Isaiah 6:10 · Bible study
Isaiah 6:10 Commentary: The Hardening Command
Hebrew · 11 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Isaiah 6:10: God commissions Isaiah to harden the people.
Research Summary
- Meaning: God sends the prophet with a message that, because of the people's stubbornness, will confirm them in their blindness, a judicial hardening for persistent rejection.
- Key words: “Make fat” (Hiphil of shamen, to become insensitive), “make heavy” (Hiphil of kavad, to dull), “seal” (Hiphil of sha'a, to smear over or close).
- Main debate: Whether God actively hardens the people or this is a description of the unavoidable result of preaching to resistant hearts.
- Theological theme: Divine sovereignty in judgment coexisting with human responsibility; the dangerous potential of God's own word.
- Best use: A serious text for teaching on the consequences of rejecting truth, and for encouraging honest self-examination in hearers of Scripture.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
WEB World English Bible 2000
Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”
KJV King James Version 1769
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.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
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 turn again, and be healed.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
Declare fat the heart of this people, And its ears declare heavy, And its eyes declare dazzled, Lest it see with its eyes, And with its ears hear, and its heart consider, And it hath turned back, and hath health.'
Darby Darby Bible 1890
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and healed.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
Blind the heart of this people, 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 be converted and I heal them.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
Engruesa el corazón de aqueste pueblo, y agrava sus oídos, y ciega sus ojos; porque no vea con sus ojos, ni oiga con sus oídos, ni su corazón entienda, ni se convierta, y haya para él sanidad.
Faze o coração deste povo se encher de gordura, e os ouvidos deles ficarem pesados, para que não vejam com seus olhos, nem ouçam com seus ouvidos, nem entendam com seus corações, e assim não se convertam, nem eu os cure.
Rends insensible le cœur de ce peuple,
Verstocke das Herz dieses Volkes und laß ihre Ohren hart sein und blende ihre Augen, daß sie nicht sehen mit ihren Augen noch hören mit ihren Ohren noch verstehen mit ihrem Herzen und sich bekehren und genesen.
Maak het hart dezes volks vet, en maak hun oren zwaar, en sluit hun ogen, opdat het niet zie met zijn ogen, noch met zijn oren hore, noch met zijn hart versta, noch zich bekere, en Hij het geneze.
Rendi insensibile il cuore di questo popolo, rendigli duri gli orecchi, e chiudigli gli occhi, in guisa che non vegga co’ suoi occhi, non oda co’ suoi orecchi, non intenda col cuore, non si converta e non sia guarito!”
Zatwardź serce ludu tego, a uszy jego obciąż, i oczy jego zawrzyj, aby nie widział oczyma swemi, a uszyma swemi nie słyszał, i sercem swem nie zrozumiał, a nie nawrócił się, i nie był uzdrowion.
Ибо огрубело сердце народа сего, и ушами с трудом слышат, и очи свои сомкнули, да не узрят очами, и не услышат ушами, и не уразумеют сердцем, и не обратятся, чтобы Я исцелил их.
要使這 百姓 心 蒙脂油，耳朵 發沉，眼睛 昏迷；恐怕 眼睛 看見，耳朵 聽見，心裡 明白，回轉過來，便得醫治。」
Make the hearts of this people fat, and let their ears be stopped, and their eyes shut; for fear that they may see with their eyes, and be hearing with their ears, and their heart may become wise, and they may be turned to me and made well.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Isaiah 6:10
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators agree that this verse describes a judicial hardening that will result from Isaiah's preaching. The three imperatives, "make fat," "make heavy," "seal", point to the people growing spiritually insensible. Many, such as Albert Barnes and John Calvin, stress that this hardening is not God causing new sin but the inevitable effect of divine truth on a resistant heart. The truth itself becomes a snare when rejected. Others, like John Gill and the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary, emphasize that God actively gives the people over to judgment, as He did with Pharaoh. The Cambridge Bible notes that Hebrew writers often attribute directly to God what comes through secondary causes. All agree the verse is a severe warning: persisted rejection of God's word leads to a point where hearing and seeing produce no repentance. The prophet's call thus includes the sorrowful certainty that his ministry will confirm the people in their blindness, yet he is sent anyway, because God's purposes unfold even in judgment.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Judicial hardening view: God actively gives sinners over to the consequence of their rebellion, as with Pharaoh (Exodus 7:3) and as taught in Romans 9.
- Descriptive consequence view: The imperatives describe the inevitable result of preaching to resistant hearts; the truth itself provokes hostility (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).
- Prophetic announcement view: Hebrew prophets are said to do what they announce; the imperatives are a declaration that hardening will occur (Jeremiah 1:10 cf. Keil & Delitzsch).
What is clear: All Christians agree that persistent rejection of God's message leads to spiritual insensitivity, and that God uses even this judgment in His sovereign purposes.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| The nature of God's hardening | The hardening is a divine judgment on persistent sin, consistent with passages like Exodus 7-14. | Some traditions (Reformed) see God actively giving the people over to greater sin; others (Arminian) see God simply permitting the natural consequences of their own rebellion. |
| The role of the prophet | Isaiah's preaching is the means by which the hardening occurs. | Is the prophet an agent of judgment (Gill, Keil) or someone who announces what will happen (Clarke, Cambridge)? Both views find support in the Hebrew idiom of prophets doing what they foretell. |
| Human responsibility | The people are already sinfully resistant before the commission (v.9). | How much does God's hardening affect their culpability? Historic Christian teaching affirms both God's sovereignty and human responsibility, but different traditions weigh them differently. |
| New Testament usage | The verse is cited in all four Gospels and Acts to explain Jewish unbelief toward Jesus. | Whether this hardening is a permanent condition (some Reformed readings) or a temporary judicial act that can be reversed (as in Romans 11, where Paul holds open hope for Israel). |
Historical & Cultural Context
Isaiah 6 records the prophet's call in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC). Isaiah sees the Lord enthroned in the temple, seraphim cry "holy," his lips are cleansed with a coal from the altar. He volunteers: "Here am I. Send me!" (v.8). The commission he receives is startling. God tells him to go to "this people", not "my people", a distancing phrase reflecting their rebellion already described in Isaiah 1. The verbs are farming and bodily metaphors: making the heart fat (insensitive like well-fed cattle), ears heavy (dull of hearing), eyes sealed shut (smeared over with paste). In Hebrew culture, the heart included the mind and will. To shut the eyes and ears is to remove the capacity for spiritual perception.
The command uses the prophetic perfect idiom: prophets are said to perform what they announce (Jer 1:10; Ezek 43:3). Here the imperatives function as a declaration of what will inevitably happen. The people had already shown themselves unwilling to hear (v.9). Now God announces that their resistance will become permanent judgment. The cross-reference to Pharaoh's hardening (Exod 7:3) shows a pattern: God gives sinners over to the consequences of their own choices. Yet the hope of a remnant remains (v.13). This verse belongs to a culture where divine sovereignty and human responsibility coexisted without tension. For Isaiah, the solemnity of judgment underscores the seriousness of rejecting God's overtures.
Textual Notes
The Hebrew text of Isaiah 6:10 is stable across manuscripts. However, the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) changes the imperatives to indicatives: “the heart of this people has grown fat” rather than “make it fat.” The New Testament quotations (Matthew 13:15; Acts 28:27; Romans 11:8) follow this indicative reading, showing that early Christian tradition understood the verse as describing a state already present, not a command to produce it. The Masoretic Text preserves the imperatives, which function in Hebrew as prophetic announcements of certain outcome (compare Jeremiah 1:10). This textual variation reflects an early interpretive struggle with the verse's meaning.
Reception History
Isaiah 6:10 is one of the most frequently cited Old Testament passages in the New Testament, appearing in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Romans. Jesus quotes it to explain why he speaks in parables (Matthew 13:14-15). Paul uses it in Romans 11 to describe the hardening of part of Israel, while still holding out hope for their restoration. In the early church, Augustine appealed to this verse in his debates with Pelagius to argue that God's grace is necessary even for the ability to hear and respond. During the Reformation, Calvin and Luther saw the verse as a clear example of God's sovereign use of the word to both save and judge. In modern interpretation, the verse continues to provoke theological reflection on how the same gospel can produce life for some and hardness for others.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- The Condition of the People: They see and hear but do not understand or perceive (v.9). Their hearts are already calloused, as Psalm 119:70 describes.
- The Judgment of God: God sends a message that confirms their hardness. The same word that brings life can bring death when rejected (2 Cor 2:15-16).
- The Enduring Hope: Even in this severe judgment, a holy seed remains (v.13). God's purposes are never finished with judgment alone.
Five-point outline
- The Commission: A prophet volunteers, and God gives him a hard assignment.
- The Message: Isaiah is to preach truth that the people will resist.
- The Effect: Preaching hardens those who are set against it, not because of the message, but because of the heart that receives it.
- The Divine Heart: The word "lest" (pen) reveals God's declared purpose, yet many commentators see in it a sorrowful acknowledgment that healing is possible if they would turn.
- The Stump: The chapter ends with a remnant preserved, pointing to the faithful few who will carry the promise.
Illustration hooks
- A smoke alarm that goes off so often during cooking that the family stops paying attention. When a real fire starts, they don't respond. The warning itself becomes the cause of insensitivity.
- A person who works with a chemical without protective gloves. The first contact burns. But over time, the skin callouses and feels nothing. Now there is no pain to warn of damage.
- A doctor who tells a patient with high blood pressure to change his diet. The patient ignores the advice. The condition worsens, and eventually a stroke silences the messenger altogether.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Does God really cause people to become hard-hearted? If so, how is that fair?
- What does this verse say about the purpose of preaching? Should we expect to see people sometimes get harder, not softer, when they hear the gospel?
- How can I know if my own heart is becoming calloused toward God?
Leading a Discussion
This verse confronts us with a challenging truth: God's word does not always produce soft hearts. It can confirm a person in their resistance. The small group should approach this passage with humility, recognizing the seriousness of how we respond to what God says. The goal is not to solve the mystery of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but to let the warning lead us to examine our own response to God.
Discussion questions
- Read Isaiah 6:9-10. What surprises you about the content of the message God gives Isaiah?
- What does it mean to have a “fat” heart, “heavy” ears, and “shut” eyes? How do these physical metaphors describe spiritual states?
- In verse 9, God says the people “hear indeed but don’t understand.” How can someone hear and yet not understand? What does that look like in everyday life?
- The verse says the prophet is to “make fat,” “make heavy,” and “shut.” Why do you think God phrases it this way rather than simply saying the people will not respond?
- How do the parallel accounts of hardening hearts in Exodus (Pharaoh) and in the New Testament (Matthew 13:14-15) help you see this pattern more clearly?
- Have you ever seen someone become more resistant after hearing the gospel? What might that teach about how we share our faith?
- What is one area of your life where you might be tempted to stop listening to what God is saying? How can you guard against a calloused heart?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Exodus 7:3 | I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. |
| Exodus 10:27 | But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he wouldn’t let them go. |
| Exodus 11:10 | Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he didn’t let the children of Israel go out of his land. |
| Exodus 14:17 | Behold, I myself will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will go in after them. I will get myself honor over Pharaoh, and over all his armies, over his chariots, and over his horsemen. |
| Deuteronomy 2:30 | But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today. |
| Deuteronomy 32:15 | But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation. |
| Psalms 17:10 | They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly. |
| Psalms 119:70 | Their heart is as callous as the fat, but I delight in your law. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
11 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke distinguishes God's command from God's own act: the prophet is told to declare the people's stubbornness, not to cause it. He notes the phrase was a common proverb that Isaiah transforms into poetry, conveying that despite hearing
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes stresses that the hardening effect of preaching does not come from the truth itself or from God's direct action. It comes from the people's own corrupt hearts. The truth provokes and enrages them, making them more blind and stupid, yet God still commands His messenger to proclaim it.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin emphasizes a striking paradox: faithful preaching can make hearers more stubborn and doomed, yet God still counts it as an acceptable sacrifice. He warns this sad result is not unique to Isaiah but a permanent burden every true minister must endure patiently.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
The Cambridge Bible commentary sees this as a stark illustration of a spiritual law: exposure to God's truth can harden those already resistant. The Hebrew mind attributed all outcomes directly to God, so the inevitable result of the people's unbelief is described as God's intention. The real judgment lies in the very abundance of revelation they reject.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva notes treat this as a direct divine command to the prophet: God orders Isaiah to actively make the people unreceptive. This hardening is a judicial act of judgment, ensuring they cannot repent and be healed because they have already rejected God's message.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill emphasizes that this hardening is a righteous judicial act from God, not merely a description of the people's condition. Their wilful rejection of the Messiah brings on such insensibility that they cannot understand the Gospel. Even their possible conversion would have been only external reformation to avoid national ruin, not true healing.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB argues that God's command to "make the heart fat" is a judicial act of hardening, not merely a prediction. Corruption flows from the heart into the ears and eyes, yet healing reaches the heart only through the senses. Without love for divine things, seeing with one's eyes will not convince a resistant will.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch stresses that the imperatives to harden the people are not just prophetic announcement but actual causative acts through the prophet as the means of God’s judicial will. The three images—make fat, heavy, sticky—depict God’s wrathful response to Israel’s self-hardening, closing off repentance for the nation while leaving individuals reachable.
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange argues that Isaiah 6 is not the account of the prophet's initial call but the third and holiest entrance to his prophecies. Isaiah placed it deliberately after chapters 1-5 to prepare readers for this vision that transposes us into the inmost sanctuary, showing how he could see God and boldly offer himself as messenger.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry emphasises that God sends Isaiah on an unusual mission: his preaching itself becomes a judgment that hardens the people's hearts. This spiritual blindness, often unnoticed, is the most dreadful judgment of all, and it prefigures how many would later reject Christ and the gospel.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
John Wesley explains that when the prophet makes the people's hearts "fat," it means making them stupid and senseless. This judgment comes from God through the prophet's ministry, partly by predicting that preaching would harden them and partly by withdrawing the Spirit's help.