{h} Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

(h) Muse on this a long as ye like, yet you will find nothing but opportunity to be astonished for your prophets are blind, and therefore cannot direct you.

Wesley's Notes

29:9 Wonder - At the stupidity of this people. Cry - Cry out again and again through astonishment. They stagger - With giddiness or stupidity, which makes them like drunken men, insensible of their danger.

King James Translators' Notes

cry ye...: or, take your pleasure, and riot

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. Stay-rather, "Be astounded"; expressing the stupid and amazed incredulity with which the Jews received Isaiah's announcement.

wonder-The second imperative, as often (Isa 8:9), is a threat; the first is a simple declaration of a fact, "Be astounded, since you choose to be so, at the prophecy, soon you will be amazed at the sight of the actual event" [Maurer].

cry . out . cry-rather, "Be ye blinded (since you choose to be so, though the light shines all round you), and soon ye shall be blinded" in good earnest to your sorrow [Maurer], (Isa 6:9, 10).

not with wine-but with spiritual paralysis (Isa 51:17, 21).

ye . they-The change from speaking to, to speaking of them, intimates that the prophet turns away from them to a greater distance, because of their stupid unbelief.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

29:9-16 The security of sinners in sinful ways, is cause for lamentation and wonder. The learned men, through prejudice, said that the Divine prophecies were obscure; and the poor urged their want of learning. The Bible is a sealed book to every man, learned or unlearned, till he begins to study it with a simple heart and a teachable spirit, that he may thence learn the truth and the will of God. To worship God, is to approach him. And if the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the abundance of it the mouth will speak; but there are many whose religion is lip-labour only. When they pretend to be speaking to God, they are thinking of a thousand foolish things. They worship the God of Israel according to their own devices. Numbers are only formal in worship. And their religion is only to comply with custom, and to serve their own interest. But the wanderings of mind, and defects in devotion, which are the believer's burden, are very different from the withdrawing of the heart from God, so severely blamed. And those who make religion no more than a pretence, to serve a turn, deceive themselves. And as those that quarrel with God, so those that think to conceal themselves from him, in effect charge him with folly. But all their perverse conduct shall be entirely done away.