Isaiah 29:1

Woe to Ariel

Ariel

The simplest meaning of “Ariel” is “lion of God”; but it also signifies “hearth of God” when derived from another root.

In the former sense it comes to mean “a hero,” as in 2 Samuel 23:20; Isaiah 33:7;and in the latter it occurs in Ezekiel 43:15 for the brazen hearth of the great altar of burnt offerings, thence commonly called “the brazen,” though the rest of it was of stone. There is no doubt that Jerusalem is pointed out by this enigmatical name; and the immediate context, as well as the expression in Isaiah 31:9 --“Jehovah, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem”--makes it probable that Isaiah intended to involve both meanings in the word, as though he had said, “Woe to the city of heroes, woe to the city of sacrifices: it shall now be put to the test what God and what man think as to both.” (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Jerusalem, “the lion of God”

David, that lion of God, had first encamped against Jerusalem, and then made it the abode of his royal house, and the capital of his kingdom; so that it became itself an Ariel, the lion of God, in the land (Genesis 49:9). (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Jerusalem, “the hearth of God”

By David’s pitching his camp and then bringing the sacred ark there, Jerusalem became God’s hearth. (F. Delitzsch.)

Ariel

The Rabbins combine the two explanations of the Hebrew word by supposing that the altar was itself called the lion of God, because it devoured the victims like a lion, or because the fire on it had the appearance of a lion, or because the altar (or the temple) was in shape like a lion, that is, narrow behind and broad in front. (J. A. Alexander.)

Ariel

In either case applied as a symbol of hope. “But she shall be unto Me as an Ariel,” i.e., in the extremity of her need I will enable her to verify her name (Cheyne). (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)

Woe to Ariel

After the vicissitudes of 300 years, and in the midst of present dangers, the people of Jerusalem were still confident in the strength of their “lion of God,” and year by year came up to the public festivals to lay their accustomed offerings on the “altar of God”; though with little remembrance that it was not in the altar and the city, but in Jehovah Himself, that David put trust, and found his strength. Therefore Jehovah will bring Ariel low; the proud roar of the lion shall be changed for the weak, stridulous voice, which the art of the ventriloquising necromancer brings out of the ground; and the enemies of Jehovah shall be sacrificed and consumed on the hearth of this altar. First, His spiritual enemies among the Jews themselves, but afterwards the heathen oppressors of His people; and the lion shall recover his God-derived strength; and thus, both in adversity and in success, “it shall be unto Me as Ariel.” (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Woe to Ariel

The prophet has a very startling message to deliver: that God will besiege His own city, the city of David! Before God can make her in truth His own, make her verify her name, He will have to beleaguer and reduce her. For so novel and startling an intimation the prophet pleads a precedent: “City which David” himself “beleaguered.” Once before in thy history, ere the first time thou wast made God’s own hearth, thou hadst to be besieged. As then, so now. Before thou canst again be a true Ari-El I must “beleaguer thee like David.” This reading and interpretation gives to the enigma a reason and a force which it does not otherwise possess. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)

“The city where David dwelt”

We consider it every way remarkable that David should be mentioned in connection with the woe about to be uttered. If it had been, “Woe unto Ariel, the city where flagrant sins are committed, the city which is overrun with idols, and filled with all kinds of abomination,” we should have seen at once the force of the sentence, and must have felt the wrath warranted by the alleged crimes. But why bring it as a chief accusation against Jerusalem--indeed, as the only charge that was to justify God in pouring out His vengeance--that it was the city where David had dwelt? We can hardly think that the definition is meant as nothing more than a statement of fact. David had long been dead; strange changes had occurred, and it would be making the essential term too insignificant to suppose it to contain only a historical reference to an assertion that no one doubted, but which is quite unconnected with the present message from God. We must rather believe that the city is characterised, “where David dwelt,” in order to show that it deserved the woe about to be denounced. This is evidently mentioned as aggravating the guiltiness of the city. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Good men increase the responsibility of a community

We seem warranted in concluding that, its having been made eminent by the piety of the servants of God, by their zeal for God, and by their earnestness in preserving the purity of their worship, entails a weighty responsibility on a city or country; so that if, in any after time, that city or country degenerate in godliness, and become, by its sins, obnoxious to vengeance, it will be one of the heaviest items in the charge brought against it, that it was dwelt in by saints so distinguished. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

National mercies

I. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE WOE OF JERUSALEM AND JERUSALEM BEING THE CITY WHERE DAVID DWELT. There are other considerations, over and above the general one of the responsibility fastened on a people by the having had a king of extraordinary piety, which go to the explaining why the woe upon Jerusalem should be followed by a reference to David. David was eminent as a prophet of the Lord; he had been commissioned to announce, in sundry most remarkable predictions, the Messiah, of whom, in many respects, he was, moreover, an illustrious type. It was true, there had been others of whom the prophet might think. There is a peculiar appositeness in the reference to David, because his writings were the very best adapted to the fixing themselves on the popular mind. These writings were the national anthems; they were the songs to be chanted in those daily and annual solemnities which belonged to the Jews in their political as much as in their religious capacity, in which the princes were associated with the priests, so that the civil was hardly to be distinguished from the ecclesiastic. So beloved as David was of God, he must have bequeathed a blessing to the nation: for righteous kings, like righteous fathers, entail good on a nation. Indeed, it is evident, from other parts of Isaiah, that the memory of David was still a tower of strength at Jerusalem, so that, for his sake, was evil averted from the city. When Sennacherib and his hosts encamped against the city, and the heart of Hezekiah was dismayed, it was in terms such as these that God addressed Israel, “I will defend this city, to save it for Mine own sake, and for My servant David’s sake.” Was it not like telling the Jews that they were no longer to be borne with for the sake of David, to pronounce, “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt”? Was it not declaring, that the period was drawing to a close, during which the conservatism of the monarch’s piety could be felt? The prophet might be considered as showing both how just and how terrible those judgments would be. He showed their justice, because the having had amongst them such a king and prophet as David, made the Jews inexcusable in their wickedness: he showed their severity, because it was the city of David which God was about to punish.

II. MAKE AN APPLICATION OF THE SUBJECT. We pass at once to the Reformation, and substitute the reformers for David, and England for Ariel. We must consider what it was that the reformers did for us; from what they delivered us; and in what they instructed us. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Ariel

“It will be to Me as an Ariel” (Isaiah 29:2), i.e., through My help it will prove itself a hearth of God, consuming its enemies like a fiery furnace, or these enemies finding destruction in Jerusalem, like wood heaped on an altar and set ablaze. (F. Delitzsch.)

Love and chastisement

The Lord has never spared the elect. Election gives Him rights of discipline. We may inflict punishment upon those who are ours, when we may not lay the hand of chastisement upon those who do not belong to us. Love has its own law court. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Add ye year to year; let the feasts come round (R.V.)

Links in a golden chain (from R.V.)

Speaking of the gay temper of the Greeks, Quinet describes them as “a people who count their years by their games.” In a more serious spirit the Jews counted their years by their religious festivals, We have a Christian year whose festivals celebrate the great events in the life of our Lord. We are adding year to year, the feasts come and go, and it behoves us to inquire what we are doing with them, what they are doing for us.

I. THERE IS AN UNSATISFACTORY WAY OF SPENDING THE YEARS. The implied complaint of the text is that the inhabitants of Jerusalem failed to benefit by their recurring privileges, and that the lapse of time brought them nearer to destruction. The trumpet of the new year in vain called them to a new life; the day of atonement passed leaving them with uncancelled sin; the Feast of Tabernacles and that of Pentecost awoke in them no love, constrained them to no obedience to the Giver of the harvest. Is this not true of thousands of those over whom pass the festivals of the Christian year? They are, indeed, all the worse for the lengthening days and multiplying Opportunities.

II. THERE IS A TRUE WAY OF SPENDING THE YEARS, and that is in enjoying and improving this life in the fear of God and in the light of eternity. Victor Hugo speaks of an old man as “a thinking ruin.” Paul the aged was such a “ruin,” and he had something grand to think about. (W. L. Watkinson.)