Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Isaiah 29:9

Copyright Ó 2015 J. Neely
Isaiah 29:9

9 Stay [mahahh] yourselves, and wonder [tamahh]; cry ye out [sha`a`], and cry [sha`a`]: they are drunken [shakar], but not with wine [yayin]; they stagger [nuwa`], but not with strong drink [shekar].   KJV-Interlinear

9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!   ESV

Isaiah proclaims the ultimate failure of people who continue in their dysfunctional ways.  They refuse to learn.  They refuse to be taught. They refuse to pursue the spiritual growth process as defined by God and therefore they become no better than a drunken man.

The drunk has dulled senses.  The drunk cannot see clearly.  The drunk cannot gauge where he is or what he is doing or where he is going.  And these are in terms of extremes.  A drunk is not one who has had one or two drinks, but one who has committed himself to a life pattern of constant and perpetual drinking.  His entire life is disoriented and failed.

And that is the person, without drinking, yet becomes like a drunk, but in the spiritually dysfunctional sense.

No spiritual life, no orientation to life.  And a confused person cannot get through life as God intends.  They merely exist until their life is over.

Astonish or stay, ‘mahahh,’ means to stare without seeing, to be dumb or dumbfounded.  And it describes a person who looks and looks and looks at a thing but cannot figure it out. They see it, but do not see it.  They do not comprehend it.  They just stare.




And this is what people without doctrine in their soul, do.  They stare but never see.  Life and truth are there right in front of them, and yet it is their own resistance to learning doctrine, that prevents them from seeing truth.  They do it all to themselves.

Cry out and cry, ‘sha a,’ refers to crying to at some unbelievable spectacle as when one watches a fireworks show or something spectacular.  And yet their eyes are glazed over, seeing only what they wish to see, and are amazed at the life that they have invented for themselves.  They are impressed with themselves.

And so, it is made clear that the blindness is the fault of the individual due to their refusal or indifference or antagonism toward learning truth.

They reject truth, not believing that they have anything to learn. They stagger through life, never knowing that they are staggering.

And so God allows them to exercise their own choices in life, even when they refuse to learn doctrine and thus become disoriented by means of their own decisions.

And this is what the Bible means.  God brings a strong delusion such that they cannot see, cannot understand.

People do this to themselves.

God does everything possible to help people learn truth, but too often people resist learning, and then they have only themselves to blame.