Isaiah 29:9

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Be surprised and amazed. Blind yourselves so that you cannot see. Become drunk, but not from wine. Trip and fall, but not from beer. ¹⁰ The Lord has made you go into a deep sleep. He has closed your eyes. (The prophets are your eyes.) He has covered your heads. (The seers are your heads.) ¹¹ This vision is like the words of a book that is closed and sealed. You may give the book to someone who can read and tell that person to read it. But he will say, "I can't read the book, because it is sealed." ¹² Or you may give the book to someone who cannot read and tell him to read it. But he will say, "I don't know how to read." ¹³ The Lord says: "These people worship me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is based on nothing but human rules. ¹⁴ So I will continue to amaze these people by doing more and more miracles. Their wise men will lose their wisdom; their wise men will not be able to understand." ¹⁵ How terrible it will be for those who try to hide things from the Lord and who do their work in darkness. They think no one will see them or know what they do. ¹⁶ You are confused. You think the clay is equal to the potter. You think that an object can tell the one who made it, "You didn't make me." This is like a pot telling its maker, "You don't know anything."

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 the servant had finished praying, Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, came out of the city. (Bethuel was the son of Milcah and Nahor, Abraham's brother.) Rebekah was carrying her water jar on her shoulder.

Genesis 29:7
Jacob said, "But look, it is still the middle of the day. It is not time for the sheep to be gathered for the night, so give them water and let them go back into the pasture."

Genesis 29:8
But they said, "We cannot do that until all the flocks are gathered. Then we will roll away the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep."

Genesis 29:15
Then Laban said to Jacob, "You are my relative, but it is not right for you to work for me without pay. What would you like me to pay you?"

Genesis 29:16
Now Laban had two daughters. The older was Leah, and the younger was Rachel.

Exodus 2:21
Moses agreed to stay with Jethro, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses to be his wife.

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.