The people are stupefied, for Yahweh has drenched their senses with a trance-slumber (Genesis 2:21 *). He has shut their eyes and muffled their heads. All alike fail to understand the prophetic vision; to the educated it is a sealed book which they cannot read, the illiterate cannot read it, though no seal is upon it.
Isaiah 29:9. Substitute margins.
Isaiah 29:10. Omit the prophets, the seers, glosses which miss the meaning.
Isaiah 29:13 f. On account of the formalism and hypocrisy of Judah's religion, Yahweh will achieve a marvellous work which will bring all their foresight to nought.
Isaiah 29:13. Substitute AV draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me. taught them: they have learnt their religion by rote (mg.), but have no intelligent interest in it.
Isaiah 29:15-24. Woe to those who seek to conceal their plans of Egyptian alliance from Yahweh by hiding them from His prophet. What perversity! (cf. mg.). They reverse the true order; the creature passive in the Creator's hand dares to act on the fancy that it is independent of Him, as if He too was of no understanding (Isaiah 10:15). Soon the land will become so fruitful that the forest will be as fertile as garden land, and what is now garden land will be thought no more of than forest land. Those now deaf and blind (Isaiah 29:9 f.), unable to understand the prophet's vision (Isaiah 29:11 f.), will both hear and see. The humble and poor will rejoice, for the foreign oppressor, and the irreligious, tyrannical Jew, and those who are on the alert to catch men tripping, will all be brought to nought. Jacob shall no longer be abashed. The sight of Yahweh's work shall lead him to hallow Israel's God, and those who have no insight and intelligence will then have right understanding.
Isaiah 29:22. who redeemed Abraham: perhaps an insertion. concerning: read, the god of.