Isaiah 29
v.13
The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
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… 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.
v.16
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?
v.23
When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
But when he seeth his children - The sense is, ‘he shall not be ashamed of his sons, for he shall see them henceforward walking in the ways of piety and virtue.’
The work of my hands - That is, this change Isaiah 29:17-19 by which the nation will be reformed, will be produced by the agency of God himself. The sentiment is in accordance with the doctrines of the Scriptures everywhere, that people are recovered from sin by the agency of God alone (compare Isaiah 60:21; Ephesians 2:10).
Thus there is probably a subtle connection between the reference to the redemption of Abraham (from idolatrous Ur and Haran) and the assertion that when scattered Israel will be brought back from the pagan lands of their dispersion they will keep God’s name holy.
v.24
Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction.
All that the prophet teaches is, that at some future period in the history of the Jews, there would be such a reform that they should be regarded as the worthy descendants of the pious patriarch Jacob.