Isaiah 6:10

Make the heart of this people fat,.... Gross and heavy, stupid and unteachable, hard and obdurate; which is sometimes done by the preaching of the Gospel, through the wickedness of man's heart, that

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Fat, i.e. stupid and senseless; for the fat which is in the body is without sense; and fatness in the heart makes it dull and heavy. Thus this phrase is used . And this seems best to agree with the following words. This making of their hearts fat is here ascribed to the prophet, as it is ascribed to God in the repetition of this prophecy, , because God inflicted this judgment upon them by the ministry of the prophet, partly by way of prediction, foretelling that this would be the effect of his preaching; and partly by way of judicial operation, withdrawing the light and help of his Spirit, and giving them up to the power and arts of Satan, and to their own mistakes and lusts, whereby they are easily and commonly led to turn God’ s word, as they do other things, into occasions of sin. Make their ears heavy; make them dull of hearing, as , as sometimes the ears are made by an excessive noise. Shut their eyes, Heb. daub their eyes, as the word is used also . Lest they see; that they may not be able, as before they were not willing, to see. Convert; turn from their sinful practices unto God. Be healed of sin, which is the disease of the soul, by remission and sanctification, and of all the deadly effects of sin.

Isaiah 6:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.Ver. 10. Make the heart of this people fat,] sc., By preaching to them the Word of God, which, because they regard not, it shall become unto them a savour of death, as sweet ointments kill beetles, as a shrill voice hurteth weak ears, as lime is kindled by cold water cast upon it. Of such a fat heart beware. Fat things are less sensible, and fat hearted people are noted by Aristotle for dull and stupid. There is not a greater mischief can befall a man on this side hell than to be given up to a dead and dedolent disposition, such as was that of those of the Jews in Christ’ s time, and ever since, and of many Papists, who continue blind in the midst of so much light, and will not renounce those errors whereof they are clearly convinced. And make their ears heavy.] Preach them to hell. This is an accidental effect of the word preached, and proceedeth from men’ s corruptions. But as a hard heart, so a heavy ear is a singular judgment. Antagoras, reciting his "Thebais," a book that he had made, among the Boeotians, and they little regarding him, he folded up his book, and said, Ye may well be called Boeotians, quia boum habetis aures, for ye have oxes’ ears - playing upon the notation of their name. Lest they should see with their eyes, &c.] Or, That they may not see with their eyes, or hear, &c., but be as so many sots and stocks or statues, that have eyes and see not, &c., to their utter ruin and destruction. Neither is there any the least injustice in such a proceeding. An apprentice hath given him by his master a candle to light him to bed, which he abuseth to light him to game or drink. Hereupon his master taketh it from him, bloweth it out, and sendeth him darkling to bed, in the way whereto he breaketh his arms or his face by some fall: will any man blame the master, since the candle was his, and allowed for use? I think not. Think the like here. And convert.] Which at times they would not, now they shall not; but having made a match with mischief, they shall henceforth have enough of it; they "love to have it so"; they "forsake their own mercies"; they are miserable by their own election. And be healed,] i.e., Pardoned and purged. Atque hic pulchre exprimitur, saith one, ordo obtinendae salutis; and here is excellently set forth the order of obtaining salvation.

(10) Make the heart of this people fat.—The thought is the same as that of the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 8:19; Exodus 9:34, &c) and that of Sihon (Deuteronomy 2:30). It implies the reckless headstrong will which defies restraint and warnings. So the poets of Greece, in their thoughts as to the Divine government of the world, recognised the truth that there is a judicial blindness and, as it were, insanity of will that comes as the consequence of sinful deeds ( Æsch. Agam. 370-386). The mediaeval adage, “Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat,” expresses one aspect of the same law; but the vult perdere is excluded by the clearer revelation of the Divine purpose (Ezekiel 18:23; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 2:9), as “not willing that any should perish.” Shut their eyes.—Literally, as in Isaiah 29:10, daub, or besmear. Possibly the phrase refers to the barbarous practice, not unknown in the East, of thus closing the eyes as a punishment. Burder (Oriental Customs, i. 98) mentions a son of the Great Mogul who was thus punished by his father. For the ethical fact, as well as for the phrase, we may (with Cheyne) compare Shakespeare— “For when we in our viciousness grow hard, Oh, misery on’t, the wise gods seal our eyes.”

Verse 10. Make the heart of this people fat - "Gross"] The prophet speaks of the event, the fact as it would actually happen, not of God's purpose and act by his ministry. The prophets are in other places said to perform the thing which they only foretell: - "Lo! I have given thee a charge this day Over the nations, and over the kingdoms; To pluck up, and to pull down; To destroy, and to demolish; To build, and to plant." Jeremiah 1:10. And Ezekiel says, "When I came to destroy the city," that is, as it is rendered in the margin of our version, "when I came to prophesy that the city should be destroyed; " Ezekiel 43:3. To hear, and not understand; to see, and not perceive; is a common saying in many languages. Demosthenes uses it, and expressly calls it a proverb: ὡστετοτηςπαροιμιαςὁρωνταςμηὁρᾳν, καιακουονταςμηακουειν; Contra Aristogit. I., sub fin. The prophet, by the bold figure in the sentiment above mentioned, and the elegant form and construction of the sentence, has raised it from a common proverb into a beautiful mashal, and given it the sublime air of poetry. Or the words may be understood thus, according to the Hebrew idiom: "Ye certainly hear, but do not understand; ye certainly see, but do not acknowledge." Seeing this is the case, make the heart of this people fat - declare it to be stupid and senseless; and remove from them the means of salvation, which they have so long abused. There is a saying precisely like this in AEschylus: - - - - βλεποντεςεβλεπονματην, Κλυοντεςουκηκουον. AESCH. Prom. Vinct. 456. "Seeing, they saw in vain; and hearing, they did not understand." And shut - "Close up"] השע hasha. This word Sal. ben Melec explains to this sense, in which it is hardly used elsewhere, on the authority of Onkelos. He says it means closing up the eyes, so that one cannot see; that the root is שוע shava, by which word the Targum has rendered the word טח tach, Leviticus 14:42, וטח את בית vetach eth beith, "and shall plaster the house." And the word טח tach is used in the same sense, Isaiah 44:18. So that it signifies to close up the eyes by some matter spread upon the lids. Mr. Harmer very ingeniously applies to this passage a practice of sealing up the eyes as a ceremony, or as a kind of punishment used in the East, from which the image may possibly be taken. Observ. ii. 278. With their heart - "With their hearts"] ובלבבו ubilebabo, fifteen MSS. of Kennicott's and fourteen of De Rossi's, and two editions, with the Septuagint, Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate. And be healed - "And I should heal"] veer pa, Septuagint, Vulgate. So likewise Matthew 13:14; John 12:40; Acts 28:27.

10. Make the heart … fat] i.e. callous, unfeeling, Psalms 119:70. In Hebrew idiom, the “heart” includes the understanding. shut (lit. smear) its eyes] cf. Isaiah 29:10, Isaiah 44:18, Isaiah 42:19 f. The difficulties created in our minds by this startling, and even harsh, statement of a great law of the spiritual world, are partly due to the tendency of Scripture writers to refer all things immediately to the will of God. To the Hebrew mind what we call secondary causes scarcely exist, at least in the sphere of religion. That which, in given circumstances, is the inevitable result of God’s providential dispensations is viewed absolutely, apart from its conditions, as a distinct divine purpose. The truth revealed to Isaiah is that the unbelief of his countrymen amounts to an incapacity for divine things, which can only be intensified by the further disclosure of the truth of God. And this, which is the inevitable issue of his own prophetic mission, is represented to him as Jehovah’s intention in sending him. Isaiah realises the profound truth that the most decisive and searching judgment to which men are subjected lies in the abundance of the revelations of God vouchsafed to them. It is a principle often appealed to in the New Testament, and frequently in the very words of our prophet (Matthew 13:14 f. and parallels; Acts 16:26 f.; Romans 11:8). “This is the judgment that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil” (John 3:19).

Make the heart - The word “heart” here is used in the sense of the “mind” - to denote all their mental powers. It is commonly used in this sense in the Scriptures. Fat - Gross, heavy, dull, stupid.

10. Make the heart… fat — The prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:10) was verbally directed to produce effects which he only predicted.