Isaiah 6:9-13

Be as wise as the serpent but as gentle as the dove!

Jesus, the seed, Christ within the hope of glory!

Isaiah 6:9-13

9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people:

‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’

10 “Make the heart of this people dull,

And their ears heavy,

And shut their eyes;

Lest they see with their eyes,

And hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart,

And return and be healed.”

11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

And He answered:

“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,

The houses are without a man,

The land is utterly desolate,

12 The Lord has removed men far away,

And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

13 But yet a tenth will be in it,

And will return and be for consuming,

As a terebinth tree or as an oak,

Whose stump remains when it is cut down.

So the holy seed shall be its stump.”

God orders Isaiah to make sure the people do not repent and thus avoid judgment. The prophet is essentially being asked to allow the people to continue along the same path of disobedience they have been on. Acceptance of God’s message and true repentance only comes if God wills it. The passage is quoted numerous times in the nt to support the general lack of a positive response among the Jewish people to Jesus as the Messiah. 

Isaiah is dismayed at the message and wonders when it will end. Essentially, judgment is now. God must follow through on the punishment that they deserve. Destruction and exile are the instruments of God’s judgment. A hint that a small group of people will survive. From that remnant, God will rebuild His people. But they will still experience and suffer through the judgment. A foreshadowing of the messianic promise. The messiah will come from the remnant of Israel and fulfill Israel’s obligation to the covenant in a way that they never could. Faithlife Bible.

Paradoxically, Isaiah’s preaching to the religious and arrogant people who keep on hearing was destined to make … their ears heavy. Only the humble would understand the Lord’s message. The more the prophet would proclaim the word of God, the less response he would get from the people. This was a call to a very discouraging ministry. In truth, the call of God is for faithfulness to Him, to His word, and to the call itself. Understandably, Isaiah’s third expression to the Lord was one of incredulity. He wondered how long the people would continue to be unresponsive to his words of truth from God. These words describe the coming judgment of God on Judah that would lead to the nation’s captivity under the Babylonians. After the coming Babylonian invasion, the part of the land and the people who remained would be scorched again. This describes the return from the Exile and the subsequent troubles of Judah in the land. A tenth is one of Isaiah’s expressions for the “remnant”; it is only a small percentage of the Israelites. From Israel’s blasted stump, God would produce a holy seed, for He cannot deny the nation He has chosen. An immediate fulfillment of this prophecy occurred in Isaiah’s time: King Hezekiah repented and showed himself to be part of the holy seed. Ultimately, the holy seed would issue in the Beautiful Branch. This is the promise of the Savior Jesus. NKJ Bible.

God sends Isaiah to foretell the ruin of his people. Many hear the sound of God’s word, but do not feel the power of it. God sometimes, in righteous judgment, gives men up to blindness of mind, because they will not receive the truth in the love of it. But no humble inquirer after Christ, need to fear this awful doom, which is a spiritual judgment on those who will still hold fast their sins. Let every one pray for the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, that he may perceive how precious are the Divine mercies, by which alone we are secured against this dreadful danger. Yet the Lord would preserve a remnant, like the tenth, holy to him. And blessed be God, he still preserves his church; however professors or visible churches may be lopped off as unfruitful, the holy seed will shoot forth, from whom all the numerous branches of righteousness shall arise.  Matthew Henry Commentary

Matthew 13:14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive;

Mark 4:12 so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them.’ ”

Luke 8:10  And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’

John 12:40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”

Acts 28:26  saying, ‘Go to this people and say: “Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you will see, and not perceive;