Isaiah 29:12

Isa 29:12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Ver. 12. And the book is delivered to one that is not learned.] Heb., Knoweth not to read. By the learned is meant, say some, the rulers in Church and State; by the unlearned, the common people: all were in a pickle. Nicodemus had oft read in this our prophet, in Ezekiel and elsewhere, of regeneration, though not under that term; but how little he understood it, see Joh 3:4; Joh 3:9 And what a buzzard is Bellarmine himself in some such fundamentals as whereof it is a shame for a very child to be ignorant! I must needs confess, said a learned Papist to the Bishop of Cavaillon, that I have often been at the schools of Sorbonne in Paris, where I have heard the disputations of the divines, but yet I never learned so much as I have done by hearing these young children at Merindol posing one another before the bishop about points of religion. The poor men of Lyons in France were enlightened when the great doctors were blinded and besotted in their superstitious tenets and practices. {a}

{a} Acts and Mon, 865.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The unlearned succeed no better than the learned, not from want of human learning, as they fancy, but from not having the teaching of God (Isa 54:13; Jer 31:34; Joh 6:45; Co1 2:7-10; Jo1 2:20).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And the book is delivered to him that is not learned,.... Or that knows not a book or letters, as before, and so consequently cannot read, having never been put to school, or learned to read:

saying, Read this, I pray thee; or "now" (w), at once, immediately:

and he saith, I am not learned; he does not excuse himself on account of its being sealed, but on account of his want of learning; which shows the former was but an excuse. In short, the sum of it is this, that neither the learned nor unlearned, among the Jews, cared to read their Bibles, or to search the Scriptures, and the prophecies in them, concerning the Messiah, and that neither of them understood them; these things were hid from the wise and prudent, as well as from the ignorant and unlearned of the people, in common, and were only made known to a few babes and sucklings. There was great ignorance of the Scriptures in the times of Christ, to which these passages truly belong, Mat 11:25.

(w) "nunc", Pagninus, Montanus.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And the book is delivered ... - That is, they are just as ignorant of the true nature and meaning of the revelations of God as a man is of the contents of a book who is utterly unable to read.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The vision of all; of all your prophets, whether the true or false ones. As the words of a book that is sealed; in which no man can read whilst it is scaled up, as books then sometimes were, 1Ki 21:8; Est 3:12,13, being made in the form of rolls, which was convenient for that purpose.

The book is delivered to him that is not learned; unsealed and opened, as the following clause implies. God so orders the manner of delivering this book, that neither the learned nor unlearned could read and understand it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Him that is not learned; i.e. "that cannot read writing." Even in our Lord"s day the ordinary Jew was not taught to read and write. Hence the surprise of the rulers at his teaching the people out of the Law. (Joh_7:15, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Of all - Of all, your prophets. As a book - In which no man can read, while it is sealed up, as books then sometimes were, being made in the form of rolls. Delivered - Unsealed and opened.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

“And the writing is given to one who knows not writing, saying, Pray read this, and he says, I know not writing.” The common version, ‘I am not learned’, is too comprehensive and indefinite. A man might read a letter without being learned, at least in the modern sense, although the word was once the opposite of illiterate or wholly ignorant. In this case it is necessary to the full effect of the comparison, that the phrase should be distinctly understood to mean, ‘I cannot read’. The comparison itself represents the people as alike incapable of understanding the divine communications, or rather as professing incapacity to understand them, some upon the general ground of ignorance, and others on the ground of their obscurity.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And if the book is given And when they take it from him and open its seal and give it to one who does not understand the language of the letter, and they say to him, “now read this,” he will say, “I cannot read.” Similarly, when you adjure the prince of fire, he will say, “I cannot, for the matter is sealed from me,” and when you adjure his colleague, he will say, “I do not recognize this name, by which you adjure me, for this is not my name.” This is what Jeremiah said (Jer. 21:4): “Behold I will turn around my implements of war that are in your hands.” This refers to the Explicit Name. In Midrash Tehillim (36:5).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

And the book is delivered, etc. Neither the wise men nor those that have no intellect will understand this prophecy.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.