ISAIAH 6:9-10

 Q:  God seems to be telling Isaiah that He will prevent the people from seeing and hearing and cause their hearts to be calloused, otherwise they will understand “turn and be healed.” This seems to suggest God is actually causing them to sin (to act against His will). How are we best to understand this passage?

You are by no means the first person to be confused by this passage, and there have been several approaches proposed to resolve the difficulties. Verse 9 is fairly easy to comprehend-- Isaiah is told to rebuke the people for their lack of response to God. The problem comes in with verse 10 in which Isaiah is apparently being commanded to somehow harden the people's hearts on purpose. One explanation which should probably be discounted is that this passage was added to explain why Isaiah's mission to influence King Ahaz failed. (NRSV Study Bible, p. 986-987) Other approaches are more profitable to consider.

Solution 1. Since there is no punctuation in the original Hebrew, it is possible to extend the quotation marks through verse 10 so that Isaiah is simply reiterating what he is to say in verse 9 to the people. This is the tack taken by the New English Bible, which reads for verse 10 “This people's wits are dulled... so that they cannot see.” One problem with this approach is that in Isaiah 63:17 the prophet clearly complains to God, “Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?”

Solution 2. The Hebrew text (MT) that is generally used for English translations is sometimes obscure and scholars have to rely on other early texts such as the Greek Septuagint (LXX) to make sense of a passage. LXX for this Isaiah passage reads somewhat differently than the Hebrew text in that (1) the commands to hear and not understand, etc. are put in the future tense as a prediction that the people will not understand, etc. and (2) the command for Isaiah to make the people's hearts dull is changed to the statement that the people themselves have already hardened their own hearts.

In fact, the New Testament writers generally quote from LXX rather than paraphrasing MT. This particular passage in Isaiah is quoted six times in the New Testament (Matthew 13:13-15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39-40; Acts 28:25-27; and Romans 11:8), and all but one uses the LXX understanding that the people are responsible for their obtuse behavior, not God. (Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, p. 600)

Solution 3. The John 12 passage is the only one to basically quote the Hebrew version of Isaiah 6. But even in this instance, Raymond Brown (The Gospel According to John I-XII, p. 485), explains that the Isaiah passage “is not a statement of determinism but an implicit appeal to believe.”

Solution 4. Then there is a grammatical explanation for Isaiah 6:10. Walter Kaiser explains that the type of grammatical “construction where the result is put for what appears to be the purpose is not unknown in Israel.” Thus, “it looked as if Isaiah would preach in order to blind the people, but this was only to be the result rather than the purpose of his preaching.” (Toward Old Testament Ethics, p. 280-281)

Solution 5. The natural process described in Isaiah 6 is the same as that seen in the people's response to Jesus' parables and Pharaoh's response to Moses. “God's judgment on his people is not that he no longer speaks to them. Rather his word is still proclaimed with utter clarity. But because the people hitherto have not wanted to listen, from now on they will be unable to.” Thus, God's hardening of hearts always follows the people hardening their own hearts. (Dictionary of New Testament Theology, , vol. 2, p. 154)

Solution 6. The question remains: why would God do so even then? The answer may lie in God's ultimate plan of salvation. “The decree of hardening...should be read through to its conclusion in vv. 11-13, where the judgment is seen to clear the ground for new growth...Sinful Israel has come to the point where one more rejection of the truth will finally confirm them for inevitable judgment.” But that judgment will eventually bring them to a point of repentance so that they can become saved. (Derek Kidner, New Bible Commentary, p. 595)