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.

Stay yourselves - `Stand in astonishment:' Hebrew, hithmahmehu-literally, linger or tarry; hence, that state of mind in which one stops, fixed to the spot with amazement at some strange and unexpected event. The root is the Hebrew interrogative mah?-`what?' for one lingering is wont to ask, What if so and so should happen? Expressing the stupid and amazed incredulity with which the Jews received Isaiah's announcement.

And wonder - the second imperative, as often (Isaiah 8:9), is a threat; the first is a simple declaration of a fact, 'Stand astounded, since you choose to be so, at the prophecy, soon you will be amazed at the sight of the actual event' (Maurer).

Cry ye out, and cry, [ hishta`ash`uw (H8173) waasho`uw (H8173)] - cry out at the prophecy, and ye shall have reason to cry at the event: from a root shaawa` (H7768) or shuwa` (H7769), 'to cry.' Maurer, after Castalio and the Tigurine version, takes it from a root [ shaa`a` (H8173)], to smear over the eye; Chaldee, shua`: or the Hebrew [ shaa`aah (H8159)], to shut (Isaiah 6:10; Isaiah 32:3). 'Be ye blinded (since you choose to be so, though the light shines all round you), and soon ye shall be blinded' in good earnest, to your sorrow. Gesenius takes it in the sense, 'Take your pleasure,' as in Psalms 94:19, "delight" is the translation of the same Hebrew. Irony, as in Ecclesiastes 11:9: cf. margin. Maurer's view is best, if the English version be rejected: as Isaiah 6:10 (the same Hebrew, "shut their eyes") favours it. Also next verse, "the Lord ... hath closed your eye."

Drunken, but not with wine - but with spiritual paralysis (Isaiah 51:17; Isaiah 51:21).

Ye ... they - the change from speaking to, to speaking of them, intimates that the prophet turns away from them to a greater distance, because of their stupid unbelief.