Isaiahs Woe to Ariel

In one of his most haunting oracles, the prophet Isaiah addresses Jerusalem under the symbolic name Ariel — "lion of God" or "altar-hearth." The double meaning is devastating: Ariel is the great altar where sacrifices burn continually, and Ariel is the city God himself will besiege until she becomes that altar fire. "Woe, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the festivals run their round. Then I will distress Ariel, and there shall be lamentation and grieving; she shall be to me like an Ariel" (Isaiah 29:1-2). But the same oracle promises a sudden reversal: the multitude of nations that fight against Ariel will vanish "like a dream, a vision of the night... as when a hungry man dreams he is eating and awakes still hungry" (Isaiah 29:7-8). The oracle anticipates both the Assyrian siege under Sennacherib in 701 BCE — when God himself struck down 185,000 of the besieging army in one night — and the deeper eschatological hope of Zion's ultimate deliverance.

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