Scripture Daily

Context No. 125 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 29:1-8: in context

1Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around; 2then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth. 3I will encamp against you all around you, and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will raise siege works against you. 4You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust. 5But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly. 6She will be visited by the LORD of Armies with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and storm, and with the flame of a devouring fire. 7The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night. 8It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.

Isaiah addresses Jerusalem by a name used nowhere else: Ariel. The word can mean lion of God, and it can also mean altar hearth, the place on the altar where the fire burns, and the passage plays on both. Ariel, the city where David camped, is told to keep adding year to year and letting the feasts come round in their cycle.

Then God says he will besiege it. I will encamp against you, raise siege works, and you will be brought low, speaking from the ground, your voice like a ghost's out of the dust, a whisper from the earth. The city that keeps its religious calendar running smoothly is going to end up whispering from the floor. And the name lands: she shall be to me like an altar hearth, a place of burning.

Then it turns without warning. The horde of your enemies will be like fine dust, blown away in an instant, and their assault will be like a dream. A hungry man dreams he is eating and wakes still hungry. A thirsty man dreams he is drinking and wakes faint. So it will be with all the nations that fight against Zion. The siege is real and the besiegers are dreaming. When something is bearing down on me, can I tell which parts of it are solid and which will turn out to have been a dream about eating?

Sources