Sealed Vision and Lip-Service Religion Invert Maker and Clay

Stupor and a sealed book excuse both the learned and the unlearned

Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Inaccessible writing meets two alibis. Closed eyes here are a judgment on a people already refusing the vision, not a celebration of unbelief, not a license to withhold clarity, and not a catastrophe-fulfillment chart. Do not use the sealed book against Jewish readers as a caricature.

Mouth-honor, hidden counsel, and clay talking back to the potter

Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? Lip-service and humanly taught fear replace heart. Dark policy pretends it is unseen. Clay denying the potter is inverted perception. The woe does not authorize human violence, ethnic stigma, or blaming disaster victims as clay that deserved smashing.