“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! Add year to year; let feasts come around. Yet I will distress Ariel; there shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to Me as Ariel.” (vv.1-2)
Ariel, which means “Lion of God,” is another name for Jerusalem. It can also mean, “God’s altar hearth,” suggesting the place where a burnt offering was consumed by fire. The woe foretold here in chapter 29 by Isaiah the prophet warns that Jerusalem, the City of David, was going to be besieged by a foreign nation. It would be the place where God would consume them by fire, where His people would be disciplined for their continued sin.
At the time Isaiah wrote this, the Jew’s faith had deteriorated to a level of almost purely ritualistic. God was saying, year after year, you bring all these sacrifices, but you lack of true repentance. You go through the rituals but you do not seek Me. You sing your songs to Me, but your hearts are far from Me. And to make matters worse, they thought God did not know their hearts, nor see their thoughts (vv.14-16).
Many people today are the same way. They play church, they are there, they smile, they say and do all the right things, but their heart is far from Gods. Scripture tells us that, "God does not see as man sees, He looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). That means He knows us inwardly, our very thoughts. Nothing is hidden from Him (Luke 8:17). Better to come clean and repent, than to think God does not see and will not punish.
The Truth: “For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child” (Hebrews 12:6).
Ariel, which means “Lion of God,” is another name for Jerusalem. It can also mean, “God’s altar hearth,” suggesting the place where a burnt offering was consumed by fire. The woe foretold here in chapter 29 by Isaiah the prophet warns that Jerusalem, the City of David, was going to be besieged by a foreign nation. It would be the place where God would consume them by fire, where His people would be disciplined for their continued sin.
At the time Isaiah wrote this, the Jew’s faith had deteriorated to a level of almost purely ritualistic. God was saying, year after year, you bring all these sacrifices, but you lack of true repentance. You go through the rituals but you do not seek Me. You sing your songs to Me, but your hearts are far from Me. And to make matters worse, they thought God did not know their hearts, nor see their thoughts (vv.14-16).
Many people today are the same way. They play church, they are there, they smile, they say and do all the right things, but their heart is far from Gods. Scripture tells us that, "God does not see as man sees, He looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). That means He knows us inwardly, our very thoughts. Nothing is hidden from Him (Luke 8:17). Better to come clean and repent, than to think God does not see and will not punish.
The Truth: “For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child” (Hebrews 12:6).
