Isaiah 29:1

There are five paragraphs in this chapter: (1) Jerusalem is warned of the siege by Sennacherib (Isaiah 29:1-4). (2) A divine promise of relief (Isaiah 29:5-8). (3) Prophecy of the hardening, or blinding, of Israel (Isaiah 29:9-12). (4) Israel's warnings repeated (Isaiah 29:13-16). (5) Israel's promises renewed (Isaiah 29:17-24).

Isaiah 29:1-4

"Ho, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! add ye year to year; let the feasts come round: then will I distress Ariel, and there shall be mourning and lamentation; and she shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will encamp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with posted troops, and I will lay siege works 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."

Cheyne and other scholars have concluded that there is a firm promise here by the prophet that Ariel shall be besieged "within one year"; but in fairness, it must be admitted that such a promise is simply not in the passage. "Adding year to year and letting the feasts come round" point to successive actions and not to the limitation of a single year. We learn in Isaiah 32:9ff that the time was "slightly longer than a year"; and, in that passage, "Isaiah implies that his hearers did not well understand his language."[1] Indeed, they did not; and commentators are still misunderstanding it, as did Peake: "Within a year, Ariel, that is, Jerusalem will be destroyed and will be an altar-hearth indeed, flowing with the blood of human victims."[2] Absolutely nothing that justifies such statements is in the text.

Of course, Ariel does indeed mean Jerusalem. The scholars are practically unanimous on this. It is one of those mystical and symbolical names that one often finds in the writings of this great prophet. The actual meaning of the word is disputed. As Dummelow expressed it:

"`Ariel' is a symbolic name for Jerusalem, meaning either: (1) lion of God, hero (2 Samuel 23:20), the lion being the symbol of Judah; or (2) altar-hearth of God."[3]

Either meaning is acceptable, but we prefer the second meaning; because Isaiah wrote that, "His (God's) fire is in Zion, and his furnace is in Jerusalem" (Isaiah 31:9). Naturally, wherever the fire is, there is also the altar. There the sacrifices were offered, the feasts were held, and there the Day of Atonement was celebrated, etc. Most significantly of all, it was there that the Great Sacrifice, that of Christ himself upon the cross, was offered. "In the light of all this, `hearth of God' (or altar-hearth) seems to be the better understanding."[4] James Moffatt's Translation of the Bible (1929) renders it, "God's own hearth and altar."

The date of the crisis mentioned here "evidently belongs to the very eve of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in 701 B.C."[5]

Beginning in Isaiah 29:5, the prophet promised relief from "the siege"; but, as Kidner noted, "The gathering of the nations (See Zechariah 14:1) and the spectacular signs of Isaiah 29:6-8 suggest a still greater struggle."[6]

"Thou shalt be brought down ..." (Isaiah 29:4). This is not a reference to the fall and depopulation of Jerusalem, but rather, it means, "Jerusalem was to be brought to abject humiliation and extremity of supplication."[7]

The fulfillment of this came in Sennacherib's insulting taunts of Hezekiah when his siege began, even offering Hezekiah two thousand horsemen, provided that Hezekiah would supply two thousand men who could ride them! (2 Kings 18:23). All of these Assyrian taunts were heard by the citizens and not by the king only. The humiliation must indeed have been acute.