NOTES for Isa 29:1-24
Here the prophet calls the city of David Ariel, the lion of God. As we know, in some passages of Scripture the Lord is compared to a lion, and applying such a title to Jerusalem signifies the city’s inseparable bond with its Lord. But even so close a bond cannot shield the city from His anger if its inhabitants have turned away from their Creator. The people called to walk in His ways are compared not only to the drunken, but also to the blind, unable to read what lies before their eyes. Alas, they have chosen this kind of blindness voluntarily.
The description that the prophecy gives such people can be called the key to evaluating them: their reverence for Me consists in learning human commandments. We see how true worship of God is replaced with a surrogate, and this substitution has two main elements: formal piety, in which reverence with the tongue is separated from reverence in the heart, which has vanished somewhere, and the replacement of God’s commandments with others constructed according to one’s own standards.
But in place of those who bear false piety, He will call and raise up new children of His who are able to see and hear Him.