Isaiah 29:7

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,.... The Roman army, which consisted of men of all nations, that fought against Jerusalem; the city in which was the altar, as the Targum

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. Her munition - her fortress.

Wherein it shall be so is explained in the next verse.

Isaiah 29:7 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.Ver. 7. Shall be as the dream of a night vision.] Both in regard of thee to whom this siege and ruin shall happen beyond all thought, judgment, and expectation, as also in respect of the Chaldees themselves, who will never be satisfied with tormenting thee, and yet shall fail of what they hope for too. Spes mortalium sunt somnia vigilantium, saith Plato. Diod.

(7) Against her and her munition.—The word is a rare one, but probably stands here for the new fortifications by which Uzziah and Hezekiah had defended Jerusalem.

Verse 7. As a dream] This is the beginning of the comparison, which is pursued and applied in the next verse. Sennacherib and his mighty army are not compared to a dream because of their sudden disappearance; but the disappointment of their eager hopes is compared to what happens to a hungry and thirsty man, when he awakes from a dream in which fancy had presented to him meat and drink in abundance, and finds it nothing but a vain illusion. The comparison is elegant and beautiful in the highest degree, well wrought up, and perfectly suited to the end proposed. The image is extremely natural, but not obvious: it appeals to our inward feelings, not to our outward senses; and is applied to an event in its concomitant circumstances exactly similar, but in its nature totally different. See De S. Poes. Hebr. Praelect. xii. For beauty and ingenuity it may fairly come in competition with one of the most elegant of Virgil, greatly improved from Homer, Iliad xxii. 199, where he has applied to a different purpose, but not so happily, the same image of the ineffectual working of imagination in a dream: - Ac veluti in somnis, oculos ubi languida pressit Nocte quies, necquicquam avidos extendere cursus Velle videmur, et in mediis conatibus aegri Succidimus; non lingua valet, non corpore notae Sufficiunt vires, nec vox, nec verba sequuntur. AEn., xii. 908. "And as, when slumber seals the closing sight, The sick wild fancy labours in the night; Some dreadful visionary foe we shun With airy strides, but strive in vain to run; In vain our baffled limbs their powers essay; We faint, we struggle, sink, and fall away; Drain'd of our strength, we neither fight nor fly, And on the tongue the struggling accents die." PITT. Lucretius expresses the very same image with Isaiah: - Ut bibere in somnis sitiens quum quaerit, et humor Non datur, ardorem in membris qui stinguere possit; Sed laticum simulacra petit, frustraque laborat, In medioque sitit torrenti flumine potans. iv. 1091. As a thirsty man desires to drink in his sleep, And has no fluid to allay the heat within, But vainly labours to catch the image of rivers, And is parched up while fancying that he is drinking at a full stream. Bishop Stock's translation of the prophet's text is both elegant and just: - "As when a hungry man dreameth; and, lo! he is eating: And he awaketh; and his appetite is unsatisfied. And as a thirsty man dreameth; and, lo! he is drinking: And he awaketh; and, lo! he is faint, And his appetite craveth." Lucretius almost copies the original. All that fight against her and her munition - "And all their armies and their towers"] For צביה ומצדתה tsobeyha umetsodathah, I read, with the Chaldee, צבאם ומצדתם tsebaam umetsodatham.

ch. Isaiah 29:1-14. The announcement of Jehovah’s wonderful purpose regarding Jerusalem, and its reception on the part of the peopleUnder the second “Woe” (Isaiah 29:1) are grouped two oracles, which may have been originally independent; or they may be intimately connected, the second describing the effect of the first on the minds of Isaiah’s hearers. i. Isaiah 29:1-8. The impending humiliation and deliverance of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, apostrophised by the mystic name of “Ariel,” is at present gay and careless and secure, the festal calendar follows its accustomed course, and this state of things may endure for a short time longer (1). But already in vision the prophet sees her beset by hosts of enemies, and reduced to the lowest depths of despair (2–4) when suddenly the Lord Himself, arrayed in the terrors of earthquake and tempest, appears in judgment (6), and in a moment the scene is changed. In the very hour of their triumph, the enemies of Zion are disappointed of their expectation, and vanish like a vision of the night (7, 8). ii. Isaiah 29:9-14. A rebuke of the spiritual blindness and unbelief, and the hollow formal religion prevalent amongst all classes of the people. (1) Isaiah 29:9-12. Jehovah has visited the leaders of the people with judicial blindness (9 f.); the consequence is that neither among the cultured nor the unlettered can the word of the Lord find entrance (11 f.). (2) Isaiah 29:13-14. Because the popular religion has degenerated into a mechanical routine of traditional observances (13) it is necessary for Jehovah to adopt startling measures, transcending all human calculation and insight (14).

And the multitude of all the nations - The Assyrians, and their allied hosts. And her munition - Her fortresses, castles, places of strength 2 Samuel 5:7; Ecclesiastes 9:14; Ezekiel 19:9.

5-8. Now there is promise. At the close of Isa 29:2 it is stated that Jerusalem shall become God’s altar-fire-hearth — indeed, the burning place of wrath upon her enemies. These verses expand this meaning.