SEV Biblia, Chapter 29:7
Y será como sueńo de visión nocturna la multitud de todos los gentiles que pelearán contra Ariel; y todos los que pelearán contra ella, y sus ingenios; y los que la pondrán en apretura.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Isaiah 29:7
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 humour Non datur, ardourem in membris qui stinguere possit; Sed laticum simulacra petit, frustraque labourat, In medioque sitit torrenti flumine potans.
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 awaketk; 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 htdxmw hybx tsobeyha umetsodathah, I read, with the Chaldee, µtdxmw µabx tsebaam umetsodatham.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Judgements on Jerusalem and on its enemies. (Is. 29:1-8) The senselessness and hypocrisy of the Jews. (Is. 29:9-16) The conversio of the Gentiles, and future blessings for the Jews. (Is. 29:17-24)
Is. 29:1-8 Ariel may signify the altar of burnt-offerings. Le Jerusalem know that outward religious services will not make men fre from judgements. Hypocrites never can please God, nor make their peac with him. God had often and long, by a host of angels, encamped roun about Jerusalem for protection and deliverance; but now he fough against it. Proud looks and proud language shall be brought down by humbling providences. The destruction of Jerusalem's enemies i foretold. The army of Sennacherib went as a dream; and thus the multitudes, that through successive ages fight against God's altar an worship, shall fall. Speedily will sinners awake from their soothin dreams in the pains of hell.
Is. 29:9-16 The security of sinners in sinful ways, is cause for lamentation and wonder. The learned men, through prejudice, said tha the Divine prophecies were obscure; and the poor urged their want of learning. The Bible is a sealed book to every man, learned of unlearned, till he begins to study it with a simple heart and teachable spirit, that he may thence learn the truth and the will of God. To worship God, is to approach him. And if the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of it the mouth will speak; but there are many whose religion is lip-labour only. When they pretend to be speaking to God, they are thinking of a thousand foolish things They worship the God of Israel according to their own devices. Number are only formal in worship. And their religion is only to comply with custom, and to serve their own interest. But the wanderings of mind and defects in devotion, which are the believer's burden, are very different from the withdrawing of the heart from God, so severel blamed. And those who make religion no more than a pretence, to serve turn, deceive themselves. And as those that quarrel with God, so thos that think to conceal themselves from him, in effect charge him with folly. But all their perverse conduct shall be entirely done away.
Is. 29:17-24 The wonderful change here foretold, may refer to the affairs of Judah, though it looks further. When a great harvest of souls was gathered to Christ from among the Gentiles, then the wilderness was turned into a fruitful field; and the Jewish church that had long been a fruitful field, became as a deserted forest. Thos who, when in trouble, can truly rejoice in God, shall soon have caus greatly to rejoice in him. The grace of meekness contributes to the increase of our holy joy. The enemies who were powerful shall becom mean and weak. To complete the repose of God's people, the scorners a home shall be cut off by judgements. All are apt to speak unadvisedly and to mistake what they hear, but it is very unfair to make a man a offender for a word. They did all they could to bring those int trouble who told them of their faults. But He that redeemed Abraham ou of his snares and troubles, will redeem those who are, by faith, his true seed, out of theirs. It will be the greatest comfort to godl parents to see their children renewed creatures, the work of God' grace. May those who now err in spirit, and murmur against the truth come to understanding, and learn true doctrine. The Spirit of trut shall set right their mistakes, and lead them into all truth. Thi should encourage us to pray for those that have erred, and ar deceived. All who murmured at the truths of God, as hard sayings, shal learn and be aware what God designed in all. See the change religio produces in the hearts of men, and the peace and pleasure of a humbl and devout spirit __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
והיה 1961 כחלום 2472 חזון 2377 לילה 3915 המון 1995 כל 3605 הגוים 1471 הצבאים 6633 על 5921 אריאל 740 וכל 3605 צביה 6633 ומצדתה 4685 והמציקים׃ 6693
