Isaiah 29:9

9 Stay you and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Isaiah 29:9 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 29:9

Stay yourselves, and wonder
Stop a while, pause a little, consider within yourselves the case and circumstances of these people, and wonder at their stupidity. Kimchi thinks these words were spoken in the times of Ahaz, with respect to the men of Judah; and so Aben Ezra says, they are directed to the men of Zion; and it is generally thought that they are spoken to the more religious and sober part of them; though, by the following verse ( Isaiah 29:10 ) , it appears that the case was general, and that the people to whom this address is made were as stupid as others: cry ye out, and cry;
or, "delight yourselves" F19, as in the margin; take your pleasure, indulge yourselves in carnal mirth, gratify your sensual appetite in rioting and wantonness, and then "cry" and lament, as you will have reason to do. Kimchi says, his father rendered the words, "awake yourselves, and awake others"; that is, from that deep sleep they were fallen into, afterwards mentioned: they are drunken, but not with wine;
not with that only, for otherwise many of them were given to drunkenness in a literal sense, ( Isaiah 28:7 ) but they were like drunken men, as stupid, senseless, and secure, though in the utmost danger: they stagger, but not with strong drink;
unsteady in their counsels and resolutions, in their principles and practices, and stumble in their goings.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 (wevetvh) "oblectate vos", Cocceius; "delicias agunt", Junius & Tremellius; "deliciantur", Piscator.

Isaiah 29:9 In-Context

7 The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ari'el, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, shall be as a dream, a vision of the night.
8 It shall be as when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against Mount Tziyon.
9 Stay you and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
10 For the LORD has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and your heads, the seers, has he covered.
11 All vision is become to you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is learned, saying, Read this, I pray you; and he says, I can't, for it is sealed:
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.