ARIEL
(Arʹi·el) [perhaps, the altar hearth of God, or the lion of God].
1. A Moabite whose two sons were killed by Benaiah.—2 Sam. 23:20; 1 Chron. 11:22.
2. One of the nine head ones especially used by Ezra in obtaining qualified “ministers for the house of our God.” This was in the spring of 468 B.C.E. when about 1,500 Israelite males under Ezra were about to depart from the river Ahava for Jerusalem.—Ezra 8:15-17, 31.
3. A cryptic name applied five times to Jerusalem at Isaiah 29:1, 2, 7. It here likely means the “altar hearth of God.”
Jerusalem was the location of God’s temple that had within its precincts the sacrificial altar. Because of this the city was, in effect, God’s altar hearth. It was also supposed to be the center of Jehovah’s pure worship. However, the message in Isaiah 29:1-4 is ominous in content and predicts the destruction due to come to Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon in 607 B.C.E. So, the meaning of verse 2 may be that Jerusalem (Ariel) would then become an “altar hearth” in a different sense: as a city running with shed blood and consumed by fire and filled with the bodies of victims of the fiery destruction. The underlying causes for this calamity are stated in verses 9 to 16. Verses 7 and 8, however, show that the nations wreaking such destruction on Jerusalem would fail in their ultimate purpose or goal.