Isaiah 29:9

Complete Jewish Bible

If you make yourselves stupid, you will stay stupid! If you blind yourselves, you will stay blind! You are drunk, but not from wine; you are staggering, but not from strong liquor.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Stop and be astonished;blind yourselves and be blind!They are drunk, but not with wine;they stagger, but not with beer.

Hebrew Names Version
Stay you and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

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

English Standard Version
Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!

New American Standard Bible
Be delayed and horrified, Blind yourselves and be blind; They become drunk, but not with wine, They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.

New Century Version
Be surprised and amazed. Blind yourselves so that you cannot see. Become drunk, but not from wine. Trip and fall, but not from beer.

Amplified Bible
Stop and take some time and wonder [at this prophecy], Blind yourselves and be blinded [at its fulfillment by your spiritual incompetence]. They are drunk, but not from wine; They stagger, but not from strong drink.

World English Bible
Stay you and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Stay your selues, and wonder: they are blinde, and make you blinde: they are drunken but not with wine: they stagger, but not by strong drinke.

Legacy Standard Bible
Astonish yourselves and be astonished,Blind yourselves and be blind;They become drunk, but not with wine;They stagger, but not with strong drink.

Berean Standard Bible
Stop and be astonished; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink.

Contemporary English Version
Be shocked and stunned, you prophets! Refuse to see. Get drunk and stagger, but not from wine.

Darby Translation
Be astounded and astonished, blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Easy-to-Read Version
Be surprised and amazed! You will become drunk, but not from wine. Look and be amazed! You will stumble and fall, but not from beer.

George Lamsa Translation
They are dumbfounded and amazed; they are troubled and stagger; they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Good News Translation
Go ahead and be stupid! Go ahead and be blind! Get drunk without any wine! Stagger without drinking a drop!

Lexham English Bible
Be astonished and be amazed! Blind yourselves and be blinded! They are drunk but not from wine; they stagger but not from strong drink.

Literal Translation
Wait and wonder! Blind yourselves, and be blind! They are drunk, but not with wine! They stagger, but not with fermented drink!

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
But ye shalbe at youre wittes ende, ye shalbe abasshed: ye shal stackre, and rele to and fro. Ye shalbe dronken, but not of wyne. Ye shal fall, but not thorow dronkenes:

American Standard Version
Tarry ye and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Bible in Basic English
Be surprised and full of wonder; let your eyes be covered and be blind: be overcome, but not with wine; go with uncertain steps, but not because of strong drink.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Stupefy yourselves, and be stupid! Blind yourselves, and be blind! ye that are drunken, but not with wine, that stagger, but not with strong drink.

King James Version (1611)
Stay your selues and wonder, cry yee out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine, they stagger, but not with strong drinke.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Ponder these thinges once in your mindes, and wonder: Blinded are they them selues, and the blinde guides of other: They are drunken, but not with wine: they are vnstable, but not thorow strong drinke.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Faint ye, and be amazed, and be overpowered, not with strong drink nor with wine.

English Revised Version
Tarry ye and wonder, take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Be ye astonyed, and wondre; wake ye, and douyte ye; be ye drunken, and not of wyn; be ye moued, and not with drunkenesse.

Update Bible Version
Tarry and wonder; take your pleasure and be blind: they are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

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

New English Translation
You will be shocked and amazed! You are totally blind! They are drunk, but not because of wine; they stagger, but not because of beer.

New King James Version
Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunk, but not with wine; They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.

New Living Translation
Are you amazed and incredulous? Don't you believe it? Then go ahead and be blind. You are stupid, but not from wine! You stagger, but not from liquor!

New Life Bible
Stop and wait. Blind yourselves and be blind. They are drunk, but not with wine. They walk from side to side, but not because of strong drink.

New Revised Standard
Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor, blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not from wine; stagger, but not from strong drink!

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Stand ye stock still and stare, Besmear your eyes and be blind, - They are drunken but not with wine, They reel, but not with strong drink;

Douay-Rheims Bible
Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.

Revised Standard Version
Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor, blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!

Young's Literal Translation
Tarry and wonder, look ye, yea, look, Be drunk, and not with wine, Stagger, and not with strong drink.

THE MESSAGE
Drug yourselves so you feel nothing. Blind yourselves so you see nothing. Get drunk, but not on wine. Black out, but not from whiskey. For God has rocked you into a deep, deep sleep, put the discerning prophets to sleep, put the farsighted seers to sleep.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Be delayed and wait, Blind yourselves and be blind; They become drunk, but not with wine, They stagger, but not with strong drink.

Contextual Overview

⁹ If you make yourselves stupid, you will stay stupid! If you blind yourselves, you will stay blind! You are drunk, but not from wine; you are staggering, but not from strong liquor. ¹⁰ For Adonai has poured over you a spirit of lethargy; he has closed your eyes (that is, the prophets) and covered your heads (that is, the seers). ¹¹ For you this whole prophetic vision has become like the message in a sealed-up scroll. When one gives it to someone who can read and says, "Please read this," he answers, "I can't, because it's sealed." ¹² If the scroll is given to someone who can't read with the request, "Please read this," he says, "I can't read." ¹³ Then Adonai said: "Because these people approach me with empty words, and the honor they bestow on me is mere lip-service; while in fact they have distanced their hearts from me, and their ‘fear of me' is just a mitzvah of human origin — ¹⁴ therefore, I will have to keep shocking these people with astounding and amazing things, until the ‘wisdom' of their ‘wise ones' vanishes, and the ‘discernment' of their ‘discerning ones' is hidden away." ¹⁵ Woe to those who burrow down deep to hide their plans from Adonai ! They work in the dark and say to themselves, "Nobody sees us, nobody knows us." ¹⁶ How you turn things upside down! — Is the potter not better than the clay, Does something made say of its maker, "He didn't make me"? Does the product say of its producer, "He has no discernment"?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

and wonder: Isaiah 1:2, Isaiah 33:13, Isaiah 33:14, Jeremiah 2:12, Habakkuk 1:5, Acts 13:40, Acts 13:41, Revelation 17:6

cry ye out, and cry: or, take your pleasure and riot, Isaiah 22:12, Isaiah 22:13, Matthew 26:45, Mark 14:41

they are: Isaiah 29:10, Isaiah 19:14, Isaiah 28:7, Isaiah 28:8, Isaiah 49:26, Isaiah 51:21, Isaiah 51:22, Jeremiah 23:9, Jeremiah 25:27, Jeremiah 51:7, Lamentations 4:21

Reciprocal: Psalms 69:23 - Their eyes Psalms 107:27 - stagger Isaiah 24:20 - reel Isaiah 29:14 - I will Isaiah 42:19 - Who is blind Isaiah 51:20 - full Jeremiah 4:9 - and the priests Jeremiah 13:13 - I will Jeremiah 48:26 - ye him Ezekiel 12:2 - which Amos 8:9 - that I Nahum 3:11 - shalt be drunken Mark 11:33 - We Luke 20:7 - that 2 Thessalonians 2:11 - for Revelation 14:10 - drink

Cross-References

Genesis 24:15
Before he had finished speaking, Rivkah the daughter of B'tu'el son of Milkah the wife of Nachor Avraham's brother, came out with her jug on her shoulder.

Genesis 29:7
He said, "Look, there's still plenty of daylight left; and it isn't time to bring the animals home; so water the sheep; then go, and put them out to pasture."

Genesis 29:8
They answered, "We can't, not until all the flocks have been gathered together, and they roll the stone away from the opening of the well. That's when we water the sheep."

Genesis 29:15
Lavan said to him, "Why should you work for me for nothing, just because you are my relative? Tell me how much I should pay you."

Genesis 29:16
Now Lavan had two daughters; the name of the older was Le'ah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

Exodus 2:21
Moshe was glad to stay on with the man, and he gave Moshe his daughter Tzipporah in marriage.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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 are 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 Isaiah 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, Isaiah 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 השתעשעו "oblectate vos", Cocceius; "delicias agunt", Junius Tremellius "deliciantur", Piscator.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Stay yourselves - Thus far the prophet had given a description of the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, and of his sudden overthrow. He now turns to the Jews, and reproves their stupidity, formality, and hypocrisy; and the remainder of the chapter is occupied with a statement of the prevalence of these sins, of the judgments that must follow, and of the fact that there should yet be an extensive reformation, and turning to the Lord. The word rendered ‘stay yourselves’ (התמהמהוּ hı̂t^emah^em^ehû) means properly “to linger,” tarry, delay Genesis 19:16; Genesis 43:10; 2 Samuel 15:28. Here it seems to denote that state of mind in which anyone is “fixed in astonishment;” in which one stops, and stares at some strange and unexpected occurrence. The object of amazement which the prophet supposes would excite astonishment, was the stupidity, dulness, and hypocrisy of a people who had been so signally favored (compare Habakkuk 1:5).

Cry ye out, and cry - There is in the original here a paronomasia which cannot be conveyed in a translation. The word which is used (השׁתעשׁעוּ hı̂sh^eta‛ash^e‛û) is one form of the verb שׁעע shâ‛a‛, which means, usually, to make smooth, rub, spread over; hence, in the Hithpael form which is used here, to be spread over; and hence, is applied to the eyes Isaiah 6:10, to denote blindness, as if they were overspread with something by reason of which they could not see. Here it probably means, ‘be ye dazzled and blinded,’ that is, ye be astonished, as in the former part of the verse. The idea seems to be that of some object of sudden astonishment that dims the sights and takes away all the powers of vision. The word is used in the same sense in Isaiah 32:3; compare Isaiah 35:5; Isaiah 42:19. Probably the idea here would be well expressed by our word “stare,” ‘stare and look with a stupid surprise;’ denoting the attitude and condition of a man who is amazed at some remarkable and unlooked for spectacle.

They are drunken, but not with wine - The people of Jerusalem. They reel and stagger, but the cause is not that they are drunken with wine. It is a moral and spiritual intoxication and reeling. They err in their doctrines and practice; and it is with them as it is with a drunken man that sees nothing clearly or correctly, and cannot walk steadily. They have perverted all doctrines; they err in their views of God and his truth, and they are irregular and corrupt in their conduct.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 29:9. Stay yourselves, and wonder — התמהמהו hithmahmehu, go on what-what-whatting, in a state of mental indetermination, till the overflowing scourge take you away. Psalms 119:60.

They are drunken, but not with wine — Isaiah 51:21.