Isaiah 29:9

WEB

Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

KJV

Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Commentary

Stay yourselves, and wonder,.... Stop a while, pause a little, consider within yourselves the case and circumstances of these people, and wonder at their stupidity. Kimchi thinks these words were spoken in the times of Ahaz, with respect to the men of Judah; and so Aben Ezra says, they ar e directed to the men of Zion; and it is generally thought that they are spoken to the more religious and sober part of them; though, by the following verse Isa 29:10 , it appears that the case was general, and that the people to whom this address is made were as stupid as others: cry ye out, and cry; or, "delight yourselves" (s), as in the margin; take your pleasure, indulge yourselves in carnal mirth, gratify your sensual appetite in rioting and wantonness, and then "cry" and lament, as you will have reason to do. Kimchi says, his father rendered the words, "awake yourselves, and awake others"; that is, from that deep sleep they were fallen into, afterwards mentioned: they are drunken, but not with wine; not with that only, for otherwise many of them were given to drunkenness in a literal sense, Isa 28:7 but they were like drunken men, as stupid, senseless, and secure, though in the utmost danger: they stagger, but not with strong drink; unsteady in their counsels and resolutions, in their principles and practices, and stumble in their goings. (s) "oblectate vos", Cocceius; "delicias agunt", Junius & Tremellius; "deliciantur", Piscator.