Isaiah 29 - Blindness, Judgment, and Restoration
When I first started looking at Isaiah 29, I thought I was going to be dealing primarily with a prophecy about Jerusalem being attacked and then delivered. That certainly is part of what is happening here, and the historical setting of Assyria and Jerusalem under Hezekiah belongs in this chapter. But the more I went through the Hebrew and followed Isaiah's own language through the chapter, the more I realized that the siege is only part of what God is showing us. Isaiah is dealing with something much deeper. He is showing us what happens when God's people continue going through the outward motions of worship while their hearts have moved away from Him. He shows us what happens when people think they understand God while actually refusing to hear Him, when human wisdom is placed above God's wisdom, and when people begin hiding their plans as though God cannot see them. Then, after all of that judgment, God begins to reverse the condition He has exposed. The deaf hear. The ...