Isaiah — Chapter 29

Woe to Ariel, Ariel, the city which David dwelt in: year is added to year, the solemnities are at an end. Ariel = 'lion of God' (Lapide) or 'altar of God' (Jerome) — Jerusalem. The double calling of its name (like 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem' in Luke 13:34) = lamentation and imminent judgment. 'Year is added to year' = feast follows feast while the people ignore the warnings.

But the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the mighty shall be as chaff that passeth away: and it shall be in a moment suddenly. The besieging armies of Sennacherib/Assyria will suddenly be reduced to dust — fulfilled in the Angel's single-night destruction. This miraculous reversal is one of Isaiah's strongest proofs of divine power.

And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, he shall say: I cannot read it: for it is sealed. The sealed book of prophecy: applied primarily to the blindness of the Scribes and Pharisees (who possessed the Scriptures but could not understand them), and secondarily to Protestant private interpretation without the Church's authority. Lapide: Scripture without the Church's interpretive tradition is a sealed book.

Quia appropinquat populus hic ore suo et labiis suis glorificat me, cor autem ejus longe est a me

Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me — Christ cites this against the Pharisees (Mt 15:8-9, Mk 7:6-7). Lapide: the Pharisees represent all formalists who practice external religion without interior conversion. The 'commandments of men' that they teach as doctrines = their human traditions substituted for or added to divine law. Applied to Protestants: they too add their own traditions (interpretations, confessions, sola scriptura itself) while claiming to follow Scripture alone — a new Pharisaism. The 'marvelous work' (v.14): God will confound the wisdom of the wise by the folly of the Cross (1 Cor 1:19 — Paul cites this verse).

Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admirable work among this people, a great and wonderful work. The 'wonderful work' (opus admirabile) = the Incarnation and Redemption, confounding the worldly wisdom of the Scribes. Paul quotes this in 1 Cor.1:19 ('I will destroy the wisdom of the wise') against the worldly-minded Corinthians. The Church's missionary success where human wisdom failed = this 'wonderful work' in action.