Commentary on Chapter XXIX

1. The city - The royal city, and seat of David and his posterity. Set them - Go on in killing sacrifices from time to time, one year after another, whereby you think to appease me, but all shall be in vain.

4. And thou - Thou who now speakest so loftily, shall be humbled, and with a low voice, beg the favour of thine enemies. As one - Who, that they might possess the people with a kind of reverence and horror, used to deliver their answers with a low voice, from some cave under the ground.

5. Strangers - Whom thou hast hired to assist thee, as indeed they did, when the Chaldeans came against them. Terrible ones - Thy great commanders, and stout soldiers. It - This destruction of thy strangers, and terrible ones shall come to pass.

6. Thou - Thou, O Jerusalem. Fire - With dreadful judgments, which are frequently expressed by these metaphors.

8. His soul - His appetite or desire is unsatisfied. So - No less unsatisfied and insatiable; they shall be always thirsting after more of your blood.

9. Wonder - At the stupidity of this people. Cry - Cry out again and again through astonishment. They stagger - With giddiness or stupidity, which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger.

10. Dead sleep - Hardness of heart, and insensibleness of your danger. Seers - Your magistrates and ministers. Covered - With the veil of ignorance and stupidity.

12. Of all - Of all, your prophets. As a book - In which no man can read, while it is sealed up, as books then sometimes were, being made in the form of rolls. Delivered - Unsealed and opened.

13. Draw near - Namely, in acts of worship. With lips - With outward devotions. But - They do not pay me that love, and fear, and obedience, which I require. And - They worship me not in such a manner, as I have prescribed, but according to mens inventions, preferring the devices and traditions of their false prophets, before my institutions.

14. Hid - Shall disappear and vanish.

15. Seek deep - A metaphor from men, who use to dig deep into the earth, that they may hide any thing there. To hide - Vainly imagining, that they can deceive, not only men, but God, by their external professions. Who - Neither God nor man can discover us.

16. Surely - All your subtle devices, by which you turn yourselves into all shapes. As clay - It is no more to me, than the clay is to the potter, who can alter and dispose it as he sees fit.

17. As a forest - The forest of Lebanon, which was a barren mountain, shall by God's , become a fruitful and populous place; and these places which are now fruitful and populous, shall then become as barren and desolate, as that forest. This is a prophecy of the rejection of the Jews, and of the calling of the .

18. Shall see - Being, by God's , brought out of gross, ignorance and wickedness, unto a clear and saving knowledge of the truth.

19. - The humble and believers. Poor - Mean and despicable people, such as the were in the opinion of the Jews, and such as the greatest part of the first Christians were.

20. That watch - That early and diligently apply themselves to the practice of wickedness.

21. That make a man - That condemn a man, as if he was a great criminal. For him - For God's faithful prophets and ministers. The gate - There the people used to assemble, both upon civil and sacred accounts, and there prophets used to deliver their prophecies. Turn - From his right. The just - The faithful ministers of God. Nought - Not for any great advantage, but for a trifle.

22. - From manifold dangers, and especially from idolatry. Jacob - The Israelites or posterity of Jacob, who had great cause to be ashamed, for their continued , shall at last be brought back to the God of their fathers, and to their Messiah. Pale - Through fear of their enemies.

23. He seeth - When the believing seed of Jacob shall see those children, whom they have begotten to God, by the gospel, even the . The work - The children, not of the flesh, but of the promise, whom I, by my almighty , have . In the midst - Incorporated with the Jews, into one and the same body. Shall - They shall glorify God, with them and for them.

24. That erred - Those who erred from God's truth. Murmured - They that murmured at God's faithful teachers, shall now receive God's truth in the love of it.