Isaiah 6:9–10

Their Eyes They Have Closed

Quoted by the apostles in Matthew 13:14–15; Acts 28:26–27, in the older Greek wording

Side by Side

The Older Text

Septuagint, translated before Messiah

Ye shall hear indeed, but ye shall not understand; and ye shall see indeed, but ye shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

The Later Text

Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross

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.

Quoted in Matthew 13:15

Messiah explains the parables

For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Your KJV reads: the Hebrew command in Isaiah, but the Greek wording when Messiah and Paul quote it.

See what changed and why ↓

What Your Bible Says

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.
Isaiah 6:10 KJV

Read alone, this sounds as if Yahuah sent Isaiah to keep people from turning, so that they could not be healed even if they wanted to be.

What Messiah Said

For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.
Matthew 13:15 KJV

Messiah quoted Isaiah to explain why He spoke in parables: “because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not” (Matthew 13:13). In His words the heart grew dull and the people closed their own eyes. Paul quoted the same Greek wording to the leaders in Rome (Acts 28:27).

What Changed

The Hebrew gives three commands to the prophet: make fat, make heavy, shut. The Greek gives three facts about the people: their heart has grown dull, their ears are heavy, they have closed their eyes.

The question is who closed the eyes. In the later text, the prophet is told to. In the older text, the people did it themselves.

Why It Matters

Many teachers use Isaiah 6:10 to say Yahuah decides ahead of time who will be blind, and the blind have no choice. Messiah’s wording does not allow that. The people closed their eyes, and the verse still ends “I should heal them.” Healing was on offer. They would not turn to receive it.

Which One Is Right?

The Greek Bible, translated before Messiah, says the people closed their eyes.

Messiah quoted that wording in Matthew 13.

Paul quoted it again at the end of Acts.

The Masoretic text has the commands.

Purpose of the Change

The effect of the command form, read on its own, is a Yahuah who blinds men who might otherwise turn. The wording Messiah chose puts the closed eyes where they belong, on the people who closed them.

The Bottom Line

Messiah quoted the version where the people closed their own eyes. An eye that was shut can still be opened.

The invitation still stands at the end of the Book: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Revelation 2:7).

Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it

Hardening Follows Refusal

Scripture shows the order. Pharaoh first hardened his own heart: “when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not” (Exodus 8:15). Only after repeated refusal does Yahuah confirm the choice. Isaiah was sent to a people who had already turned away.

John’s Quotation

John 12:40 reads closer to the Hebrew: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart.” So the New Testament carries both sides. Messiah and Paul, speaking to the crowds and to the leaders, used the Greek wording that names the people’s own choice. John looks back on a people who had refused miracle after miracle (John 12:37).

Blessed Are Your Eyes

Right after quoting Isaiah, Messiah turned to His disciples: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13:16). Same generation, same nation, different choice.

A Holy Seed

Isaiah’s message did not end in blindness. A tenth would remain, “so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof” (Isaiah 6:13). The remnant is the point of the chapter.

An Honest Note

The Hebrew prophets often speak of doing what their message brings about. A prophet “makes the heart fat” by preaching a word the people refuse. The Greek may be a freer rendering of the same Hebrew letters, not a witness to a different text. So the Hebrew command need not be a late invention. What the Greek shows is how Jewish scholars understood the verse before Messiah, and which wording Messiah chose to quote.