Isaiah 29:2

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Woe to you, O Ariel, Ariel, the city where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur. ²And I will constrain Ariel, and there will be mourning and sorrow; she will be like an altar hearth before me.³I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you. ⁴You will be brought low, you will speak from the ground, and out of the dust your words will be muffled. Your voice will be like a spirit from the ground; your speech will whisper out of the dust. ⁵But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant, ⁶you will be visited by the LORD of Hosts with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with windstorm and tempest and flame of consuming fire. ⁷All the many nations going out to battle against Ariel-even all who war against her, laying siege and attacking her-will be like a dream, like a vision in the night, ⁸as when a hungry man dreams he is eating, then wakes and is still hungry. And like a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, then awakens faint and parched, so it will be for all the many nations who go to battle against Mount Zion.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

I will: Isaiah 5:25-30, Isaiah 10:5, Isaiah 10:6, Isaiah 10:32, Isaiah 17:14, Isaiah 24:1-12, Isaiah 33:7-9, Isaiah 36:22, Isaiah 37:3, Jeremiah 32:28-32, Jeremiah 39:4, Jeremiah 39:5

and it shall: Or, as Bp. Lowth renders, "and it shall be unto me as the hearth of the great altar;" that is, it shall be the seat of the fire of God, which shall issue from thence to consume his enemies. The hearth of the altar is expressly called ariel by Ezekiel, Ezekiel 43:15, which is put, in the former part of the verse, for Jerusalem, the city in which the altar was. The subject of this and the four following chapters, says Bp. Lowth, is the invasion of Sennacherib; the great distress of the Jews while it continued; their sudden and unexpected deliverance by God's immediate and miraculous interposition on their behalf; the subsequent prosperous state of the kingdom under Hezekiah; interspersed with severe reproofs and threats of punishment for their hypocrisy, stupidity, infidelity, their want of trust in God, and their vain reliance on the assistance of Egypt; and with promises of better times, both immediately to succeed, and to be expected in the future age. Isaiah 34:6, Ezekiel 22:31, Ezekiel 24:3-13, Ezekiel 39:17, Zephaniah 1:7, Zephaniah 1:8, Revelation 19:17, Revelation 19:18

Reciprocal: Isaiah 29:7 - that distress

Cross-References

Genesis 24:11
As evening approached, he made the camels kneel down near the well outside the town, at the time when the women went out to draw water.

Genesis 24:13
Here I am, standing beside the spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water.

Genesis 29:6
"Is he well?" Jacob inquired. "Yes," they answered, "and here comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep."

Genesis 29:7
"Look," said Jacob, "it is still broad daylight; it is not yet time to gather the livestock. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture."

Genesis 29:15
Laban said to him, "Just because you are my relative, should you work for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be."

Genesis 29:16
Now Laban had two daughters; the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel.

Psalms 23:2
He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.

Isaiah 49:10
They will not hunger or thirst, nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them. For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

John 4:6
Since Jacob's well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

John 4:14
But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Yet I will distress Ariel,.... Or "straiten" it, by causing it to be besieged; and this he would do, notwithstanding their yearly sacrifices, and their observance of their solemn feasts, and other ceremonies of the law, in which they placed their confidence, and neglected weightier matters:

and there shall be heaviness and sorrow; on account of the siege; by reason of the devastations of the enemy without, made on all the cities and towns in Judea round about; and because of the famine and bloodshed in the city:

and it shall be unto me as Ariel; the whole city shall be as the altar; as that was covered with the blood and carcasses of slain beasts, so this with the blood and carcasses of men; and so the Targum,

"and I will distress the city where the altar is, and it shall be desolate and empty; and it shall be surrounded before me with the blood of the slain, as the altar is surrounded with the blood of the holy sacrifices on a solemn feast day all around;''

so Jarchi and Kimchi.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Yet I will distress Ariel - The reference here is doubtless to the siege which God says Isaiah 29:3 he would bring upon the guilty and formal city.

And there shall be heaviness and sorrow - This was true of the city in the siege of Sennacherib, to which this probably refers. Though the city was delivered in a sudden and remarkable manner (see the note at Isaiah 29:7-8), yet it was also true that it was reduced to great distress (see Isaiah 36:0; Isaiah 37:0)

And it shall be unto me as Ariel - This phrase shows that in Isaiah 29:1 Jerusalem is called ‘Ariel,’ because it contained the great altar, and was the place of sacrifice. The word “Ariel” here is to be understood in the sense “of the hearth of the great altar;” and the meaning is, ‘I will indeed make Jerusalem like the great altar; I will make it the burning place of wrath where my enemies shall be consumed as if they were on the altar of burnt sacrifice.’ Thus in Isaiah 30:9, it is said of Yahweh that his ‘fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.’ This is a strong expression, denoting the calamity that was approaching; and though the main reference in this whole passage is to the distress that would come upon them in the invasion of Sennacherib, yet there is no impropriety in supposing that there was presented to the mind of the prophet in vision the image of the total ruin that would come yet upon the city by the Chaldeans - when the temple, the palaces, and the dwellings of the magnificent city of David would be in flames, and like a vast blazing altar consuming that which was laid upon it.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 29:2. There shall be heaviness and sorrow - "There shall be continual mourning and sorrow"] Instead of your present joy and festivity.

And it shall be unto me as Ariel - "And it shall be unto me as the hearth of the great altar."] That is, it shall be the seat of the fire of God; which shall issue from thence to consume his enemies. See note on Isaiah 29:1. Or, perhaps, all on flame; as it was when taken by the Chaldeans; or covered with carcasses and blood, as when taken by the Romans: an intimation of which more distant events, though not immediate subjects of the prophecy, may perhaps be given in this obscure passage.