BOOK 23 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Isaiah 29

Isaiah book home•Chapter 29 of 66•24 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Isaiah 29 Overview

Jerusalem—called Ariel—will be humbled and besieged, yet her enemies will vanish; spiritual blindness makes revelation like a sealed book, human religion rests on learned precepts, and a future reversal brings hearing, sight, humility, and holiness.

IsaiahBook

29Chapter

24Verses

Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Isaiah 29

Coming from

Isaiah pronounces woe on proud Ephraim’s drunken leaders, warns Jerusalem’s scoffing rulers that their supposed covenant with death will fail, and announces God’s sure foundation stone in Zion.

In this chapter

Leads into

Judah seeks an alliance with Egypt against Assyria, but Isaiah calls the plan rebellious and useless; salvation is found in returning, rest, and trust, while the LORD waits to be gracious and will ultimately strike Assyria.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Ariel refers to Jerusalem, David’s city. The chapter combines siege imagery, sudden deliverance, criticism of hardened worship, and future transformation.

The interpretive center of Isaiah 29 is the chapter’s own movement: religious familiarity can coexist with spiritual distance. Read its poetry, signs, historical references, and later biblical connections from that center rather than treating isolated phrases as detached slogans.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Religious familiarity can coexist with spiritual distance

The people honor God with lips while their heart is far from Him.

God overturns human wisdom that tries to hide from Him

Secret plans and upside-down reasoning are exposed before the Potter.

God can reverse blindness and social humiliation

The deaf hear, the blind see, the meek rejoice, and Jacob no longer stands ashamed.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Matthew 15:7-9

Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 against traditions that honor God outwardly while displacing His commandment.

Romans 9:20

Paul’s potter-and-clay language resonates with Isaiah’s rebuke of the thing made questioning its Maker.

Isaiah 35

Later Isaiah gives another picture of deaf ears and blind eyes being opened in restoration.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not reduce Isaiah 29:13 to a criticism of all tradition.

The problem is human teaching that produces outward honor while the heart is far from God.

Do not separate the blindness from persistent covenant rebellion.

The sealed-book imagery describes a judged inability to receive revelation, not an arbitrary lack of information.

Read Isaiah 29 watching for…

Ariel under siege

enemies disappearing like a dream

the sealed book

lips near but hearts far away

the future opening of eyes and ears

Chapter outline3 sections

1-8Ariel will be humbled and then suddenly delivered from surrounding enemies 9-16Spiritual blindness follows worship with lips while hearts are far from God 17-24The meek will rejoice, the terrible one will cease, and Jacob will sanctify the LORD

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.

Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.

And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.

And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.

Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.

Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.

It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.

Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

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

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:

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off:

That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.

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.

But 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.

They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.

STUDY THIS VERSE

Isaiah 29:1

Back to verse ↑

Cross References

Cross-reference storage is active. This passage does not yet have curated references loaded.

Related TWBC Resources

The Scripture resource graph is active. Sermons, Bible Overviews, courses, questions, and studies can attach here without changing the Bible text.