The first eight verses of chapter 29 are prophetic, to the core! (At the time of their composition, these predictions remained yet future.) And yet, soon afterward, they were at least partially fulfilled … during the lifetime of Isaiah himself. (A final and even more complete fulfillment awaits, at the end of the Tribulation!)
They (this octad) provide “living proof” of the accuracy of Bible prophecy, these eight verses.
I have divided them in half, for study purposes. (Actually, the Holy Spirit did that, long ago! When He dictated these words to Isaiah.)
First of all … bad times for Israel, for Judah precisely …
“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.” Verses 1-4, of Isaiah 29. God is The Speaker!
“Ariel” (as the context shows) is none other than Jerusalem, the City. Backslidden Jerusalem! They go from “year to year,” merely practicing (empty) sacrificial worship! One group of scholars believes “Ariel” actually means “altar hearth.” They may be right, too! Look at the word’s contextual location, something about “killing sacrifices!”If this etymology is accurate, God may be illustrating the “fire” that is about to fall on this lovely City! The fire of Judgment!
Three “I will” Statements now issue from the Mouth of God.
“I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.” Fiery judgment, a hearth of blazing heat! For purging purposes!
Then … “I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount,” these divine words clearly describing an advancing enemy army, a powerful (well-equipped) one! (Assyria, for sure!) God using heathen King Sennacherib! Yet that deadly force … “in God’s Hands, under God’s Control!”
Then … “I will raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust.” Wow, Isaiah 29:3-4
Jerusalem … “Ariel” … experiencing God’s “fiery” judgment!
The final words of verse four … “and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust,” still spoken by Almighty God, are an enigma to me! Some Hebrew scholars equate the words “familiar spirit” with “ghost,” as in a “dead man talking!” Jerusalem being brought that low! “Nearly extinct,” it looks like, but the key word here is “nearly!”
(Thank God, for Israel’s sake, for Jeremiah 46:28 … “Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: BUT I WILL NOT MAKE A FULL END OF THEE, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.” Amen!)
But now, after four verses … our Text “turns,” gloriously so!
And God attacks/destroys the vicious (Assyrian) army that has nearly decimated Jerusalem! (This is called a “Reversal!”) “Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.” Isaiah 29:5-8, where “strangers” and “terrible ones” are the aggressors, that whole army!
They will suddenly (at God’s behest) be made like “small dust!” As “chaff” driven away by the wind! A vicious “visitation” from God!
God will even use His creation (“thunder, earthquake, storm, tempest”) to fight against the enemy! THEY will ultimately experience the “altar fire” (“Ariel”) of God’s fierce Wrath!
Then one more illustration … this defeat of Assyria … will be like a “bad dream” to her, a “nightmare” I’d say! “It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty.” He dreamed that he ate a meal … but when he awoke, his stomach was still empty!
Then the “bottom line” … “So shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion,” God vows, promises!
The destruction of the Assyrian army!
Wow!
And it happened within just a few years, during Isaiah’s tenure as Prophet! An event we sill study relatively soon … when we reach Isaiah chapters 36 and 37. Suffice it now to say … “185,00 dead Assyrian soldiers” in one night, all slain by the Angel of the Lord!
Bible Prophecy … fulfilled right in front of Isaiah’s eyes! King Hezekiah’s too!
Wow!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
.