not pleased to do so. On this account the preceding announcement (Isa_29:1-8), notwithstanding the glorious promise with which it ends, was to so many an offence (Isa_29:9-12). The Prophet, therefore, directs now his discourse against those who honor the Lord with merely external, ceremonial service, and not from the heart (Isa_29:13), and announces that the Lord will deal strangely with them, and that their wisdom will be brought to shame (Isa_29:14). He further reproves those who imagine that they can carry out in the most profound secresy the plans of their untheocratic policy (Isa_29:15), by reminding them that the clay can never be equal to the potter, or the work formed from clay be able to deny the potter, or accuse him of ignorance (Isa_29:16). A great change will soon happen: Assyria, which is like Lebanon, shall be brought low; Judah, which resembles only Carmel, shall be highly exalted. Then people will understand the words of the Prophet, which they had before despised, and will perceive that they are true and salutary. But behind that deliverance, which belongs to the history of the nation, the Prophet discerns also Messianic blessing. The comparison has therefore this meaning also for him, that the wilderness shall become uncultivated land, while uncultivated land shall become a wilderness (Isa_29:17). This means that a poor condition of external nature shall be remedied by the divine favor, and, conversely, a condition of high culture shall, by the withdrawal of the divine favor, pass into a state of wildness; the deaf shall hear, the blind see (Isa_29:18); the poor and oppressed shall become strong and joyful in the Lord (Isa_29:19). The violent and false shall be exterminated (Isa_29:20-21). For the Lord, who redeemed Abraham will bring Jacob to honor (Isa_29:22). For when Jacob shall see the Lord’s wonderful work for his salvation, he will sanctify the Lord (Isa_29:23), and understand what makes for his peace (Isa_29:24).
2. Wherefore the Lord said——be hid.
Isa_29:13-14. By means of ויאמר the Prophet connects what he has to say with the immediately foregoing. He indicates by this verbal form that what follows is occasioned by the stupid and perverse behaviour of the people (Isa_29:9-10). That perversity had its root in the people trusting more in themselves and their wisdom than in the Lord. They, therefore, thought that they could satisfy the Lord, whose worship Hezekiah lately imposed on them, by the performance of outward ceremonial service. For the rest, in what concerned their life and conduct, and especially in their policy, they went their own ways. The Lord had already said (Deu_6:4 sqq.), that He is not satisfied with mere ceremonial service, but desires hearty love from His people. But it was this chief and greatest commandment (Mat_22:38) which Israel never learned. Hence till the time of the exile the inclination to idolatry prevailed, and if they at times served the Lord, this was only as a pause in the song. And the reformations of Hezekiah and Josiah were no expression of the mind of the people, and were consequently not of long duration. Manasseh followed Hezekiah, and Jehoiakim and Zedekiah followed Josiah. But Isaiah here takes up earlier utterances (Psalms 50; Amo_5:21 sqq.; Mic_6:6 sq.). He afterwards returns to this subject (Isa_58:2 sqq., comp. Isa_1:11 sqq.). The expression מצוה מלמדה is found only here. When we compare such expressions as עֶגְלָה מלמדה. Hos_10:11, מְלֻמּדֵי שִׁיר1Ch_25:7, מלמדי מלהמהSon_3:8, we perceive that in מלמדה as here used, there lies the idea of training, of external discipline and accustoming. [The complaint is that their religion, instead of being founded on the authority of God’s word, rested on human ordinances.—D. M.]. The punishment for this hypocritical conduct of the people towards Jehovah is that the Lordcontinues to deal with them in a wonderful way. Wonderful had been all the ways which the Lord had from the beginning pursued towards the people. The Prophet seems to wish by the word הסתתר to prepare the transition to Isa_29:15. From the wisdom, which must hide itself, because it is brought to disgrace, he passes over to the wisdom which desires to hide itself, while it cannot do so.
3. Woe unto them——understanding.
Isa_29:15-16. We clearly perceive here how significant was the position of the great Prophets. They might be said to be the eye and the mouth of Jehovah. They watched over the course of the theocracy, and the leaders of it could not but respect them. If then the policy approved by the leaders was untheocratic, they must fear the word of the Prophets. For their word was the word of Jehovah. When, therefore, there was a consciousness of an untheocratic aim, care was taken to conceal the political measures from the Prophets. Thus Ahaz sought to hide from Isaiah his Assyrian policy (7). Here likewise Hezekiah tries to keep secret his Egyptian policy. For even Hezekiah does not seem to have risen to the height of the only truly theocratic policy, which must consist in having the Lord alone as their support. והיה וגו׳. Not merely is the plan secretly concocted, but the execution of it, too, takes place with all secresy. מחשׁך, in Isaiah besides only Isa_42:16. מעשׂיהם, so far as the form is concerned, might be singular. But as the copula הָיָה precedes, מעשׂיחם can also be the plural, and this view corresponds better to the usus loquendi elsewhere (Isa_41:29; Isa_59:6; Isa_66:18). הפככם Isa_29:16 is an exclamation: O your perverting! That is, how ye pervert things! They act, as if their wisdom were greater than the wisdom of God, as if they could therefore review, determine, and according to their pleasure influence and direct the thoughts of the Lord, while they are but clay in the hand of the potter. The word הפככם (on account of the Dagesh lene, not from the Infin Kal, but from the substantive הֹפֶךְ, which occurs only here, comp. הֵפֶך הֶפֶךְEze_16:34) is to be taken in an active signification, so that it marks not so much perversity, as the perversion of ideas which proceeds from perversity, as is in Isa_29:15 implicitly, and in Isa_29:16 explicitly evinced. If the potter were clay, and the clay were potter, then the clay could determine and direct the potter, could for this purpose lead him astray, deceive him, etc. Either, then, the Israelites are perverse, or the potter is not clay. If indeed the clay were potter, then the former could justly say: he, the potter made me not,—or he understands and observes nothing. This is what Israel says in imagining that he is able to lead astray the Prophet, that is, the omniscient Lord Himself. While the politicians forge Hezekiah’s plans, they think that they knead them, as potters do their vessels, according to their pleasure, and unobserved by the Lord, while they themselves are yet but clay.
4. Is it not yet——a thing of nought
Isa_29:17-21. An end will be put to this evil condition. The Lord Himself will reform His people, and that thoroughly. Then the deaf will hear, and the blind see, and to the poor the Gospel will be preached. But those proud, imperious and infatuated politicians, who forcibly suppress all opposition against their line of action, will go to ruin. When the Prophet holds out the prospect of this reformation within a brief period, he does this in the exercise of that prophetic manner of contemplation which reckons the times not according to a human but a divine measure. For in fact the Prophet here beholds along with, and in what is proximate the time of the end. The prospect of blessedness which he presents belongs also to the days of the Messiah, as we clearly perceive from Isa_29:18-19. The expression עוד מעט מזער is used thus in Isa_10:25 also. Comp. Isa_26:20; Isa_54:7. In a short time, therefore, Lebanon shall become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field a forest. The expression can be variously explained. It seems to me to denote primarily that the Lord can bring down that which is high, and raise that which is low. And in this sense the word was fulfilled in the overthrow of Sennacherib. Then Assyria, the lofty Lebanon, became the low Carmel; but Judah, which was a little mount, and low plain, became a lofty wooded mountain-range. Thereby it became at the same time evident how false the untheocratic policy was in its calculation, and how truly the Lord’s mouth spoke by the Prophet. Lebanon and the forest represent wild nature, or the natural wilderness; the fruitful field again represents a state of culture (Isa_10:18; Isa_37:24). All depends on the essential character, the nature of a thing. What in its nature and essence is good, although it looks rough and wild as the wooded mountain-range, shall yet gradually, even in outward appearance, become a fruitful cultivated land; but what is in its nature rough and wild, even when it appears to be cultivated, will certainly sooner or later manifest its true nature as a wilderness, in a corresponding external appearance. In short, the true nature of things must at last be manifest. [“The only natural interpretation of the verse, is that which regards it as prophetic of a mutual change of condition, the first becoming last and the last first.”—Alexander. D. M.].
This form of speech was probably proverbial, and seems to me in the form in which it here lies to bear the meaning assigned to it. That it was used in yet another form, and then naturally in a signification modified as the case required, we can see from Isa_32:15. Instead of שָׁב we find וְהָיָה in Isa_32:15. The passage before us seems to be the only one in which שׁוּב is undoubtedly employed in this wider signification = to turn one’s self from one direction to another (it properly signifies; to turn one’s self back). The definite article before כרמל and יער is the generic (comp. Isa_29:11). כרמל is used nine times by Isa_10:18; Isa_16:10; Isa_29:17 (bis); Isa_22:15-16; Isa_33:9 and Isa_35:2 (proper name); Isa_37:24. The expression יֵחָשֵׁב לְ is not meant to affirm that the fruitful field is merely esteemed as a forest, without really being such. That it really is such, is what the Prophet means to affirm. In the following verses the proverbial and figurative expression, Isa_29:17, is illustrated. The deaf shall in that day (i. e., in the time indicated by מעט מזער) hear words of the writing, and the blind will see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.—When the bound senses of the deaf and dumb can freely unfold themselves, when the love of life, which is kept under in the poor and wretched, can display itself without impediment, then Lebanon, the wooded mountain range, has become a fruitful field, for then nature has advanced from neglected disorder to a well-ordered, cultivated condition. When it is said that the deaf will hear, דברי ספר, the word ספר seems superfluous. But the Prophet alludes evidently to Isa_29:11, from which it is at the same time clear that he is not speaking of physical deafness, etc. It was there declared of the people present that the Lord had poured out upon them a spirit of sleep (in which, as all know, one does not hear), and bound up their eyes so that the prophecy was to them as the words of a sealed book. When then Lebanon has become a fruitful field, and nature shall have given place to grace, then too the ears of the people that were previously deaf will be opened, and they will understand the דִּבְרֵי סֵפֶר הֶחָתוּם, i. e., the words of the prophecy proceeding from the Lord through His Prophets, and will emerge from gloom. (אֹפֶל only here in Isaiah) and darkness, (in which they hitherto were with their eyes bound up by the Lord), so as to behold the light (comp. 30. 5). They will, therefore, perceive also the errors of their policy, and see that the word of the Prophet which shocked them, pointed out the true way of safety. They who were deaf and blind were also unhappy, just for this cause. When they hear and see, then are they happy men, delivered from oppression and distress, and joyful in their God. ענוים outwardly and inwardly oppressed, in Isaiah besides Isa_11:4; Isa_61:1; [ענו means meek, and is to be distinguished from עניpoor.—D. M.]. יספו comp. Isa_37:31; they obtain joy not only once, but continually, i. e., they increase joy.ביהוה comp. ἐν κυρίῳ in the New Testament; it is therefore not merely = through, but = in the Lord, namely as those who are rooted and grounded in the Lord. The expression אביוני אדם is found only here, comp. Exo_23:11. קדושׁ י׳ comp. on Isa_1:4. יגילו,—the rejoicing too has the Lord first for its basis, afterwards for its object (Isa_41:16). Is not the purport of these two verses, 18 and 19, reproduced in the saying of Christ, “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Mat_11:5; Luk_7:22)? In this passage in the Gospel allusions are commonly found only to Isa_35:5; Isa_61:1. Without wishing to deny these references, we yet remark that Isa_29:18-19 contains the ideas conjoined, which the other places present apart. And when the Lord in dealing with John, who had fallen into doubt regarding His Messiahship, describes His works by pointing to this passage, are we not justified in saying that this passage is of Messianic import? We of course admit that Mat_11:5 is not an exact quotation of our passage. The joy of the pious has as its condition the removal of the wicked, whose unchecked display of themselves is identical with the deterioration of the fruitful field into a forest. Hence Isa_29:20-21, which explain Isa_29:17 b, are connected by כִּי with what immediately precedes. אָפֵס besides only Isa_16:4. לֵץ only here in Isaiah, but comp. Isa_28:14; Isa_28:22. Hiphil החטיא to make, to declare a sinner, (Deu_24:4; Ecc_5:5), only here in Isaiah. They make people sinners by words,i. e., they bring about their condemnation not by actual proofs, but merely by lying words. [The rendering of the E.V. is much more easy and natural: that make a man an offender for a word, and is justly preferred by Ewald, Alexander and Delitzsch.—D. M.]. מוֹכִיחַ the reprover, reprehensor, he who maintains the truth. Comp. Job_32:12; Job_40:2; Pro_9:7; Pro_24:25, et saepe;Eze_3:26. Isaiah seems to have had specially before him Amo_5:10. הִטָּה with the accusative of the thing (Deu_27:19; Pro_17:23; Amo_2:7), or the person (Pro_18:5; Amo_5:12), to designate a violent deed perpetrated by wresting judgment, is of frequent occurrence. But where it is joined with בְּ, it denotes the sphere in which, or the means by which the wresting of judgment is accomplished, not the terminus in quem. As moreover תֹּהוּ denotes everywhere in Isaiah what is null, vain, empty, and is synonymous with רוּחַ (wind) אֶפֶם ,הֶבֶל (comp. Isa_24:10; Isa_34:11; Isa_40:17; Isa_40:23; Isa_41:29; Isa_44:9; Isa_45:18-19; Isa_49:4; Isa_59:4), we have to regard תֹּהוּ as designating the empty lying accusations which were brought against the Prophet.
5. Therefore thus saith—doctrine.
Isa_29:22-24. These verses contain the comprehensive close. According to verses 13 and 14, Israel had omitted to serve the Lord in the proper manner, and according to verse 15, they had omitted to trust in the Lord alone. That on this double sin a double crisis must follow, which will make the good elements of the people ripe for salvation, the bad elements ripe for judgment, had been declared Isa_29:16-21. Now the close follows: As the ancestor of Israel had been delivered from the danger of idolatry like a brand plucked from the fire, so shall Israel also be delivered, when it shall have seen that judgment on the wicked. It will sanctify the name of the Lord, it will learn the true wisdom, and that will be its safety. אֶל־בֵּית י׳ Isa_29:22 = in reference to the house of Jacob (comp. Gen_20:2; Psa_2:7 et saepe), for in what follows it is spoken of in the third person. The clause אשׁר פדה וגו׳ refers to יהוה. That God, who had formerly saved Abraham, the progenitor of Israel, from the snares of idolatry (Jos_24:2; Jos_24:14-15), will also redeem Israel from the internal and external dangers which now threaten him. Israel will in the end not be put to shame (Isa_19:9; Isa_20:5; Isa_37:27; Isa_45:16-17; Isa_54:4 et saepe). חָוַר candidum esse, pallescere isἅπ. λεγ. Delitzschhere observes “that people whose faces are of a bronze color know in their language only of a growing pale for shame, and not of a blushing for shame.” Both the correction (Isa_29:20-21), and the deliverance (Isa_29:18-19), will bear fruit. The Prophet intends both when he speaks of the work of Jehovah among the people. When Israel (i.e., not the patriarch but his descendants, ילדיו is added by way of explanation to בראותו to obviate any misunderstanding) shall see this, he will sanctify the Lord,i. e., regard Him as holy (comp. on Isa_8:13, and the first petition of the Lord’s prayer). [But the E.V., which puts the work of my hands in apposition to his children, is better, comp. Isa_49:18-21.—D. M.]. The Prophet states in Isa_29:23 b, that the effect of the sanctification of the name of God will be that the people will esteem as holy the Holy One of Jacob, and will fear the God of Israel. Beside the variation of Jacob and Israel, which is so frequent in the second part of Isaiah, mark how the Prophet distinguishes between sanctifying the name of God, and sanctifying the Holy One of Jacob. This sanctification must be substantially one and the same. But when the Holy One of Jacob and the God of Israel is named as object of the second sanctification (Isa_29:23 b), a sanctifying seems to be thereby intended, which gives in a way which all men can perceive, the glory to this God above the gods of the heathen. The fruit of the inward disposition of heart which is externally perceptible and operative, seems to be thereby intended. As יּקדישׁו שׁמי refers to Isa_8:13, so יעריצו refers to Isa_8:12. Thus Israel will become truly wise. That wisdom which they thought they must conceal from God, was both foolishness and destruction. But when they shall have learnt to sanctify the Lord, then they who hitherto erred in spirit (comp. Psa_95:10), will attain the true wisdom, and they who heretofore murmured against God’s counsel and direction (רגן Kal only here), will be satisfied with the discipline of God, and let it have its effect upon them (לֶקַח what one takes, Pro_1:5; Pro_4:2 et saepe, only here in Isaiah).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_29:1-8. The Prophet designates Jerusalem as Ariel in a four-fold sense. Taking Ariel as denoting the city of God, the name suits Jerusalem as the holy, separated dwelling-place in which the church of God, and all saving ordinances have their seat and centre. Taking Ariel as the lion of God, the names applies to Jerusalem as the ecclesia militans, as the host of God fighting against the worldly power and conquering it. Taking Ariel as denoting the Altar of God, it sets forth Jerusalem as the place in which reconciliation with God, and the bestowal of all the gifts of His grace take place. And, lastly, Jerusalem appears as Ariel in the signification of Mount of God, because it is the height of God which overtops all other heights, in which He manifests His glory to all the world, and to which all nations flow in order to worship Him (Isa_2:2 sqq.). But when Jerusalem forgets these her high honors, and neglects the obligations thereby laid upon her, she is corrected and humbled as any other city. [There may be an allusion made by the Prophet to the two-fold meaning of Ariel as lion of God, and hearth of God, but sober exegesis will be slow to admit the other meanings attached to the name of Ariel, and supposed to be here significantly alluded to by Isaiah.—D. M.].
2. Isa_29:3. [“It was the enemy’s army that encamped against Jerusalem; but God says that He will do it, for they are His hand, He does it by them. God had often, and long, by a host of angels, encamped for them round about them, for their protection and deliverance; but now He was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them: The siege laid against them was of His laying, and the forts raised against them were of His raising. Note, when men fight against us, we must, in them, see God contending with us.” Henry.—D. M.].
3. On Isa_29:7 sq. “A very consolatory comparison. The Romans and all enemies of the church are as blood-thirsty dogs. But when they have drunk up a part of the blood of the saints, and imagine, that they have swallowed up the church, it is only a dream. Since we see, that Christ and His Christians are, thank God, not yet destroyed.”—Cramer.
4. On Isa_29:9-12. “Awful description of the sorest punishment from God, which is spiritual, confirmed blindness; which is at this day so manifest in the Jews. For although they are confuted by so many clear and plain Scriptures of the Prophets, although they must themselves confess that the time is past, the place no more in existence, the lineage of David extinct, so that they can have no certain hope of a Messiah, they yet remain so hardened and obstinate in their opinion, as if they were drunken, mad and drowned in the snares of the devil by which they are bound, and could not come to sober and rational thoughts. This we ought to take as a mirror of the wrath of God, that we, while the book is yet open to us, may freely and diligently look into it, that it may not be closed and sealed before our eyes also.—Cramer.
5. On Isa_29:9-12. To all those who bring to the reading of the Holy Scripture not the Spirit, from whom it proceeded, but the opposite spirit, the spirit of the world, the Scripture must be a sealed book, into which they can stare with plastered eyes, which see and yet do not see, which watch and yet at the same time sleep (Isa_6:9-10; Luk_8:10; Act_28:26-27).
6. On Isa_29:13. Ah! how pious people would be, if only piety consisted in lip-service, and external behavior! Dévotion aisée, convenient religion, that is the business of all those who would willingly give to God what is God’s, and to the devil, what is the devil’s; that is, who would like to have a religion because it is required by a voice within the breast, and the power of custom and example, without thereby paining the flesh. Comp. Isa_1:11 sqq.; Isa_58:2 sqq.; Amo_5:23; Mat_15:7 sqq.
7. On Isa_29:14. [“They did one strange thing, they removed all sincerity from their hearts; now God will go on and do another, He will remove all sagacity from their heads: the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. They played the hypocrite, and thought to put a cheat upon God, and now they are left to themselves to play the fool; and not only to put a cheat upon themselves, but to be easily cheated by all about them …. This was fulfilled in the wretched infatuation which the Jewish nation were manifestly under, after they had rejected the gospel of Christ … Judgments on the mind, though least taken notice of, are to be most wondered at.—Henry, D. M.].
8. [Formalism in worship is here assigned as the cause of the judicial blindness which has happened to Israel. Mark the logical connection between Isa_29:13-14. The same judgment inflicted for the same reason, has befallen a large part of the nominal Christian Church. They who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We are amazed at the ignorance in matters of religion displayed by men of great mental capacity and learning, who have appeared among the Jews, and professors of a corrupt Christianity. That which excites our astonishment is here accounted for.—D. M.].
9. On Isa_29:18 sqq. “Here everything is reversed. Before, he had said, the wise shall be blind. Here he says, the blind shall see. The scope of all that is said is that they who were in office and were called priests and Levites, together with the bulk of the people, should be blinded for their unbelief. On the other hand, the poor, wretched people, that had neither office nor reputation, together with the heathen, shall be called, and shall be the people of God, who truly know God, invoke His name, and have joy, comfort and help in Him.” Veit. Dietrich.
10. On Isa_29:23. [“The emphatic mention of the Holy One of Jacob and the God of Israel, as the object to be sanctified, implies a relation still existing between all believers and their spiritual ancestry, as well as a relation of identity between the Jewish and the Christian church. Alexander.—D. M.].
HOMILETICAL HINTS
On Isa_29:1-8. How the Lord regards and deals with His church. 1) She is precious in His eyes, a. as the city of God; b. as the lion of God; c. as the altar of God; d. as the mount of God. 2) He brings her very low (Isa_29:2-6). 3) He delivers her wonderfully (Isa_29:7-8).
2. On Isa_29:9-12. As the light of the sun does not illuminate, but dazzles and closes an eye which is not adapted for receiving it (e. g., that of the mole), so also the word of God is for those who are not born of God and cannot receive the Spirit of God, by no means a light which enlightens their inner sense, but rather an element which dazzles their mental eye, and confuses their senses, so that they stand before the word as one who can read stands before a sealed book, or as one who cannot read before a writing which is handed to him.
3. On Isa_29:13-14. Warning against hypocrisy. 1) Its nature (it consists in honoring God with self-invented, external, ceremonial service, while yet the heart is far from Him); 2) its punishment (the wisdom which is self-asserting and forgets God will come to shame).
4. On Isa_29:15-24. Every man has his task in this life. Some, however, are minded to transact their affairs without God. For either they do not believe that there is a God, or if they believe it, they wish to be independent of Him. They wish to execute everything according to their own mind and their own lusts. But when they imagine that they can carry out their plans as it were behind God’s back, unobserved by Him, this cannot be (Isa_29:15-16). This is great folly, too. For such a work cannot succeed. Therefore the Prophet utters a woe on such an attempt, Isa_29:15. They, on the other hand, who do everything with God, partake of the most manifold blessing; the deaf hear, the blind see, the wretched rejoice, the poor are enriched, the oppressed and despised are delivered.
Footnotes:
[16]Heb. I will add.
[17]O your perverting! Or is the clay esteemed like the potter, that the work should say to its maker, etc.
[18]Heb; shall add.
[19]mischief.
[20]by word.
[21]by deceit.
[22]For when he, when his children, see the work of my hands, etc.
[23]Heb. shall know understanding.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv13–16 precept of men--instead of the precepts of God, given…
precept of men--instead of the precepts of God, given by His prophets; also worship external, and by rule, not heartfelt as God requires (Joh 4:24). Compare Christ's quotation of this verse from the Septuagint.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv13, 15, 16 13, 14. Thus spiritual teaching is rejected, though formal…
13, 14. Thus spiritual teaching is rejected, though formal adherence may be observed. In this way moral blindness is self inflicted. It follows the law which God has established, that, abusing so delicate a thing as conscience, it must be blinded. They keep up the form of sacrifice and worship in Jerusalem, not from heart-assent to it, but because Hezekiah, the truly pious king at this time, has prohibited idol worship absolutely. They see no help against Assyrian invasion but from Egypt. So spiritual a thing as help from Jehovah alone they cannot appreciate.
A marvellous work and a wonder — Our Lord quotes these words as applying to the scribes and Pharisees. Mat_15:7-9. Does Isaiah forecast the times of Christ? Yes, by stating a law of the Spirit and conscience applicable on the same point at all times. Perverting truth is followed by blindness always.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–16 13. draw near (i.e. worship) me with their mouth,…
13. draw near (i.e. worship) me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me] A.V. is here unquestionably right against R.V., which slavishly follows the Hebrew accentuation, rendering, “draw nigh, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour me.” with their mouth … their lips]—uttering the prescribed liturgical formulæ.
have removed their heart far from me] The heart is the organ of intelligence and moral obedience and inclination (cf. Pro_23:26).
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their fear towards me] R.V. their fear of me, i.e. their piety, religion.
is taught by the precept of men] Better as R.V.: is (or, has become) a commandment of men which hath been taught;—a human ordinance learned by rote (cf. Mat_15:1-9). This pregnant criticism expresses with epigrammatic force the fundamental difference between the pagan and the biblical conceptions of religion. Religion, being personal fellowship with God, cannot be “learned” from men, but only by revelation (Mat_16:17).
13, 14. This spiritual insensibility of the people is the outcome of its whole religious attitude, which is insincere, formal, and traditional. The contrast implied is that between a religion of mere ritual and one of moral fellowship with God.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv13–16 (13) Wherefore the Lord said . . .—We pass…
(13) Wherefore the Lord said . . .—We pass from the effect to the cause. The blind stupor was the outcome of a long hypocrisy. Lip-homage and an estranged heart had been the notes of the religious life of Israel, and they could bear no other fruit.
Their fear toward me . . .—The words point to what we may call an anticipated Pharisaism. Side by side with the great commandments of the Law and with the incisive teaching of the prophets there was growing up even then a traditional system of ethics and religion, based upon wrong principles, ending in a dishonest casuistry and a formal devotion. Commentaries even then were darkening counsel by words without knowledge, as they did in the Mishna and the Gemara of the later days of Judaism (Mat_15:3; Mar_7:6).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv13–16 Vers. 13-16. A RENEWAL OF WARNING. The inability of…
Vers. 13-16. A RENEWAL OF WARNING. The inability of the Jews to comprehend Isaiah"s threatening prophecies probably arose in part from their accomplishment seeming to be inconceivable, since they ran counter to the covenant promises made by God to Israel. Isaiah is therefore instructed to inform them that it was a most marvelous and almost inconceivable thing that God was now purposing to do, yet a thing justified by their hypocrisy (ver. 13) and their rebellion (vers. 15, 16).
Wherefore the Lord said; rather, moreover the Lord said. This people draw near me with their mouth. Samaria had been punished for open idolatry and flagrant neglect of Jehovah. (2Ki_17:7-17) Jerusalem had not gone these lengths. She still, in profession, clung to the worship of Jehovah, and had even recently accepted a purification of religion at the hand of Hezekiah, who had "removed the high places," and cut down the groves, and broken in pieces the brazen serpent," because the people burnt incense to it. (2Ki_18:4) But her religion was a mere lip-service, which God detested it was outward, formal, hypocritical. (Isa_1:11-17) Jerusalem, therefore, no less than Samaria,deserved and would receive a severe chastisement. But have removed their heart far from me. Here lies the gist of the charge. It was not that there was too much outward religion, but that there was no inward religion corresponding to it. Lip-service without inward religion is a mockery, though it is not always felt as such. Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Mr. Cheyne conjectures that ritual books had been already published by the authority of the priests, and that these were followed, on account of the human authority which had issued them, without any reference to the Law. Thus ritual obedience became mere obedience to "the precept of men.
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Vers. 13, 14. God"s hatred of mere lip-service
Lip-service is offensive to God on two accounts.
I IT IS DISHONORING TO HIMSELF. It implies, either that he has not the power of reading the heart and of perceiving when worship is rendered to him sincerely and when feignedly, or that he does not care which kind of homage he receives, whether adoration is offered to him really or formally. In the one case he must be considered as a Being of very limited power and capacity; in the other, as a Being indifferent to the gravest moral distinctions. To profess loyalty to an earthly monarch without feeling it would be to insult him grossly. How much more to seek to pass such a cheat on the King of heaven!
II IT IS DEGRADING TO THE CREATURES WHICH HE HAS MADE IN HIS OWN IMAGE. All falsehood is degrading to those who condescend to it. False pretences, flatteries, insincere professions of love and devotion for the purpose of winning favor and approval from those to whom we address them, are among the basest and most contemptible acts to which a human being can stoop. They are lies, and lies which have their origin in downright unadulterated selfishness. False professions made to God are also foolish, idiotic lies, which cannot possibly impose on the Being who is the Object of them, and which do not very often impose even on such of our fellow-men as witness them. It was their insincere "lip-service" which caused our Lord to denounce the scribes and Pharisees of his time as "actors," or "hypocrites". (Mat_15:7 Mar_7:6)
It is sometimes supposed that religious revivals are modern inventions, concessions to the weakness of the degenerate man of the nineteenth century; and no doubt there have been features in many so-called "revivals" which have justified this view of them. But, in point of fact, revivals, if we follow out the history of religion, are found to be movements which have belonged to all ages, and without which it appears more than probable that religion in this world would stagnate and lose all vital energy. The subject may he best viewed under three heads.
I REVIVALISM IS A LAW OF NATURE. Not only does Nature annually revive in spring from her winter"s trance, but throughout the universe exhaustion is continually occurring at irregular intervals, and recoveries from exhaustion, i.e. revivals, are the only mode by which Nature is recruited and enabled to maintain herself. A long series of wet and cold seasons produces at any rate the impression that Nature"s productive powers are declining and wearing out; when, suddenly, there is a complete inversion of what had come to be regarded as an established order, and a summer of brilliant sunshine causes an overflowing harvest and an agricultural reaction. The ozone in the atmosphere, so essential to human health, decreases (it may be) for months; then, all at once, there is a revival, and the average of a century is exceeded. Electrical phenomena are for a time in abeyance, and the earth seems to have "used up" the power on which her vitality principally depends; when, lo! the reaction comes, fresh electricity is developed, or conveyed to the earth from without, and electrical phenomena become more frequent and more striking than ever.
II REVIVALISM IS CONSISTENT WITH, AND CONDUCIVE TO, A CONSTANT ADVANCE. A priori we might have expected that all growth and progress would have been regular and gradual. But the fact is otherwise. In all the fields of human energy, in art, in science, in philosophy, in religion, long periods of comparative deadness and apathy occur, during which there is scarcely any perceptible advance at all, followed by shorter intervals of activity and energy, when progress is made "by leaps and bounds." The scientific energy of the last half-century is an ease in point. The artistic revival initiated by Reynolds and Gainsborough, is another. The history of the Church, dispassionately viewed, shows a manifest progress; but the progress has been far from uniform. Many centuries have been centuries of stagnation. Religion has just kept itself alive, and that has been all. Then some stir has come from within or from without, and a rush of vitality has supervened, which has exercised an influence for good on all later times. Indifference to doctrinal truth was overspreading the world, when the dogmatic revival of the fourth century at once saved the faith, and advanced it. The expansion of the Church, which is a special mark of its life, had almost ceased, when missionary zeal broke out suddenly in the West, and the seventh and eighth centuries saw the conversion of England, Scotland, Friesland, Batavia, Switzerland, and most of Germany. A general deadness and dullness had come over Christendom between the eighth and the eleventh centuries, when the Crusades, which were s political necessity, produced the revival of the twelfth and thirteenth. The greatest revival of all was the Reformation, which recovered spiritual religion when it seemed almost lost, and exerted a purifying influence even on those parts of Christendom which most opposed it. Lesser revivals have been in Germany Pietism, in France Jansenism, among ourselves Methodism and the Church movement still in progress. It seems scarcely too much to say that, without revivals, religion even the Christian religion would perish.
III REVIVALS ARE MOST COMMONLY THE RESULT OF CHASTISEMENTS. As it was with the Jews of whom Isaiah wrote, so in the Christian Church generally, revivals have been produced by judgments. The blasphemies of Arius, and the patronage of Afianism by the court, gave rise to the counter-movement of Athanasius. The contraction of Christendom in the East by the conquests of Mohammed and his immediate successors led on to its expansion in the West by renewed missionary effort. The alarming progress of the Saracens and Turks caused the revival connected with the Crusades. The exactions and tyranny of the court of Rome, being felt as a burden that could no longer be borne, brought about the Reformation. Among ourselves, the revival which dates from 1830 was due to the loss of ten Irish bishoprics and the other attacks made on the Church by her enemies at that period. Methodism is about the only Christian revival not provoked by some manifest calamity.
Vers. 13-16. Lip-service and dissimulation.
I THE SEMBLANCE WITHOUT THE REALITY OF RELIGION. To "draw men" is a Scripture phrase full of expressiveness for true worship. To draw near to God is to assume our holiest mood of feeling; it is to humble one"s self in the presence of the Highest and Holiest. The distance between ourselves and the Supreme is not to be overcome by an effort of thought; it is in the sphere of intelligence that that distance is most deeply felt, which mere thought and study only increase. In the region of feeling only can that distance be diminished or made to disappear. As we kneel in our weakness and abandon all our self-supports, the heavens seem to stoop to us, and the arms of the Almighty are thrown about us. Pride, dishonesty, low self-seeking, these throw the soul far, far asunder from its God. From the reverent and the obedient he is never far off. But so beautiful is this action of drawing near to God, so truly ennobling to our manhood, it is certain, like all the genuine moods and acts of religion, to be mimicked and counterfeited. All hypocrisy is a testimony to the grandeur of that which is copied or caricatured. This imitation of true religion may be carried out in speech. Nothing more easy than to learn by heart the great phrases of Scripture concerning spiritual religion, and to repeat them; and make the verbal not express, but hide the absence of, the real. And so magical is-the effect of sacred and beautiful words on the ear and on the heart, for the time they may create an illusion, and it may seem that we have really felt what we have done little more than utter. Again, respect for mere custom may take the place of respect for God. "Their fear of me is nothing but a commandment of men, which is taught." Religion is part of social institutions it is decorous, it is advantageous to pay it outward respect, unsafe to contemn it. Thus fear of men and self-interest may really pass under the outward guise of the fear of God and his Law.
II THE DEALING OF JEHOVAH WITH THE PEOPLE. It will be "wonderful, very wonderful." Inconceivable, as it seems, running counter to all his ancient covenant-promises. Already the Assyrian invasion had broken in on them; and the visitation was not to cease, but to continue. These judgments will baffle their intelligence. The wisdom of the wise will perish, and the understanding of the intelligent be obscured. The politicians think to hide their thoughts and deeds from Jehovah, "to throw the veil of secrecy over their pursuit of worldly alliances. The prophet divines their purpose and exposes its perversity. The favorite comparison of the potter is introduced" (cf. Isa_45:9 Isa_64:8 Jer_18:6 Rom_9:20) (Cheyne). Hiding from Jehovah means here the same thing as hiding from the prophet of Jehovah. They did not wish to listen to Isaiah"s reproof. We seem to see them watching the prophet. (cf. Isa_8:12) And he, from amidst the light of the higher or eternal policy, sees through their time-serving intrigues. "They think they can dispense with Jehovah, and yet they are his creatures; they attribute cleverness to themselves, and practically disown him, as if the pot should say to the potter who has turned it, "He does not understand it (Delitzsch). The great lessons aye:
1. The short-sightedness of worldly wisdom. It sees so clearly the immediate interest to be gained, it ignores the distant future, and falls headlong into fallacy.
2. The far-sightedness of conscience. The prophet represents conscience. What is now right is profitable now and ever will be. And only the real and the sincere is the right. Men may be deceived and mocked for a time; but "be not deceived: God is not mocked. J.
Insincerity.
"Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me." Sincerity is the life of devotion. Eloquence in prayer is execrable if the heart be worldly and vain. Here we have Divine insight into man"s soul.
I HERE IS THE BENDED KNEE WITHOUT THE PROSTRATE HEART. Reverential manner and sacred solemnities of speech may deceive others, but with God all hearts are open, all desires known. It is mere mouth-worship. It is the trick of the muscles, not the tone of the heart. We resent the false man. Nothing offends the better instincts of humanity so much as deceitful mannerism. Better the "drawn sword" that the disguised enemy with fawning friendship on his lips.
II HERE IS THE HONOR OF THE LIPS WITHOUT THE DEVOTION OF THE LIFE. To give a place of "honor" to religion is common to the worldliest men. It is like the compliment that vice pays to virtue by imitation of its manner, and hiding of itself. What should we think of men who did not honor religion? They would be losers, Men would not trust them. They would be suspected of indifference to those bonds which hold society together. So they pay outward honor to the Almighty, they join in the Church anthem, and in the public confession of the great Christian Creeds. But in their life there is no honor paid to religion, inasmuch as they serve and worship other gods.
III HERE IS THE TRUE RENDING OF THE HEART, WHICH IS THE MICROCOSM OF THE MAN. The heart is removed far from God. It does not thrill with his love, nor best in sympathy with his claims. This is the loadstone that leads us everywhere. We can prophesy where the footsteps will be if we know the longings of the spirit. The heart that he made capable of so much endurance and affection is far from him. Then it must be somewhere else. It will find some object. The ivy torn down from the old church tower will cling to the nearest object in its path. Cling it must. "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. W.M.S.
Vers. 13-17. The Church which God condemns.
Here is
I A CHURCH CONDEMNED OF GOD. It has four characteristics of which the Lord complains.
1. Unspiritual worship. "This people draw near me with their mouth," etc. (ver. 13). The service of the lip without the homage of the heart is an unacceptable sacrifice to God. (see Psa 50:78:36, 37 Isa 50 Eze_33:31 Mat_15:8, 9 Joh_4:24) To take sacred words into the lips with nothing of their meaning in the mind, to assume the attitude without cherishing the spirit of devotion, is not to propitiate but to offend the Holy One.
2. Unauthorized doctrine. "Their fear toward me is taught," etc. rendered in the New Testament, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men". (Mat_15:9) This was an early departure from the will of Christ. (see Col 2:18-22Ti Col_1:14 Act_20:30) The Church has always been in danger from men who have represented, first to their own minds and then to the minds of others, their own reasonings or imaginations as if they were the pure truth of God. So the mind and will of Christ have been grievously and mischievously perverted.
3. Incapable teachers. "The wisdom of their wise shall perish," etc. (ver. 14). A Church fallen under the rebuke of its Lord is usually one that has wholly unsuitable and incompetent teachers men who have lost their way, who have failed to discover or have abandoned heavenly wisdom, who cannot declare the way of life.
4. Unenlightened members. (Ver. 15.) So destitute of the very rudiments of religion as to ask such a question as this, as to entertain such a thought as this. With a faulty and incapable ministry you may have a Church ignorant of those elements of the gospel with which it seems impossible that men should not be familiar.
II THE DIVINE WANING WHICH IS ALSO A DIVINE PROMISE. (Vers. 16, 17.) He says You have perverted everything, turned everything upside down, made nothing of my Word when you should have made everything of it, elevated the outward and visible above the inward and spiritual, acted as if you could conceal your doings from the all-beholding God, treated me as the clay might treat the potter, unworthily and irreverently. I will bring it to pass that things shall be turned upside down in your experience: "Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field," etc. The humble shall be exalted and the proud abased. Your false confidence shall be cast down, and that which you have neglected shall be honored in the eyes of all. The Church that has lost its first estate of truth, spirituality, wisdom, must expect a terrible reversal.
1. Its mistaken notions will be shaken from its mind to make way for God"s living truth.
2. Its incapable leaders will be compelled to step down and give place to those whom they have arrogantly disregarded.
3. Its pompous but unspiritual rites will be exchanged for simpler and spiritual engagements.
4. Its luxurious religious enjoyments will be lost in earnest self-denying labors, or even in trying hardships. Thus will the fruitful field become a forest, while Lebanon is turned into a fruitful field. The revolution in the character and condition of the Church will be very intimately connected with, will be immediately followed by, a revolution in the character and condition of the world. C.
Lip-service; or, the peril of losing the heart out of our piety.
There was a time when Israel rendered heart-service to God. There was a life in the Mosaic system. Taking a figure from the sacrifice which Noah offered as consecrating a regenerate earth unto God, there was "a savor of a sweet smell" to rise up to God. The reproach of Isaiah is that the sacrifice was left, but the savor was gone; the husk was left, but the kernel was gone; the form was left, the heart was gone; the voice still spoke, but it had no message to deliver. "They draw near with lip, but heart is far away." And still, whensoever personal piety is failing, men fall back on some past experiences, or else they exaggerate the mere formalities of religious worship and ordinance. Ages of strong faith are very independent of forms. Ages of failing faith always exaggerate forms, If we have little heart for obedience, we put in its place much bowing and kneeling and offering as if God could not see very deep, and would be taken by appearances. (see 1Sa_16:7)
I LIE-SERVICE IS THE REQUIREMENT or GOD. "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me," saith the Lord. Hoses expresses a right feeling when he leads the people to say, "So will we render the calves of our lips". (Hos_14:2) To worship God is to make our approaches to him, and to present our adorations to him; it is to draw nigh to him as those that have business with him, with an intention therein to honor him. This we are to do with our mouth and with our lips in speaking of him and in speaking to him. And, if the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of that heart the mouth will speak. It should be carefully pointed out that the modern neglect of meetings for worship, praise, and prayer is as sad a sign of failing heart-love for God as is the exaggeration of formal rites and ceremonies. It must be plainly and forcibly urged that God calls for due expression of our piety; he asks for "life-service.
II LIP-SERVICE ONLY IS AN OFFENCE UNTO GOD. Because it is worthless. God the Spirit cannot be satisfied with things; he asks for spirit, for emotion, affection, thankfulness, and trust. "Voice and nothing else" must be mockery to him who can only heed a voice when the heart speaks by means of it. We call that false, in relation to ourselves, which is warm expression of affection for us when there is no heart-love; and such falseness is an offence. And Isaiah tells the rulers that the secret of their falseness is that they have taken to ordering their daily conduct by "the precepts of men," and did not want to obey the Law of God; so they gave him words in place of works. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv13, 15 This people draw near Me with their mouth
Isa_29:13-14
This people draw near Me with their mouth
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Ritualism
When any form so obtrudes itself as to be a hindrance instead of a help to the worshipper, that is ritualism.
(Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone.)
Formalism
All vice is said to be an abuse of virtue; all evil, good run mad. Generosity may become extravagance. So formalism really consists in the abuse of that which, up to a certain point, is absolutely necessary, which, up to a further point, may be helpful, but which, carried to an extreme, becomes a snare and a sin. (D. Jones Hamar.)
Formalism in doctrine and life
That we may see clearly who the formalist is, think of this truth: that there are formalism of doctrine, and formalism of life and practice, distinguishable and yet connected.
1. Formalism of doctrine--what is that? In one of its lowest phases we frequently meet with it. Have you not come across men who say Yes to every assertion of truth that you make; men who make you almost angry by their persistency in declaration of agreement? There are very few of all the thousands who are not, and know they are not, servants of Christ, who take the pains to deny what they nevertheless do not really accept. What can you say to such men? You cannot argue, for they agree with you already. You cannot appeal to them, for their creed seems to compass all that you hold as true.
2. There is such a thing as formality of worship and life. Just as truth must be put into words, but the word is not the truth, so worship has to be put into some expression, but the expression is not the worship. Isaiahs great charge against the people was that they had reversed the thing entirely. (D. JonesHamar.)
Formalism unsatisfying
What must be the creed of the formalist in worship and in life! This: that what is said to be the means of grace is grace itself; that the mechanical reading of the Bible, without any reverent, hungering spirit, communicates in some mysterious fashion heavenly truth; that the prostration of the body, while another offers prayer, brings blessing; that to sing a hymn, be its meaning felt or not, is an expression of praise; that these things, with the enduring of the infliction of half an hours sermon, constitute Christianity. There is too much of formalism in the best of us. What is the creed of the formal worshipper This: God doth not know, neither is there knowledge in the Meet High; that He who receives the humble adorations of archangels will accept from men not only the imperfect praises they can render, not only the scarce articulate waiting of the troubled spirit, panting forth its prayer for help, but the sound of song without the spirit, the utterance of petition without desire; that He who searches all hearts is deceived, as men prostrate their bodies, and accepts that as homage; or that He cares for nothing, and to mock His presence is no insult. Does that creed shape itself in accordance with your ideas of God? Yet it is just an interpretation of the practice of the man whose worship is nothing more than a form. And as it affects yourself is it satisfactory? Does it do you any good? The sin in the heart is not to be cured by any sort of outward observance. The truth of God is not to be reached by any sort of mechanical contrivance. This Book has no mysterious sanctity in its paper and print, or in the sound of its words. It is the meaning and the spirit that alone are valuable. Our faith passes on the wings of the things that are seen and temporal, up to the things that are unseen and eternal, through the word to catch the revelation, through prayer and praise to hold communion with God. Why trifle with your natures deepest wants? Why mock the everlasting love? There is a reality in prayer. There is an expression of gratitude which Inspires praise. There is a Saviour of sinners. Come to Him. He only, appearing and speaking through the means He has appointed, can take away the burden and the sting of sin, and give to the weary rest. (D. Jones Hamar.)
The danger of formal worship
The best commentary on our text is just the history of the reigns during which Isaiah prophesied.
I. IT WAS NO SLIGHT CRIME WITH WHICH THE PEOPLE OF JUDAH WERE ACTUALLY CHARGEABLE--it Was, indeed, a denial of Gods sovereignty, although by that very sovereignty it was that they and their fathers had for seven hundred years been in possession of the land of Canaan. Though they might make an outward profession of respect for the ordinances of God, yet the spirit by which they were actuated was essentially an atheistical spirit, inasmuch as with all the outward observance of Divine ordinances they looked for continued prosperity or deliverance from adversity, not to the wisdom of God, but to their own counsels, and the help promised to them by their idolatrous allies.
II. THE JUDGMENT THREATENED. Was in accordance with the nature and manifestation of their sin. They were not to be overwhelmed with irresistible calamity, in order to punish their flagrant idolatry; but they were to be left to the effect of their own devices. They were to work by their own skill, and in so doing to be working their own ruin: and when all their plans were brought to their completion, the effect was to be to bring utter desolation on the land (verse 14).
III. MANKIND, WITH ALL THEIR VARIETIES OF CHARACTER, ARE ESSENTIALLY SO MUCH THE SAME IN ALL AGES, and the Scriptures do, on the one hand, so graphically portray the leading features of human nature, and, on the other, set forth so clearly the great unchangeable principles of the Divine administration, that none who read that book with soberness and attention, and look around them on the world with ordinary observation, can fail to see that the sins of individuals or of nations there reproved are, with some modifications it may be, the same sins which are still prevalent, and that, if unrepented of and unforgiven, their consequences must in the end be the same. No nation, it is true, is precisely in the same circumstances with the kingdom of Judah, but still the great principles of the Divine government are unchangeable and eternal. It is one of these, that sin is the reproach of any people. If there be among us, possessing as we do a full revelation of the will of God, a disposition to deny or overlook His supremacy as Sovereign Disposer of all events, and to trust to the wisdom of human counsels for national deliverance or prosperity, without any devout recognition of absolute dependence upon Him, are we not chargeable with the very sin with which Judah of old was charged, and which was the source of all their multiplied offences? And if, along with this, there be a profession of faith--an external compliance with the ordinances of the Gospel, are we not in the condition of drawing near to God with our months, and honouring Him with our lips, while our heart is far removed from Him? (R. Gordon, D. D.)
A wrong religious attitude
This spiritual insensibility of the people is the outcome of its whole religious attitude, which is insincere, formal, and traditional. (J. Skinner, D. D.)
Plain speaking
Let us use these words (Isa_29:13) as Jesus Christ used them in Matthew (Mat_15:7). There are three points--
1. The importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the interests of truth. Jesus Christ was preeminently a plain speaker.
2. The far-seeing spirit of prophecy. Jesus Christ said to the men of His day, Esaias prophesied of you. Observe the unity of the moral world; observe the unchangeableness of Gods laws; see how right is ever right and wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil. If any man would see himself as he really is, let him look into the mirror of Holy Scripture. Gods book never gets out of date, because it deals with eternal principles and covers the necessities of all mankind let us then study the Word of God more closely. No man can truly know human nature who does not read two Bibles,--namely, the Bible of God as written in the Holy Scriptures, and the Bible of God as written in his own heart and conscience. Human nature was never so expounded as it is expounded in holy writ.
3. The high authority of the righteous censor. When Jesus Christ spoke in this case He did not speak altogether in His own name. He used the name of Esaias. All time is on the side of the righteous man; all history puts weapons into the hands of the man who would be valiant for truth. The righteous man does not draw his authority from yesterday. The credentials of the righteous man are not written with ink that is hardly dry yet. It draws from all the past. (J. Parlor, D. D.)
True prayer
The power of a petition is not in the roof of the mouth, but in the root of the heart. (J. Trapp.)
Lip service
Panchcowrie, a Hindu convert, thus spoke one day in the market: Some think they will avert Gods displeasure by frequently taking His name on their lips, and saying, O excellent God! O Ocean of Wisdom! O Sea of Love! and so on. To be sure, God is all this; but who ever heard of a debt being paid in words instead of rupees! (Sunday at Home.)
The best treasure
A rabbi, who lived nearly twenty years before Christ was born, set his pupils thinking by asking them, What is the best thing for a man to possess? One of them replied, A kind nature; another, A good companion; another, A good neighbour. But one of them, named Eleazer, said, A good heart. I like your answer best, Eleazer, said the master, for it includes all the rest. (Christian Age.)
Heartless prayers
I met in India an intelligent Sikh from the Punjab, and asked him about his religion. He replied, I believe in one God, and I repeat my prayers, called Japji every morning and evening. These prayers occupy six pages of print, but I can get through them in little more than ten minutes. He seemed to pride himself on this rapid recitation as a work of increased merit.
Fashionable church going
M. went to church because it was the right thing to do: God was one of the heads of society, and His drawing rooms had to be attended. (G. Macdonald, LL. D.)
Their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men
A fear of God taught by the precept of men
I. THERE IS A FEAR TOWARDS GOD WHICH IS TAUGHT BY THE PRECEPT OF MEN. It is unquestionable that, although it is nothing but the recklessness of infidelity which would speak of religion as an engine of state policy, still no state policy can be effective which looks not to religion as an auxiliary. If there could be taken off from a community those restraints which are imposed on it by the doctrine of the souls immortality, and of a future dispensation of rewards and punishments, there would be done more towards the introduction of a universal lawlessness and profligacy than if the statute books of the land were torn up and the courts of justice levelled with the ground. But if religion be thus susceptible of being employed with advantage as an auxiliary, there is a corresponding risk of its being resorted to as a human engine and not as a Divine. All inculcations of religion which are dictated by the consciousness that it is politic to stand by religion would turn into inculcations of infidelity the moment it should appear that it would be politic to stand by infidelity. It is a possible case that rulers might do on the political principle what Hezekiah did on the God-fearing principle--they might busy themselves with exacting from their subjects attention to the laws of the Almighty, and so might bring round great outward conformity to many commands of the Bible. The result in the two eases might be similar: the tokens of the absence of Gods fear might be swept from the land; and there might, on the contrary, be seen on the whole outspread of the population, appearances of the maintenance of that fear. What is to be said of that fear of God which seems to discover itself in its attention to ordinances, but which is only dictated by habit--or respect for appearances--or concern for religion as an engine of state! If we could mark each individual, as he enters the house, who is only brought hither by custom--by the feeling that it is decorous to come--by the sense that it is right that old institutions should be upheld, why, since in the whole assemblage of such motives there is no real recognition of the authority of Jehovah, we should be bound to say of all those who thus render to God a spurious and inferior homage, that their fear towards Him was taught by the precept of men. The motive or sentiment which is the prime energy in producing that fear towards God which is not according to His word is the opinion of merit, the attachment of worth to this or that action, which is ordinarily described as self-righteousness. The cases of the fear towards God, which is taught by the Precept of men, might be further multiplied. If you went the round of even the religious world you would find much of a restless endeavour to bring down godliness to something of the human standard.
II. THE FEAR TOWARDS GOD, TAUGHT BY MANS PRECEPT, IS MOST OFFENSIVE IN THE SIGHT OF THE ALMIGHTY. We conclude the fact of the offensiveness from Gods express determination of punishing the Jews with a signal punishment. Our simple business is therefore to search after the reason of this offensiveness.
1. The fear must be a defective fear. If you take your standard from aught else than the Bible, you will necessarily have a standard which is low and imperfect; and although you may act unflinchingly up to this standard, where it is the standard of other mens opinions or long practice or custom, you stand accountable for the adoption of the standard.
2. This fear involves a contempt of revelation; and on this account as well as on the former most peculiarly incurs the wrath of Jehovah. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Their fear toward Me R.V.
Their fear of Me, i.e., their piety, religion. Is taught by the precept of men. Better as R.V. is (or, has become) a commandment of men which hath been taught;--a human ordinance learned by rote (Mat_15:1-9). This pregnant criticism expresses with epigrammatic force the fundamental difference between the pagan and the biblical conceptions of religion. Religion, being personal fellowship with God, cannot be learned from men, but only by revelation Mat_16:17). (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v13 Isa_29:13-14. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people…
LIP-SERVICE INSTEAD OF HEART-WORSHIP
Isa_29:13-14. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near to Me with their mouth, &c.
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The charge against the people is clear; it is that of a heartless religion, formal and full of hypocrisy. “Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.” That is, their religion is a mechanical following of human directions, instead of the spontaneous uprising of a heart inspired with the fear and love of God.
I. The charge against the Jews in Isaiah’s day. It is twofold—the removal of the heart and the substitution of a lip-service.
1. The removal of the heart. God demands the service of the heart (Pro_23:26; Jer_29:13). The Psalmist felt how reasonable was this demand when he said, “I will praise Thee, O Lord, with the whole heart” (Psa_9:1). A man may do some things with a slack hand and yet be blameless, but to steer an Atlantic steamer in a storm, he needs the whole force of both hands. Unless our whole soul be in God’s service, our worship will be thrown back upon us with the withering words, “Who hath demanded this at your hands?” This worthless thing! “Bring no more vain oblations.” How strikingly our Lord put this principle of supremacy (Luk_14:26): “In every man’s heart I must be supreme, or therein I cannot dwell.” Infidels most ignorantly misread this passage. One of their counts against Christianity is that it frowns on family joys; while every day’s facts prove that the truest Christian is the best husband, father, &c. God being first in a man’s heart, that heart is humanised, its generosity enlarged, so as to take in, not only the family, but “all mankind.” But some, after having given their hearts to the Lord, withdraw them from His service (Mat_13:22; 2Ti_4:10).
II. This charge has been true in every generation. The heart’s weakness and the world’s force are ever the same. This evil existed in our Lord’s day (Mat_15:8-9). For long years before the Reformation whole nations of Christendom presented to God a mere formal worship. And to-day, of how many congregations may the words of Ezekiel be said! (Eze_33:31).
III. The worthless substitution presented to God. “And with their lips do honour Me.” The instinct of worship is so strong within the soul that men everywhere worship something. It may be the hideous fetish of the African or the artistic statue of the refined Greek, but something the Greek and the barbarian must have. When that young mother, in the days of Solomon, arose in the morning and found a dead child by her side instead of her own living one, how severe must have been the shock! Had there been no child by her side, no dead substitute, she might have thought that her own child lived somewhere and might sometime be found. But that dead substitute at first nearly killed her by despair. It is bad to withdraw a living heart from the Lord, but to substitute a dead one is first to rob God and then wickedly insult Him (H. E. I., 5066–5070).
IV. The threat (Isa_29:14). The threat is that of cherished expectations bitterly disappointed. In times of extremity, full of confidence in the wisdom of their leaders, they shall seek light and leading, and behold nothing but darkness and folly. How often have the leaders of a nation been stricken with folly, and, like a blinded steersman, have driven the ship to destruction! “The wisdom of their wise men shall perish.” Disappointment! It is only another expression about the foolish man disappointed in his false security, his house resting on the sand, and of those who “make lies their refuge, and under falsehood hide themselves.” The threat is that “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.” Though men may not admit that their worship is mere lip-service, and their neighbours not see their hypocrisy, yet to the eye of God
“The painted hypocrites are known
Through the disguise they wear.”
—William Parkes, F.R.G.S.
Two conditions under which religion is in a declining state.
1. When the ordinances of divine worship are generally neglected.
2. When the attendance on worship, however large, does not represent a religious state of mind, but is simply an outward performance. The latter was the state into which religion had fallen in Judea. The religious observances of the people were not inspired by knowledge of God’s Word, but by human authority. The text—
I. Describes a great privilege. “This people draw near me.” God speaks after the manner of men. When we desire to speak closely to a friend we get near him. This is coming close to God (Psa_73:28; Heb_10:22; Heb_7:19; Jas_4:8). Is it not a wonder that the Almighty permits us to draw nigh to Him? Men make it difficult for their inferiors to obtain access; but the Infinite and Eternal One makes Himself accessible to His creatures. Not only so; He has made a way for creatures stained by sin. The Lord Jesus Christ stands between God and man by virtue of His atoning death and interceding life. The guilty, condemned, utterly impure, have only to renounce their sinfulness and avail themselves of this new and living way. If there is truthfulness and sincerity, they will be welcome. In the sanctuary, in meeting for prayer, in the family, in the closet, in the round of daily duty, we may draw near to God. Do you know anything of the blessedness of this privilege? Enjoyment, comfort, purity, fitness for intercourse with men, for the battle of life, for the work of the world, do they not all come through this privilege?
II. Points out a serious abuse (Isa_29:13). Their sin was not the abandonment of worship. That is a measure of ungodliness not reached without a long process. Unsettled faith, indifference to spiritual blessings, habits of sinful indulgence, conduct to it. What multitudes have reduced themselves to this predicament? But it was not their case. They had not relinquished the ordinances of worship; they observed them. But there was a twofold defect: the heart was absent and the motive was wrong.
1. Something was present that ought to have been absent. “Their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men.” Their piety was only out of respect for some human authority. Our Lord quoted this part of the text in His exposure of externalism as exemplified by the Pharisees of His time (Mat_15:9). Human authority in religion is here distinctly denounced. One man may hand the Word of God to another, but no man must impose his notions of religion on another by his mere authority. A man’s religious service must be the result of his personal conviction. If he is religious because some one else is, or because it is respectable, or because it may promote his worldly interest, or because it is recognised and imposed by the authority of the state, it is not really the honour and worship of God at all, but of man.
2. Something was absent that ought to have been present. “But have removed their heart far from Me.” God must be worshipped with the heart. Apart from the outward expression of inward reality, the movement of the lips and the utterance of the mouth are nothing. Real worship is the consent of the understanding, will, affections, to the homage which is paid by the lips. Without this they are mockery, as when one who stands in the king’s presence is alienated from his allegiance.
III. Utters a solemn warning (Isa_29:14). Their religion was only the counsel of man. It was unavailing for its purpose, and would come to nothing (1Co_1:19). Such worship is:
1. Unacceptable. God is not deceived. Realise the terribleness of being rejected. He says, “It is not the kind of worship I require.” After all your wisdom (Isa_1:11-15).
2. Unsuccessful. The prayers offered only by the lips are not heard. No answer comes, no blessing descends. This comes of the policy which followed the precepts of men.
3. Unstable. After such religion reaction may be expected. There is no inward life to sustain the outward exercises. Does not the test point to that deeper spiritual blindness which follows the attempt to put the wisdom of man in the place of the wisdom of God?
In religion and at its worship take care:
1. That there is sincerity. See that the heart is right with God. “Ye must be born again.”
2. That there is simplicity. Let there be no superfluous externalism in worship; only what is necessary to the suitable expression of the heart’s worship.
3. That there is earnestness.
And if a merely formal worship is rejected, what is the predicament of those who do not even offer that, but who live without any acknowledgment of God?—John Rawlinson.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v13 The Counsel of God
The Counsel of God
v. 13. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people, the men of the Southern Kingdom, the children of Judah, draw near Me with their mouth and with their lips do honor Me, in a mere outward form of worship, but have removed their heart far from Me, faith being lost entirely, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men, their outward morality being based wholly upon the rules of conduct in vogue among men, not upon the way of sanctification prescribed by God, Cf Mat 15:8-9,
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v. 14. therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder, by an exceptional act of judgment; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, so that the counsel and help of those upon whom Judah depended would no longer appear, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid, their leaders becoming dull and stupid without knowing it.
v. 15. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, trying to conceal their object from the eyes of God, as even Hezekiah did at times, and their works are in the dark, as they think, hidden from the omniscience of the Lord, and they say, Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?
v. 16. Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay, the sentence being like an exclamation: "Alas upon your perversion! As clay is the potter to be considered?" For shall the work, the vessel as it comes from the potter’s hands, say of him that made it, He made me not? Or shall the thing framed, that which is formed by the artist’s skill, say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? The leaders of Judah were turning things upside down, ignoring God and even placing themselves in His stead.
v. 17. Is it not yet a very little while and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? The reference is to the time of the Messiah, when the hearts of men, moral deserts without the Lord, will be reclaimed so as to bear fruits of righteousness.
v. 18. And In that day shall the deaf, those whose ears had, by their natural perversity, been closed to the voice of the Lord, hear the words of the Book, of the written revelation, and the eyes of the blind, those suffering with spiritual blindness, shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness, for the Lord Himself would enlighten the eyes of their understanding.
v. 19. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, the godly among the afflicted finding their one satisfaction in communion with Him, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Cf Mat 5:3; Luk 6:20.
v. 20. For the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed, both the tyrants and the mockers, the enemies of Jehovah being laid low, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off, their wickedness in watching for opportunities to commit iniquity being duly punished,
v. 21. that make a man an offender for a word, unjustly condemning him, no matter what his cause may he, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, one who has a matter at issue in the courts, which were commonly held in the gates of the cities, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught, bringing lying accusations against him, this being the way of the world everywhere.
v. 22. Therefore, thus saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham, by calling him away from his father’s house, out of the midst of idolatry, concerning the house of Jacob, the congregation of people chosen by Him, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale, the Church of the Lord no longer being subject to shame and disappointment.
v. 23. But when he seeth his children, the work of Mine hands, a new generation of sincere believers in Him, in the midst of him, as a new congregation and assembly of saints, they shall sanctify My name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel, the lesson of Judah’s punishment and of the overthrow of the Lord’s enemies serving to make the hearts more willing to accept the doctrines of the Lord.
v. 24. They also that erred in spirit, those whose spirit had forsaken the way of the Lord, shall come to understanding, namely, that of God’s will and ways, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine, receive the discipline or instruction of the Lord. God desires His children of all times to learn the true wisdom from Him, to hear and heed His Word and be found on the ways of sanctification.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13, 15, 16 This people comes close to me with their mouths…
This people comes close to me with their mouths and honors me with their lips
The words "mouths" and "lips" represent what people say. Here it also represents saying something but not truly meaning it. AT: "The people of Jerusalem pretend to worship me and honor me with what they say" (See: Metonymy)
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but their heart is far from me
Here "heart" is a metonym that represents a person's thoughts and emotions. The people not being truly devoted to Yahweh is spoken of as if their hearts were far away from him. AT: "but they do not honor me in their thoughts" or "but they are not truly devoted to me" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
Their honor for me is only a commandment of men that has been taught
This can be stated in active form. AT: "They honor me only because that is what people tell them to do" (See: Active or Passive)
Therefore, see, I will proceed to do a marvelous thing among this people, wonder after wonder
"Therefore, look and see! I am going to do wonderful and marvelous things among you that you will not be able to explain"
The wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will disappear
Both of these statements mean the same thing. Yahweh showing that the wise people cannot understand or explain what Yahweh does is spoken of as if their wisdom and understanding will vanish. (See: Parallelism and Metaphor)
translationWords
lord
people group
honor
heart
command
miracle
wise
perish
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv13–16 29:13 These people used pious-sounding language in their prayers…
29:13 These people used pious-sounding language in their prayers and talk (see Matt 15:8; Mark 7:6-7), but they did not truly honor God. • In their hearts, they were not committed to the Lord at all. • In their worship, they followed man-made rules and regulations rather than God’s word.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.