Isaiah 29:9

Stay yourselves, and wonder,.... Stop a while, pause a little, consider within yourselves the case and circumstances of these people, and wonder at their stupidity.

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

Stay yourselves, and wonder; pause upon it, and you will see cause to wonder at the stupidity of this people, of which he is now about to speak. He directeth his speech, either to the religious part of the people, or to those particular persons who heard him when he delivered this prophecy. Cry ye out, and cry; cry out again and again, either in way of supplication for them; or rather through astonishment and horror. Or, they take pleasure or sport themselves, (as this word most commonly signifies,) and riot; in the midst of all these threatenings and dangers, they are secure, and give up themselves to sensuality; which is matter of just wonder. They are drunken, but not with wine; but either, 1. With drinking the cup of God’ s fury, wherewith they are said to be made drunk, ,20. And then, they are drunk, is put for, they shall be drunk, after the manner of the prophets. Or, 2. With the spirit of giddiness or stupidity, which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger, and not knowing what to do.

Isaiah 29:9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.Ver. 9. Stay yourselves, and wonder.] Sistite gradum, stand still, and stand amazed at this people’ s stupendous stupidity and desperate security. Piscator rendereth the text thus: Cunctantur, itaque admiramini; deliciantur, itaque vociferamini. They delay (to return), therefore wonder ye at it; they sport at it, but cry ye out, as lamenting their folly. Some translate the words thus: Obstupefacite vos ipsi, et sitis stupidi, et excaecate vos ipsi et sitis caeci, stupify yourselves and be stupid; blind yourselves and be blind; do so, I say, for you will do so undoubtedly. And here begin their spiritual miseries. See Isaiah 29:1; Isaiah 6:9-10. They are drunk, but not with wine.] But yet with that which is much worse, viz., with a spirit of stupidity; they are not only drunk with a dry drunkenness, but deadly sick of a lethargy, being dulled in their understandings, lulled asleep in their sinful practices, ready to fly in the face of one that shall offer to awake them. Other drunkenness a man may sleep out, sleep himself sober, as Noah did; not so here, as Nazianzen well observeth upon this text. Homil. de plaga grandinis.

(9) Stay yourselves . . .—Better, Astonish yourselves. We can perhaps best understand the words by picturing to ourselves the prophet as preaching or reciting the previous prediction to his disciples and to the people. They are staggered, startled, incredulous, and he bursts into words of vehement reproof. The form of the verb implies that their astonished unbelief was self-caused. The change from the second person to the third implies that the prophet paused for a moment in his address to describe their state as an observer. Outwardly, they were as men too drunk to understand, but their drunkenness was not that of the “wine” or the “strong drink” of the fermented palm-juice, in which, as in Isaiah 28:7, the prophet implies that they habitually indulged. Now their drunkenness was of another type.

Verse 9. Stay yourselves, and wonder] התמהמהו hithmahmehu, go on what-what-whatting, in a state of mental indetermination, till the overflowing scourge take you away. See Clarke on Psalms 119:60. They are drunken, but not with wine] See Clarke on Isaiah 51:21.

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).

Stay yourselves - Thus far the prophet had given a description of the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, and of his sudden overthrow.

9-12. Stay… wonder; cry — The original, and our version from it, in this verse are obscure. Credibly the meaning is: “Stare with amazed look at the prophecy just given, if you will.