The Altar of God and the Dream of Nations Text: Isaiah 29:1-8
Introduction: The Hollowness of Dead Religion
We live in an age that is deeply religious, but it is a religion without substance, a faith without a pulse. Modern man is quite happy to go through the motions. He will check the boxes, attend the services, and mouth the creeds, so long as God promises not to interfere with his life Monday through Saturday. This is the great temptation of every generation of God's people: to substitute the outward forms of worship for the inward reality of a heart set ablaze by the grace of God. It is the temptation to have a liturgy, but no life; a creed, but no Christ.
This is precisely the condition of Jerusalem that Isaiah confronts in our text. The city is bustling with religious activity. The sacrifices are being made, the feasts are being observed, the calendar is being kept with meticulous precision. From the outside, it looks like a model of piety. But God is not fooled by outward appearances. He sees the heart, and He finds it cold, distant, and rebellious. He sees a people who draw near with their lips but whose hearts are a thousand miles away. And so, He pronounces a woe. Not a woe upon the pagans, not a woe upon the godless nations, but a woe upon His own covenant city, the place where He had chosen to put His name.
This passage is a bucket of ice water for any church that has grown comfortable in its routines. It is a divine warning against the soul-destroying danger of formalism. God is telling us, in no uncertain terms, that He would rather have a handful of repentant sinners with broken hearts than a multitude of well-dressed hypocrites going through a flawless liturgy. He is not interested in the clockwork of our religion; He is interested in the condition of our souls. And when His people mistake the former for the latter, He will bring a severe and startling discipline. He will, in fact, go to war with them in order to save them.
The Text
Woe, O Ariel, Ariel the city where David once camped! Add year to year, observe your feasts on schedule. I will bring distress to Ariel, And she will be a city of mourning and moaning; And she will be like an Ariel to me. And I will camp against you encircling you, And I will fortify siegeworks against you, And I will raise up fortifications against you. Then you will be brought low; From the earth you will speak, And from the dust where you are prostrate Your words will come. Your voice will also be like that of a spirit from the ground, And your speech will whisper from the dust. But it will be that the multitude of your enemies will become like fine dust, And the multitude of the ruthless ones like the chaff which blows away; And it will happen instantly, suddenly. From Yahweh of hosts you will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, With whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire. And it will be that the multitude of all the nations who wage war against Ariel, Even all who wage war against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, Will be like a dream, a vision of the night. And it will be as when a hungry man dreams, And behold, he is eating; But he awakens, and his soul is empty, Or as when a thirsty man dreams, And behold, he is drinking, But he awakens, and behold, he is faint, And his soul is not quenched. Thus the multitude of all the nations will be Who wage war against Mount Zion.
(Isaiah 29:1-8 LSB)
Woe to the Altar City (vv. 1-2)
The prophecy begins with a declaration of woe, a funeral dirge for a city that is still alive but spiritually dead.
"Woe, O Ariel, Ariel the city where David once camped! Add year to year, observe your feasts on schedule. I will bring distress to Ariel, And she will be a city of mourning and moaning; And she will be like an Ariel to me." (Isaiah 29:1-2)
The name Isaiah uses for Jerusalem is "Ariel." This name has a double meaning, and the entire force of the passage hangs on this brilliant and terrible wordplay. On the one hand, Ariel means "Lion of God." Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, the tribe of the lion (Gen. 49:9). It was the city of David, the lion-like king. It was meant to be strong, majestic, and victorious under God. But on the other hand, the word Ariel, particularly in Ezekiel, refers to the "altar hearth," the place on the great altar in the temple where the sacrifices were consumed by fire. God is saying, "You think you are Ariel, the Lion of God, but because of your hypocrisy, you will become an Ariel to me, an altar hearth." The whole city will become a place of burning, a place of sacrifice, a holocaust.
Notice the biting sarcasm in God's command: "Add year to year, observe your feasts on schedule." He is saying, "Go ahead. Keep up your religious charade. Keep your liturgical calendar. Let the festivals run their course. It will do you no good." Their worship was impeccable in its form and utterly bankrupt in its substance. They were honoring God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him (Is. 29:13). This is a terrifying thought. It is possible to be meticulously orthodox, liturgically correct, and doctrinally sound, and yet be under the judgment of God. God is not impressed with our religious machinery. He is looking for faith, repentance, and love.
Because their worship is hollow, God promises to bring distress. The city of feasting will become a city of "mourning and moaning." God Himself will turn her into an altar of judgment. This is the principle of covenantal discipline. When God's people begin to take His grace for granted and play at religion, He will not simply abandon them. He loves them too much for that. Instead, He will bring the fire. He will chasten them, discipline them, and purify them, even if it means turning their beloved city into a furnace.
God at War with His People (vv. 3-4)
The agent of this discipline is Yahweh Himself. He does not merely permit the disaster; He orchestrates it.
"And I will camp against you encircling you, And I will fortify siegeworks against you, And I will raise up fortifications against you. Then you will be brought low; From the earth you will speak, And from the dust where you are prostrate Your words will come." (Isaiah 29:3-4)
This is one of the most shocking reversals in Scripture. The God who had promised to be a wall of fire around Jerusalem (Zech. 2:5) now promises to build siege works against it. The God who encamped around His people to protect them now encamps against them to prosecute them. He becomes their primary adversary. He will use the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians, as the axe in His hand, but we must never forget that it is His hand wielding the axe.
The result of this divine siege is total humiliation. The proud city, the "Lion of God," will be brought so low that her voice will be like a whisper from the dust. She will be like a ghost, a spirit from the ground. This is the language of necromancy, of seeking answers from the dead. The city that was supposed to be the source of God's living word to the nations will be reduced to a pathetic, ghostly mumble. This is what happens when we trade the vibrant reality of God for the dead husk of religion. We become ghosts of our former selves, whispering from the dust of our own self-righteousness.
The Sudden, Shocking Reversal (vv. 5-6)
But just as the judgment seems absolute, the prophecy pivots with breathtaking speed. The dust of humiliation becomes the dust of God's enemies.
"But it will be that the multitude of your enemies will become like fine dust, And the multitude of the ruthless ones like the chaff which blows away; And it will happen instantly, suddenly. From Yahweh of hosts you will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, With whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire." (Isaiah 29:5-6)
Here is the glorious paradox of God's covenant love. He uses the nations to discipline His people, but He will not allow the nations to triumph over them. Just when Jerusalem is at its lowest point, whispering from the dust, God will turn on her tormentors. The massive, terrifying armies of the enemy will suddenly become like fine dust, like chaff in the wind. The reversal will be instantaneous.
And who accomplishes this? Yahweh of hosts. The same God who besieged Jerusalem now turns His divine weaponry on her enemies. The language here is that of a theophany, a direct, cataclysmic intervention of God in history. He comes with thunder, earthquake, storm, and fire. This is not just a military victory; it is a divine judgment. God is demonstrating that while He has the right to discipline His children, no one else does. He will punish the rod He uses to chastise His people. This is a profound comfort. Even in His fiercest discipline, God's ultimate intention is not our destruction, but our salvation and the destruction of His enemies.
The Dream of the Nations (vv. 7-8)
Isaiah concludes this section with a brilliant and devastating metaphor for the futility of opposing God's people.
"And it will be that the multitude of all the nations who wage war against Ariel... Will be like a dream, a vision of the night. And it will be as when a hungry man dreams, And behold, he is eating; But he awakens, and his soul is empty, Or as when a thirsty man dreams, And behold, he is drinking; But he awakens, and behold, he is faint, And his soul is not quenched." (Isaiah 29:7-8)
The grand military ambitions of the pagan empires, their sieges and their assaults against Mount Zion, are nothing more than a dream. They seem utterly real, terrifyingly substantial in the moment, but when God decides the night is over, they will simply vanish. They will wake up to find that their victory was an illusion.
The simile of the hungry and thirsty dreamer is perfect. The nations hunger for conquest. They thirst for the destruction of God's city. In their dream, they have it all. They are feasting on the spoils, drinking the wine of victory. But the dawn comes. God awakens them, and they find themselves empty, faint, and unsatisfied. Their dream of conquest turns to the dust of reality. This is the ultimate fate of every individual, every ideology, and every empire that sets itself against Christ and His Church. They may have their moment in the dark, their night of apparent triumph, but the Son will rise, and they will awaken to find that their souls are empty and their cause is lost. History is littered with the empty souls of nations that dreamed of devouring the Church.
Conclusion: The Altar of the Cross
This passage is a stark warning, but it is also filled with a profound gospel hope. It shows us a God who takes worship seriously, so seriously that He will discipline His people for hypocrisy. But it also shows us a God who is fiercely jealous for His people, who will defend them and vindicate them in the end.
The ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy is found at the cross. At Calvary, Jerusalem truly became Ariel, the altar hearth of God. There, the wrath of God against all our religious hypocrisy, all our lip-service, all our cold-hearted formalism, was poured out. But it was not poured out on us. It was poured out on the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He was brought low, even to the dust of death. He became the ultimate sacrifice on the ultimate altar.
And in that moment of ultimate darkness and apparent defeat, the great reversal happened. Instantly, suddenly, on the third day, God raised Him from the dead. The powers of darkness, who dreamed they had devoured the Lion of the tribe of Judah, awoke to find their souls empty and their victory a phantom. The cross, which seemed to be the triumph of God's enemies, was in fact their undoing. It was the thunder and earthquake of God's final victory.
Therefore, we are called to come to God not with the dead rituals of a religion we think will appease Him, but with the empty hands of faith in the one who was sacrificed for us. We must abandon all pretense and all hypocrisy. We must confess that our hearts are often far from Him, even as we sing His praises. And we must trust that because He became the altar for us, we are now accepted, not on the basis of our flawless performance, but on the basis of His finished work. He is the God who turns our mourning into dancing, our judgment into salvation, and the fleeting dreams of our enemies into the everlasting reality of His kingdom.