Isaiah 29:1

ARIEL

Isaiah 29:1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt.

The word “Ariel” properly means “the Lion of God,” and is elsewhere used of the great brazen altar on which the sacred fire blazed, and which might be said to devour as a lion the sacrifices presented on it to God. In our text, however, “Ariel” is used as a name of Jerusalem. The fact that David had dwelt in it is mentioned, not by way of historical reference, but as aggravating the guiltiness of the city, and as in some way proving that it might expect to be visited with more than common vengeance. In what way is the fact that Jerusalem could be described as “the city where David dwelt” a justification of the woes which the prophet was about to denounce against it? The answer is easy: We are answerable to God for every blessing received at His hands, so that we cannot possess a single privilege which will not, if neglected or abused, be brought against us as a charge and heighten our condemnation. This is as true of communities as of individuals; and the fact that Jerusalem had profited so little, morally and spiritually, from David’s residence in it was a clear aggravation of its guilt.—

1. David had dwelt in Jerusalem as a king. As such, his authority and his example might have been expected to have made a deep impression on the religious life of the people. Consider how powerful is the example of men in exalted stations.—

2. David had dwelt in Jerusalem as a poet. Consider how powerful is the influence of song on national character, and how truly David’s psalms were national songs. As every English child is taught loyalty by the notes of “God save the Queen,” every Jewish child was instructed in piety by the well-known strains of the sweet singer of Israel. Surely if anything could have kept religion alive in Jerusalem, it would have been this writing it into the poetry, this weaving it into the music of the nation. It was like taking possession of the strings of a nation’s heart, and providing that their vibrations should respond only to truth.—

3. The memory of David had long been a blessing to Jerusalem. For his sake evil had been averted from it (2 Kings 19:34). To pronounce a woe upon the Jerusalem or the city where David had dwelt was to tell the Jews that the conservative influence of that monarch’s piety would no longer be of any avail for them; that even as children, though long spared in recompense of the righteousness of their fathers, may reach a point at which they have filled the measure of their guilt, and at which, therefore, they can receive no further favour as the offspring of those whom God hath loved; so their iniquity had reached such a height that forbearance, long manifested for the sake of the most pious of kings, was at length wearied out, and there remained no further place for intercession.

The principle involved in this passage is applicable alike to communities and individuals.

1. It is made the charge against Jerusalem that it was the city where David had dwelt—the plain inference from this being that it was a great aggravation of the national wickedness that so righteous a prince, so zealous a supporter of true religion as David, had sat for years upon the throne of Judah. By parity of reasoning, if there have been raised up in our own country men mighty in the exhibiting and establishing truth, and if in the lapse of time we grow indifferent to the truth, and perhaps even half inclined to the errors which were exposed and expelled, will it not be made a matter of accusation against us that ours is the land in which those worthies dwelt? Suppose, for example, we were to undervalue the Reformation, suppose we were to think lightly of the errors of Popery, then might our text be regarded as denouncing special woe on ourselves—woe to England—to England, the country where Wickliffe, and Cranmer, and Ridley dwelt! For it is not to be questioned that we shall have much to answer for if, after God had raised up Reformers, and they, with incalculable labour and at incalculable cost, had cleansed our Church from the abominations of Popery, we should in any measure let go the truth and make alliance or truce with the tenets or practices of Rome. The same principle is applicable
(2.) to many a parish in which some devoted minister of Christ has laboured, and
(3.) to many a household in which the example and teaching of godly parents have been set at nought.—H. Melvill, B.D.: Sermons Preached during the Latter Years of his Life, vol. i. pp. 125–140.