Isaiah 56:10 · World English Bible
Isaiah 56:10 Meaning His Watchmen Are Blind
His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.
What does Isaiah 56:10 mean?
The ones appointed to keep watch are usually the most deeply asleep, and their sleep carries respectability, which makes it nearly impossible to disturb. A priest repeating what he was taught cannot bark, because barking needs having seen something; he has inherited descriptions of the danger and nothing more.
From the Indian Guru reading below.
Isaiah 56:10 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Indian Guru
AWARENESS
Indian Guru
The ones appointed to keep watch are usually the most deeply asleep, and their sleep carries respectability, which makes it nearly impossible to disturb. A priest repeating what he was taught cannot bark, because barking needs having seen something; he has inherited descriptions of the danger and nothing more.
The love of slumber is the real difficulty. Sleep is comfortable and dreams can be arranged to flatter, while waking asks for a nakedness the mind refuses in advance. And no temple appoints the watchman. Awareness itself keeps guard, and in almost everyone it dozes through the whole of an ordinary day.
Indian Guru lensGo deeper in the app
Indian Guru lens
Live Isaiah 56:10 today
- Catch one stretch today where you were fully absent, the scroll, the drive you cannot remember, the hour that vanished. No guilt about it. Just see how comfortable that absence was, and how willingly you went.
- Say the true thing to someone today that you have been smoothing over. The polite version is easier and it is also sleep. One honest sentence, warmly, is barking.
- When you repeat something today because it is what you always say, in a meeting, to your partner, in the group chat, stop halfway and ask if you actually still think so. Being respectable is the easiest place to doze.
How much of today did I actually attend, and how much did I sleep through with my eyes open?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Dhammapada
Awareness is the path and inattention is the dying. Those who stay awake are already free; the rest are sleepwalking through their own lives.
Zen
The only instruction worth repeating is to wake up. Robes, position, and the right words are all available to a sleeping man.
Stoicism · Epictetus
Quoting the teaching is not living it. Many can recite the handbook and still be asleep at every moment that asked something of them.
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