Drunk on Disobedience, Blinded by the Book
Introduction: The Judgment of the Locked Door
We live in an age that is drunk. Not necessarily on wine or strong drink, though there is certainly plenty of that. No, our age is intoxicated with itself. It is drunk on its own cleverness, staggering under the weight of its own supposed autonomy, and blinded by the sheer volume of its own information. We have more data at our fingertips than any generation in history, and yet we have less wisdom. We have libraries of books, but the one Book that matters remains sealed. This is not a new phenomenon. It is an ancient, covenantal problem. It is the problem of a people who have the Word of God but refuse to hear it, and so God, in a terrifying act of judgment, helps them along in their deafness.
The context here in Isaiah is crucial. The southern kingdom of Judah, feeling the heat from the Assyrian war machine, is playing footsie with Egypt. They are engaged in high-stakes political maneuvering, making secret deals, and trusting in chariots and horses. They are acting like sophisticated, worldly-wise pragmatists. In short, they are acting like practical atheists. They have the law, the temple, and the prophets, but when the rubber meets the road, they trust in the arm of the flesh. They are trying to serve God and Pharaoh.
And so God sends Isaiah to deliver this message. It is a diagnosis of their spiritual condition, which is a self-inflicted stupor. But it is more than a diagnosis; it is a sentence. God's judgment here is not fire from heaven or a foreign army, not yet. The initial judgment is far more subtle and far more terrible. He is going to give them exactly what they want. They want to be blind to His counsel? Fine. He will shut their eyes for them. They want to be deaf to His warnings? Very well. He will seal the book. This is the judgment of the locked door. The light is on, the feast is prepared, but the door is shut, and they have lost the key.
The Text
Astonish yourselves and be astonished,
Blind yourselves and be blind;
They become drunk, but not with wine;
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
For Yahweh has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep;
He has shut your eyes, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, the seers.
The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, "Please read this," he will say, "I cannot, for it is sealed."
Then the book will be given to the one who does not know how to read a book, saying, "Please read this." And he will say, "I do not know how to read a book."
(Isaiah 29:9-12 LSB)
The Self-Inflicted Stupor (v. 9)
The passage opens with a series of sharp, ironic commands.
"Astonish yourselves and be astonished, Blind yourselves and be blind; They become drunk, but not with wine; They stagger, but not with strong drink." (Isaiah 29:9)
God is essentially telling Judah, "Go ahead. Keep doing what you are doing, and see where it gets you. Marvel at your own folly." This is divine sarcasm. The command "blind yourselves" reveals the initial responsibility. This is a choice they have made. They have actively chosen to ignore the plain Word of God delivered through Isaiah. They have squeezed their eyes shut because they do not like the light. This is the principle the apostle Paul lays out in Romans 1. When men suppress the truth in unrighteousness, God gives them over to it. The first step in judicial hardening is always taken by the sinner, not by God.
The result of this self-inflicted blindness is a spiritual intoxication. They are "drunk, but not with wine." They are high on their own supply of political shrewdness. They are staggering from the intoxicating effects of their own rebellion and pride. A drunk man thinks he is walking a straight line. He thinks his speech is coherent. He thinks his judgment is sound. But to everyone else, he is a fool, weaving and stumbling toward a ditch. This was Judah. They thought their alliance with Egypt was a masterstroke of foreign policy. In reality, it was a drunken stumble away from the covenant faithfulness that was their only true security.
The Divine Confirmation (v. 10)
What begins as a human choice is then confirmed by a divine judgment. Verse 10 shows us the terrifying transition from self-inflicted blindness to a God-sent stupor.
"For Yahweh has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep; He has shut your eyes, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, the seers." (Isaiah 29:10)
Notice the active agent here is Yahweh. He pours out the spirit of deep sleep. This is not God tempting them to sin. This is God cementing them in the sin they have already chosen. He is giving them over to their own delusions. It is the same principle we see with Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and then the text says God hardened it. God confirms the trajectory of the rebellious will. This is one of the most fearsome judgments in all of Scripture. It is when God says, "You want to sleep through my warnings? Fine. I will give you a spiritual coma you cannot wake from."
And how does He do this? He shuts the eyes and covers the heads of their spiritual leaders. The prophets and seers were meant to be the eyes of the nation. But when the people refuse to look where the prophets point, God puts a bag over the prophet's head. The Word of the Lord becomes scarce. The vision ceases. Why? Because the Word is precious, and God will not have it perpetually trampled underfoot. When a people despises its preachers, God will eventually take them away, or He will render their message opaque to the despisers. The leadership is blinded, and the nation they lead is therefore destined for the ditch.
The Incomprehensible Word (v. 11-12)
The result of this spiritual coma is that the very Word of God becomes unintelligible. It is present, but it is inaccessible.
"The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, 'Please read this,' he will say, 'I cannot, for it is sealed.' Then the book will be given to the one who does not know how to read a book, saying, 'Please read this.' And he will say, 'I do not know how to read a book.'" (Isaiah 29:11-12)
This is a brilliant illustration of total spiritual inability. God divides the people into two groups: the educated and the uneducated. And both are equally helpless before the Word.
First, you have the literate man. This is the scribe, the priest, the theologian, the seminary graduate. He has all the intellectual tools. He can read the Hebrew. He can parse the grammar. He can analyze the literary structure. You hand him the scroll of Isaiah's prophecy and say, "Please, tell us what this means." And his answer is, "I cannot, for it is sealed." He can see the words, but he cannot access the meaning. The book is sealed not because of a wax seal on the outside, but because of a spiritual seal on his heart. This is the curse of dead orthodoxy. It is the condition of having a form of godliness but denying its power. It is the ability to ace a systematic theology exam and still be spiritually blind as a bat.
Second, you have the illiterate man. The common person. His excuse is more straightforward: "I do not know how to read a book." He lacks even the basic tools. He represents the simple man who is led astray because his leaders are blind. He is doubly lost. He cannot read the book, and even if he could, it would be sealed to him anyway.
The point is this: the problem is not with the book. The vision is not inherently obscure. The problem is with the readers. Whether educated or ignorant, their rebellion has rendered them incapable of understanding God's plain speech. The Bible is not a hard book to understand; it is an impossible book to understand for a heart that is at war with its Author.
The Unsealer of the Book
This passage leaves us in a desperate situation. The people are drunk, the prophets are blind, and the book is sealed. Who can reverse this curse? Who can wake the sleepers and unseal the book?
Isaiah's prophecy hangs in the air, demanding a solution. And that solution is found centuries later, in the book of Revelation. John sees a scroll in the right hand of God, a book sealed with seven seals. This scroll contains the entire plan of God for the redemption of the world. And a mighty angel cries out, "Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. John begins to weep loudly, because if the book remains sealed, all is lost (Revelation 5:2-4).
But then one of the elders says to him, "Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals." And John looks and sees a Lamb, standing as if slain. And He comes and takes the book from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.
Jesus Christ is the great Unsealer. He is the only one who can break the seal of spiritual blindness that sin has placed upon our hearts. The "spirit of deep sleep" that Yahweh poured on rebellious Judah is conquered by the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost. The apostle Paul says that "a veil lies over their heart" when the old covenant is read, "but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Corinthians 3:15-16).
When Jesus met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they were confused. They had the Scriptures, but the book was sealed to them. And what did Jesus do? "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). This is the miracle that reverses the curse of Isaiah 29. Regeneration is God waking us from our drunken stupor. It is God performing cataract surgery on our spiritual eyes. It is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, unsealing the Word and making it come alive in our hearts.
The warning for us is plain. If we begin to play games with God, if we start trusting in our political savvy or our cultural cleverness instead of the plain Word of God, we are taking the first steps toward that same drunken stupor. We are blinding ourselves. And if we persist, God may just give us over to it. The Bible on our shelves will become a sealed book. But the gospel promise is just as plain. Turn to the Lord. Come to the Lion who is a Lamb. He is the one who breaks every seal and opens every mind. He is the one who gives sobriety to the drunkard, sight to the blind, and wisdom to all who ask.