“What sorrow awaits Ariel, the City of David. Year after year you celebrate your feasts.
Parallel translations
- WEB Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around;
- KJV Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
- BSB Woe to you, O Ariel, the city of Ariel where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur.
- NKJV “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! Add year to year; Let feasts come around.
- NASB Woe, Ariel, Ariel the city where David once camped! Add year to year, keep your feasts on schedule.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Woe to Ariel (Jerusalem), the city of David, settled in empty ritual as judgment nears.
Overview
Isaiah pronounces woe on 'Ariel,' a name for Jerusalem meaning 'altar hearth' or 'lion of God.' The city goes through its annual feasts while remaining spiritually complacent. The warning exposes the danger of religious routine devoid of true devotion to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Amos 4:4–5“Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, and sin more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days,
- 2 Sam 5:9David lived in the stronghold, and called it David’s city. David built around from Millo and inward.
- Mic 6:6–7How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
- Hos 5:6They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Yahweh; but they won’t find him. He has withdrawn himself from them.
- Hos 8:13As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.
- Isa 66:3He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog’s neck; he who offers an offering, as he who offers pig’s blood; he who burns frankincense, as he who blesses an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations:
- Hos 9:4They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house.
- Ezek 43:15–16The upper altar shall be four cubits; and from the altar hearth and upward there shall be four horns.
- Isa 31:9His rock will pass away by reason of terror, and his princes will be afraid of the banner,” says Yahweh, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
- Heb 10:1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
- Jer 7:21Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
- Isa 22:12–13In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth:
- Isa 1:11–15“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says Yahweh. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 29:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.