12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," they will answer, "I don't know how to read."
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.
12 And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, "Read this," he says, "I cannot read."
12 And if you give it to someone who can't read and tell him, "Read this," he'll say, "I can't read."
12 Then the book is delivered to one who is illiterate, saying, "Read this, please." And he says, "I am not literate."
12 When you give it to those who cannot read, they will say, "We don't know how to read."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 29:12
Commentary on Isaiah 29:9-16
(Read Isaiah 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.