Spiritual Blindness, Deafness, And Fatness In Isaiah

By Gary V. Smith

[Gary V. Smith is Professor of Old Testament, Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.]

Ronald Clements used the themes of “blindness and deafness” and “the divine election of Israel” to support his case for the theological unity of Isaiah, but he also suggested that other common themes included terms like “thorns,” “briers,” “remnant,” “witnesses,” “teaching,” and “signal/flag.”[1] Regarding the theme of blindness Clements claims that “a striking instance of unity in the Book of Isaiah is provided by the idea that the prophetic message from God falls on deaf ears and is set forth to people who are unable to comprehend what their eyes see.”[2]

This study discusses the theme of Israel’s blindness, deafness, or lack of understanding in Isaiah. Ideas related to this theme include the following. (1) It was God’s will for the people to listen, see, and understand, but many people failed to do so. (2) At some point God made the people blind, deaf, and insensitive. (3) God judged the nation for its failures to listen and follow His will. (4) In the future when God establishes His kingdom, He will remove blindness, deafness, and fatness. As these themes are examined in each major section of Isaiah, other concepts that communicate the same idea but do not use terms “blind,” “deaf,” or “fatness” will be discussed.

Spiritual Blindness, Deafness, And Fatness In Isaiah 1-12

The prophecies of Isaiah include numerous imperative instructions that exhort the audience to hear and know/understand what God was saying. Isaiah 1:2 calls the heavens and the earth to “listen” and “hear,” for it is evident that God’s “sons” had “revolted” against Him. Israel’s revolt was so bad that “Israel does not know” as much as a dumb donkey (v. 3). Consequently Isaiah earnestly entreated his audience to “hear the word of the Lord [and] give ear to the instruction of our God” (v. 10). Besides rejecting the word of the Lord the people did not learn from God’s disciplinary actions of desolating the nation (vv. 5-9). God called His people to listen to Him, but they did not “pay attention” to what He did or said (5:12), implying that they were blind and did not understand. Isaiah then accused the people of rejecting “the law of the Lord of hosts” (5:24).

A few years later when God sent Isaiah on a new and difficult ministry (6:1-13), a new element appeared in God’s plans for Isaiah. This second act of sending the prophet[3] was to prepare Isaiah for his difficult ministry during the reign of the wicked king Ahaz (2 Kings 16; 2 Chron. 28). The terms “blind” and “deaf” are not used of the audience in Isaiah 6:9-10, but this seems to be what God was referring to when He said they did not understand or know and were fat and insensitive. Surprisingly God instructed the prophet Isaiah, “Go and tell this people: Keep on listening, but do not perceive [understand, תָּבִינוּ], keep on looking, but do not understand [know, תֵּדָעוּ]. Render the hearts of this people insensitive [fat, הַשְׁמֵנן], their ears dull [heavy, הַכְבֵּד], and their eyes dim [smeared over, shut, הָשַׁע]. Otherwise they might see [יִרַאֶה] with their eyes, hear [יִשְׁמָע] with their ears, understand [יָבִין] with their hearts” (6:9-10).[4]

These additional terms are associated metaphors that express the fundamental idea of being spiritually blind, deaf, or insensitive to God’s word. Another Hebrew term עִוֵּר that communicates the idea of spiritual “blindness” is found only eleven times in Isaiah, but an examination of that one term would not fully explain the importance of this rich concept in the book of Isaiah.

In 6:9-10 God instructed the prophet to make dull the ears of “this people,”[5] meaning the disobedient people of Judah who had unclean lips (cf. v. 5). McLaughlin believes “6:9-10 envisions the prophet bringing this about as part of the divine plan.”[6] McLaughlin finds a divine cause behind this hardening and compares this to Micaiah ben Imlah’s report that God sent an angelic spirit to deceive the false prophets who were advising Ahab about going to war at Ramoth-gilead (1 Kings 22). Thus it was God’s desire that Isaiah “impair the mind, the ears and the eyes of the people, as indicated by the three hiphil imperatives at the beginning of v. 10. . . the underlying purpose is so that people will not ‘turn’ and receive divine healing, . . . the prophet has been commissioned to harden their hearts.”[7] In contrast to this heavy emphasis on God causing this blindness, Hollenbach and Chisholm interpret God’s instructions to Isaiah as “militant irony” and as “sarcastic,” though Chisholm states that it is God who is bringing an indirect hardening because the sinful people were driven further away from God when Isaiah confronted them about their sins.[8] With a slightly different interpretation from McLaughlin, Robinson believes that 6:9-10 cannot be understood apart from the larger context of the message of Isaiah. Thus he reads 6:9-10 in light of (a) the failure of the people to “know and understand” God’s will; (b) the reason the people do not understand God is that the people have turned away from Him and not listened to His words; (c) Israel is sick and in need of healing; (d) but Israel continues to rebel and will not repent; and (e) so God’s destruction follows, but a remnant will be saved.[9]

At first it seems that this understanding is opposed to any claims of divine causality because it does not overtly mention God’s activity of blinding the eyes or deafening the ears of the audience. Nevertheless Robinson’s idea of divine destruction in point (e) involves some level of divine deafening and blinding of the people, which led to destruction. Yet Robinson’s interpretation tends to minimize divine causality in hardening because it places the major emphasis on Israel’s own hardening of themselves through continued sin.

Apparently Robinson reads 6:9-10 theologically in light of the stubborn sinfulness of the nation in the rest of the book of Isaiah (1:4; 5:24; 29:9, 13; 42:18-20), and he tends to avoid an overemphasis on divine hardening, whereas McLaughlin focuses primarily on texts that refer to divine causality (6:9-10; 29:10; 44:18; 63:17). Therefore McLaughlin finds a strong emphasis on God’s blinding of the people of Judah. Both points of view seem possible, but it is not quite clear how they interrelate.

Taking a slightly different approach to this topic, Meadors proposes that “the hardening of the heart is most often quite simply God’s disciplinary punishment for the sin of idolatry.”[10] Meadors bases this conclusion on Psalm 115:4-8, which states that the idols “have eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but they cannot hear. . . . Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them” (cf. 135:15-18). Thus the people who made idols failed to hear and see because they had become like the sightless and senseless idol gods they worshiped. Later Meadors admits that there are other reasons for hardening (testing God, Ps. 95:8-10; and not repenting, Jer. 5:20-23), but in Isaiah 6 hardening is seen as an act of God’s disciplining punishment.

Meadors does not view God’s action as arbitrary. Instead it is based on the broad perspective of numerous passages in Isaiah and elsewhere. Hardening is “a systematic deterioration that God permits to infiltrate those who reject, challenge, or break His covenant due to greater confidence in idols.”[11] Meadors also believes that Isaiah 6:9-10 is “often wrongly understood to be a determinative pronouncement of unconditional hardening.”[12] But he holds that this hardening is not permanent, for it will last only until the destruction of the nation (v. 11). Also the hardening is not indiscriminate, for it will fall only on hardened sinners. This hardening that will lead to judgment was not meant to prevent repentance and salvation, for verse 13 refers to a holy remnant. Also two great revivals occurred a few years later in the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Chron. 29-32; 34-35). Also Isaiah 2:1-5; 4:2-6; 9:1-7; 11:1-9; 12:1-6 provide evidence of a future time when God will establish His kingdom for the people who trust Him, who rejoice in His salvation, and who listen to His teachings.

Hartley carefully distinguishes between texts about divine hardening (a problem of unbelief he attributes to the will) and those that refer to divine fattening (a problem he attributes to cognition of the mind).[13] He says that the biblical text suggests that fattening is either a nonpunitive divine deprivation that perpetuates a person’s inability to believe, or is a punitive divine act that takes away a person’s ability to hear and respond.[14] The first would be an indirect action by God that left people without divine help in understanding and responding to God’s words, while the second would be a divine punitive act that moves people who are unwilling to listen to God’s words to the state where they are no longer able to comprehend and respond to those words. A third option is the claim that the purpose statement that instructed Isaiah to make the people fat in 6:9-10 is really a restatement of the effect that will be accomplished once the message is spoken; thus the failure of the people to listen in verses 9-10 was known to God, but the eventual negative outcome was expressed as a purpose.[15]

Verses 9-10 identify the problem as human inability to hear and see, which will lead to a lack of understanding, insensitivity (fatness), and no repentance or healing. Although these verses view this as God’s will for Isaiah’s ministry, God did not say, “I will render their hearts insensitive,” nor does the verse say, “God will prevent you from seeing.” In earlier covenantal texts God testified to the situation in which people had seen with their eyes the miracles that God did in Egypt (the plagues); yet God did not yet give them a mind to know, eyes to see, or ears to hear (Deut. 29:2-4).[16] But Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16 presents a slightly different picture of the same issues with God testing the people to see what was actually in their hearts, thus suggesting personal responsibility in the midst of divine teaching. Hartley concludes from Deuteronomy 29 that fatness and nonresponsiveness come as a nonpunitive deprivation of the ability to perceive because of the absence of “salvific wisdom” from God.[17] But is this the only way to interpret these texts on hardening? Uhlig concludes that “hardening appears as the specific judgment on the perverted communication”[18] of the sinful people in Isaiah’s audience. And Meadors views this fatness and nonresponsiveness as divine punishment for people who earlier were unwilling to see, hear, and understand (cf. Deut. 8:2-3). Since the hardening in Isaiah 6:9-10 is not described in detail, other comments on this topic in the rest of the book of Isaiah help understand this idea more fully.

Two positive passages in chapters 1-12 about these issues may be noted. One passage reports an experience in which Isaiah “saw” and did not harden himself, and the other looks to a future age when people will know and respond positively to God. First, Isaiah did “see” the Lord high and lifted up in 6:1, and he responded in repentance for his sins and was forgiven (vv. 5-6). Later he “heard” what God said (v. 8), and he was not blind or insensitive to the words of God, for he responded, “Here am I. Send me!” The second example is in chapter 11, which describes a messianic figure from the family of Jesse who will have a “spirit of wisdom and understanding” (v. 2). He will not be lacking understanding about the things of God, but will rule with righteousness and faithfulness (v. 5). In addition, the people who dwell in His peaceful kingdom will know God’s ways; they “will be full of the knowledge of the Lord” (v. 9). This implies that their ears are open and their understanding is not insensitive to the words of God.

Spiritual Blindness, Deafness, And Fatness In Isaiah 13-39

In the lament in Isaiah 26:10-11 the prophet claimed that when the wicked experience God’s patient grace instead of His quick justice, they do not “learn righteousness” or “perceive the majesty of the Lord” at work around them. They do not recognize the hand of God in action; they are blind. Part of the reason for this blindness is the failure of the drunken priests and prophets (who stagger around in confusion) to teach the people God’s ways (28:7). Their teaching is childish, as illustrated by the prophet’s quotation of the priests’ senseless babblings (v. 10). Isaiah belittled their repetitious monosyllabic gibberish as something fit for infants who are just learning how to speak.[19] In response God said that He will speak a different message through the foreign lips of enemy conquerors (v. 11) because the leaders and the people failed to listen to what God was saying (v. 12). Previously God had promised that Jerusalem and Judah would be the place where He would give His people rest (v. 12; cf. Deut. 12:9; Ps. 95:11), but because the people rejected God’s words, now they would hear the senseless gibberish of foreigners (Isa. 28:13; cf. 33:19). Although three lines in 28:13 repeat verse 10, now the words carry a different meaning. Van Selm maintains that in the Akkadian language of the conquering Assyrians these words mean “”Go out, let him go out! Wait, let him wait! Servant, listen!”[20] but many Israelites would probably not understand what these Akkadian words meant. This passage focuses on the human failures of spiritual leaders as the reason the people did not listen to God. Though God gave them spiritual direction (v. 12), they refused to believe; so punishment followed. These verses indicate that false teachers can blind people’s eyes to the truth.

The topic of blindness is brought up again in the woe against Jerusalem (Ariel) in 29:9-14. The people were told to “blind yourselves and be blind” (v. 9), suggesting some level of personal choice and responsibility for this state.[21] McLaughlin minimizes this interpretation because he views verse 10 as the reason the people did not understand.[22] True, verse 10 explains God’s action of pouring out “a spirit of deep sleep” so that God’s words would become like “a sealed book” (v. 11). But how can verse 10 completely cancel out what verse 9 says? A one-sided conclusion is inappropriate, for verse 13 confirms that blame is placed on the people because they “remove their hearts far from Me” when they vainly attempted to honor God by simply repeating meaningless traditions. This passage argues both for personal responsibility (vv. 10, 13) and divine action in the blinding, deafening, and fattening of Judah (v. 10). One might argue that a chronological relationship exists between blinding oneself (v. 9) and God sending a deep sleep (v. 10), but this may read into the passage more than what is expressly stated. These hints of personal responsibility are also present in chapter 30, where God’s sons “refuse to listen” to God’s instruction (30:9), prefer only pleasant prophecies (v. 10), and demand to “hear no more about the Holy One of Israel” (v. 11). Although the way of salvation was presented by godly prophets, the audience was “not willing” to listen to their messages (v. 15).

Isaiah 13-39 includes a few passages that refer to a future time when God will answer the people’s prayers (30:19), and then their eyes will see their teacher and their ears will hear and accept what He says (29:18; 30:20-21). When a righteous king reigns in Zion “the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, and the ears of those who hear will listen [and] the mind of the hasty will discern the truth” (32:1, 3-4). Then “your eyes will see the King in His beauty” (33:17) and “they will see the glory of the Lord” (35:2). These texts present the great hope of an eschatological day when blindness and spiritual insensitivity will completely cease.

Spiritual Blindness, Deafness, And Fatness In Isaiah 40-55

One of the problems with the people addressed in these chapters is that they seem to have been overcome by their situation. They were ignorant or had forgotten who God is, what He had said, and the glorious things He will do in the future. Consequently these people feared the nations at war with them (41:10-12) and their idol gods,[23] questioned God’s actions, and did not seem to understand God’s plans for the future. God called on these people to listen, look, and pay attention (51:1, 4), but some were blind, deaf, and spiritually insensitive. This is made clear in the rhetorical questions in 40:21, 28: “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” God is totally different from the idols and He never tires; He understands everything (vv. 28-31). The people are said to be stubborn and “far from righteousness” (46:12), “obstinate” with a bronze forehead (48:4), and deaf and blind (42:18). God has chosen His people “so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He” (43:10). But the problem is that most would not “give ear . . . give heed and listen” (42:23). “You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; your ears are open, but none hears” (42:20). God referred to His people who are His “witnesses” to the nations concerning His deity and saving work as “people who are blind, even though they have eyes, and the deaf, even though they have ears” (43:8-9). Those who construct idols are especially blind (44:9). “They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend . . . He [the idol worshiper] feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself” (44:18, 20). Those who have no knowledge, who “fail to see or know” (44:9) are those who “carry about their wooden idol” (45:20).

Once again McLaughlin focuses on God’s act of smearing over their eyes (44:18), which emphasizes divine causality, but he does not note the issue of self-deception in verse 20.[24] Nevertheless the fact that the Israelites fed “on ashes [and] a deceived heart has turned [them] astray” indicates that deluded hearts had led them into sin. These passages confirm Meadors’s observation that the people’s choice to worship idol gods was a major factor that resulted in many Jews becoming spiritually blind.[25] God had made this situation even more dire because He “smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see” (v. 18). In this context it appears that the people first chose to build and worship idols, and then God’s blinding of their eyes followed. This would affirm Hartley’s thesis that blinding, deafening, and making the heart insensitive was a divine act that moved the person who was unwilling to listen to God’s words to the state of being unable to comprehend and respond to God’s words (although it is not clear in this text if this should be classified as a punitive act by God).[26] In most of these passages God was reaching out to people to transform their blindness and correct their misunderstanding; His efforts through the prophets were focused on informing people of the truth so that they would turn to Him.

Isaiah 40-55 provides information about three ways God works to miraculously transform people by giving them new insights. First, God is the one who is able to transform the spiritually blind, deaf, and insensitive people by teaching them about Himself, questioning their false conclusions, comforting those who fear, exposing their misunderstandings, and offering forgiveness to those who will turn to God (40:12-31; 43:25; 44:22; 55:6-7). God called out, “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you” (55:3).

Second, God will make spiritual transformation possible by sending a special Servant, who will be “as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes” (42:6-7). This Servant, “a light of the nations,” will cause God’s “salvation [to] reach to the end of the earth” (49:6). He will listen to what God says and will not be disobedient because God will open His ears (50:5). Though people did not understand this Servant, when they saw what had not been told to them, they would understand (52:15). God encourages people to “listen carefully . . . incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live” (55:2-3), for they can be transformed because God will pardon their sins (vv. 6-7).

The third means of transformation will be accomplished by the eschatological coming of the glorious kingdom of God and the shaming of those who remain blind. Isaiah 42:16 refers to a future day when God “will lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know I will guide them,” and then He will put to shame all those who trust in idols. Isaiah 51-52 describes God’s future salvation when He will reign as king and demonstrate His righteousness to all. Repeatedly the audience is called to “pay attention . . . give ear to Me . . . lift up your eyes to the sky, then look to the earth beneath” (51:4, 6) because God’s glorious reign will have begun (52:7).

Spiritual Blindness, Deafness, And Fatness In Isaiah 56-66

The final chapters in Isaiah address the continued existence of many blind, deaf, and spiritually insensitive people. The prophetic watchmen in 56:10 “are blind [and] know nothing.” So the people who listen to them go along as blind men, like people who have no eyes. They have rebelled against the Holy Spirit so they have become God’s enemy (63:10). These people have not heard with their ears (64:4); instead they followed their own rebellious ideas (65:2). When God called, they did not respond; when God spoke, they did not hear; so God will bring a sword against them (65:12). These passages point to human failures as the cause for their blindness, but 63:17 also points to a divine involvement. In this lament the audience claimed that God caused them to stray from His ways and that He hardened their hearts so that they did not fear Him. McLaughlin observes that “divine hardening occurs in response to human sin so that people do not cease their sinful ways and thereby avoid judgment.”[27]

Could the people in 63:17 be saying that God forced them to sin; that He made them unrepentant and hardened; that it was all God’s fault? This seems unlikely in this context, for blaming God would not be an effective way to gain His compassionate response. This prayer could be shifting some of the blame for the nation’s problems to God’s permissive will, the idea that God has hidden His face and just let terrible things happen (64:7). But if the people were unwilling to take responsibility for what they had done, then this accusation comes out of a misunderstanding of their own bad choices.

Another possibility is that these people were complaining that God did not remove all their temptations and overrule all their problems to prevent them from falling into the pit of hardening their hearts.[28] Whatever the motivation and attitude behind this complaint, the ones lamenting were rightly aware of God’s sovereign influence on their lives and the nation’s history. They desperately needed God’s help (“Your zeal and Your mighty deeds . . . and Your compassion” [63:15] and God’s turning to them [v. 17]), but it seems that they did not fully own up to their own responsibility for their sins until 64:5-6. The destiny of the unrighteous is the sword because when God called they did not answer; when He spoke they did not hear; they chose to do evil, things in which God took no delight (65:12).

The destiny of the righteous is that they will see “the glory of the Lord” and will respond by coming to worship Him (60:1-3). These people “will see and be radiant and [their] heart will thrill and rejoice” (v. 5). When the foreign nations see God’s glory, they will send people back to their countries of origin and proclaim His glory (66:18-19). God will then create “the new heavens and the new earth” (v. 22).

Conclusion

Numerous verses in the Book of Isaiah refer to Israel’s fundamental problem of not seeing, hearing, or understanding what God said. This blindness and insensitivity to God is attributed to the people’s sin (like the sin of idol worship) and their rebellion against God. At some point God became involved in the process of blinding those who had refused to see and hear what He said. This brings greater insensitivity and increases the blindness of the heart. Some passages in Isaiah suggest that this blindness and hardening is an act that God is responsible for, but usually this act occurred when people closed their eyes and ears, either through self-deception or by being deceived by false prophets and idols. Not clear in Isaiah is whether this blinding is a nonpunitive act of deprivation of divine wisdom or if this blinding is an act of God’s punishment for human stubbornness and unwillingness to listen. Possibly either view can explain the blindness, depending on the circumstances.

In contrast to Isaiah’s prophecies the later prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel give greater emphasis to human sinfulness as the cause of the blindness and hardening that led to the exile of Judah. For example Jeremiah 11:7-11 and 16:11-12 lay the blame for the nation’s problems on the people’s choice not to listen to the Lord, their forsaking God and His law, and their “walking according to the stubbornness of [their own evil hearts], without listening to Me” (16:12). The nation’s rebelliousness and obstinate stubbornness caused the people not to listen to the words of God or His prophets (Jer. 5:3, 21; Ezek. 2:3-5; 3:7-9; 12:2). All three prophets recognized a similar problem, but Jeremiah and Ezekiel put more emphasis on the people’s responsibility for the blinding, deafening, and fattening of their hearts.

Notes

1. Ronald E. Clements believes this material “was intended to supplement the earlier and to influence the way in which it was understood” (“Beyond Tradition-History: Deutero-Isaianic Development of First Isaiah’s Themes,” Journal for the Study of Old Testament 31 [1985]: 101).
2. Ronald E. Clements, “The Unity of Isaiah,” Interpretation 36 (1982): 117-29.
3. Isaiah 1 is from the time of Hezekiah and was prefixed to the messages in chapters 2-11, which were from the earlier time of Uzziah (chaps. 2-5) and Ahaz (chaps. 6-11) (Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1-39, New American Commentary [Nashville: B&H, 2007], 94-96). Assuming Isaiah gave the messages in chapters 2-5 in the time of Uzziah, then his original call to be a prophet had to precede the death of Uzziah (6:1) when he received a second revelation that informed him of the difficult ministry he would have in the future days (vv. 9-13).
4. T. Uhlig, “Too Hard to Understand? The Motif of Hardening in Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah, ed. D. G. Firth and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 62-83. He interprets the imperative verbs in 6:9 as literal imperatives, but he considers the imperatives in verse 10 as figurative imperatives that “indicate the effect Isaiah’s proclamations will have” (p. 68). An “imperative in logical dependence upon a preceding imperative . . . serves to express the distinct assurance or promise that an action or state will ensue as the certain consequence of a previous action” (Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley [Oxford: Clarendon, 1910], 324-25).
5. “This people” is usually interpreted as a negative designation, conveying a tone significantly different from “My people” (40:1), a term of endearment.
6. John L. McLaughlin, “Their Hearts Were Hardened: The Use of Isaiah 6,9-10 in the Book of Isaiah,” Biblica 75 (1994): 2. Craig Evans recognizes that “Isa 6.9-10 means that it is God’s intention to render his people obdurate through the proclamations of his prophet” (To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah 6.9-10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989], 19).
7. McLaughlin, “Their Hearts Were Hardened: The Use of Isaiah 6, 9-10 in the Book of Isaiah,” 3-4. McLaughlin recognizes that in other prophets the hardness was determined because of the people’s stubborn choice to reject God.
8. Bruce Hollenbach, “Lest They Should Turn and Be Forgiven: Irony,” Bible Translator 34 (1983): 312-21; and Robert B. Chisholm, “Divine Hardening in the Old Testament,” Bibliotheca Sacra 153 (October–December 1996): 410-34. Chisholm focuses on the exodus hardening of Pharaoh, but mentions the hardening in Isaiah 6 as an act of divine judgment. He takes Judah’s rejection (6:10) as a rhetorical ironic reference to the response of the people.
9. Geoffrey D. Robinson, “The Motif of Deafness and Blindness in Isaiah 6:9-10: A Contextual, Literary, and Theological Analysis,” Bulletin of Biblical Research 8 (1998): 177. He proposes that spiritual blindness “is a metaphor for a condition that (1) is brought on by the people themselves, (2) comprises a judgment from God, and (3) will ultimately be rectified by God himself ‘in that day’ of salvation” (ibid., 174).
10. Edward P. Meadors, Idolatry and the Hardening of the Heart (London: Clark, 2006), 1. He rejects the view that this hardness is due to God’s predestination (without any human free will), or that the interplay between determinism and free will is a paradox beyond human understanding, or that God is the author of sin because He makes people sin.
11. Ibid., 11.
12. Ibid., 64.
13. Donald E. Hartley, “Destined to Disobey? Isaiah 6:10 in John 12:37-41,” Calvin Theological Journal 44 (2009): 263-87. He bases this distinction between hardening (to be strong, hard, heavy) and fattening (to be dull, fat, stupid) on the different Hebrew and Greek words used to describe these states (ibid., 263 n. 3).
14. Ibid., 264-66.
15. This psychological view is accepted by Edmund F. Sutcliffe, “Effect as Purpose: A Study in Hebrew Thought Patterns,” Biblica 35 (1969): 320-27; and C. D. F. Moule, “Mark v,1-20 Yet Once More,” Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honor of Matthew Black, ed. E. Earl Ellis and M. Wilcox (Edinburgh: Clark, 1969), 95-113.
16. Michael Grisanti, “Was Israel Unable to Respond to God? A Study of Deuteronomy 29:2-4,” Bibliotheca Sacra 163 (April–June 2006): 176-96. He reviews five different ways of understanding the conflict between personal responsibility for understanding and acting versus God not giving the people the ability to understand. (1) Israel had been unable to grasp the significance of God’s activity, but now they were able. (2) It is a statement of reality, Israel was insensitive to God, but not because of divine refusal to help. (3) Israel was not able to have true trust and obedience until the new covenant. (4) Israel’s failures were ultimately God’s responsibility. (5) God’s sovereignty provides spiritual perceptiveness to those who trust Him.
17. Hartley, “Destined to Disobey? Isaiah 6:10 in John 12:37-41,” 276-77.
18. Uhlig, “Too Hard to Understand? The Motif of Hardening in Isaiah,” 69.
19. Brevard S. Childs takes the words as childish gibberish, though he interprets this as the priests mocking Isaiah (Isaiah [Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 207). However, it seems preferable to see this as Isaiah mocking the false priests and prophets. J. D. W. Watts thinks these spiritual leaders are acting like a “bumbling schoolmaster, repeating letters of the alphabet” (Isaiah 1-33, Word Biblical Commentary [Waco: Word, 1985], 363).
20. A. van Selm, “Isaiah 28:9-13: An Attempt to Give a New Interpretation,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamenliche Wissenschaft 85 (1973): 332-39.
21. William A. M. Beuken, Isaiah II (Leuvan: Peeters, 2000), 93; see also Smith, Isaiah 1-39, 499.
22. McLaughlin, “Their Hearts Were Hardened: The Use of Isaiah 6, 9-10 in the Book of Isaiah,” 10-11. He states that in verse 10 “the ultimate reason for their blindness is identified as divine initiative and not their own action” (ibid., 11).
23. The present writer questions the conclusion that the audience was in exile in Babylon (Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 40-66, New American Commentary [Nashville: B & H, 2009], 42-48). Also the conclusion that the temporal placement of the audience was just before the release of the Hebrews from exile by Cyrus (540 BC) may be questioned (ibid., 103-5). The exile was not a time of war or great fear (41:10-13). Also the frequent condemnation of idolatry in chapters 40-48 seems to address a preexilic problem, not an exilic problem.
24. McLaughlin, “Their Hearts Were Hardened: The Use of Isaiah 6,9-10 in the Book of Isaiah,” 12-14. It is unlikely that God is the subject of the verb “he caused him to go astray” in 44:20, as McLaughlin claims; instead “a deluded mind” is the subject.
25. Meadors, Idolatry and the Hardening of the Heart, 1, 3, 57-63. He views this as a punitive statement, but most of his evidence actually comes from passages outside of Isaiah that describe a pattern of worship of idols, which leads to stubborn hearts that walk after evil, which in turn results in divine punishment (Jer. 11:13-16; 16:11-13; Ezek. 14:3-4, 7-8).
26. Hartley, “Destined to Disobey? Isaiah 6:10 in John 12:37-41,” 263-87. Romans 1:18-32 gives an explanation of these issues.
27. McLaughlin, “Their Hearts Were Hardened: The Use of Isaiah 6, 9-10 in the Book of Isaiah,” 16.
28. Smith, Isaiah 40-66, 682.