לתשובת המינים
In Response to the Sectarians
General Difficulties with Christian "Messianic Prophecies"
Verses Cited By the Christian Bible as Messianic Prophecies
Who is Abraham’s"Seed"?
How is Abraham a Father to Many Nations?
How are the Nations Blessed by Abraham’s Seed?
Who is a Prophet Like Moses?
Who was Hung on a Tree?
Who do the Angels Worship?
What does it mean to be the "Son of God?"
Whose message is not understood?
The Virgin Birth: Who is the Almah’s Son?
Who is the “Stumbling Stone”?
Who is the “Great Light” of the Galilee?
Who will the Nations Seek?
Who is the Cornerstone?
Whose Voice calls out in the Wilderness?
Who Heals Sick Followers?
Who is the Suffering Servant?
Who will Receive the Enduring Kindnesses Promised to David?
Who is the Spirit of Hashem Upon?
Who has No Mind Conceived?
Who did Rachel Weep For?
Who was the Son called from Egypt?
Who is the "Holy Spirit" Poured Out On ?
Who is David’s Fallen Booth?
Who will Emerge From Bethlehem?
Will Mashiach Bring Peace or a Sword?
Who will Enter Jerusalem on a Donkey?
Whose Coins?
Who is it Whom They Have Pierced?
Who is the Stricken Shepard?
Who is the Messenger Sent Before?
Against Whom do the Nations Conspire?
Who do the Children Praise?
Who is a Little Lower than the Angels?
Who will See No Decay?
Who is Forsaken?
Whose Bones are Guarded?
Who was Hated Without Reason?
For Whom Was a Body Prepared?
Who is the Betrayer?
Whose Throne?
Who Ascended on High?
Who was Hated without Reason?
Who is the Betrayer?
Who opens His Mouth with Parables?
Who are Sons of the Most High?
Who Remains the Same?
Whose days are Few?
Who is “my lord”? Who sits at God’s Right Hand?
Who is the Rejected Capstone?
Who is Like a Son of Man?
Additional Verses Cited By Christian Missionaries and Apologists
Messianic Significance of the Jewish Festivals
The True Messiah of the Hebrew Bible
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Whose message is not understood?
Isaiah 6:9, 10 Speaks in parables Matthew 13:13-15, Mark 4:12, Luke 6:9,8:10
Isaiah 6:9, 10 Callous Jews Acts 28:27
Isaiah 6:10 Blinded John 12:40
"Surely you hear, but you do not comprehend; and surely you see, but you fail to know. This people is fattening its hear, hardening its ears, and sealing its eyes, lest it see with its eyes, hear with its ears and understand with its heart, so that it will repent and be healed."
The various references in the New Testament used these verses to explain why the Nazarene used parables and why the Jews didn’t accept him. Yet the book of Isaiah clearly is speaking of a completely different matter, recording what God instructed him to say to the people of his own generation. In the verse following our passage Isaiah asks Hashem, "How long, my Lord?" To which Hashem replies,
Until the cities become desolate without inhabitant, the houses without a person, and the land becomes desolate, wasted; and Hashem will drive the people far away, and abandonment will be great amid the land. There will be ten more in it, then it shall regress and become barren. (Isaiah 6:11-13).There is an end to the blindness being discussed, unfortunately it would end in Exile. This exile, desolation, refers to the Babylonian Exile. According to some opinions such as Radak and Iben Ezra, the "ten more" are the ten kings that ruled from the time of the prophecy, the last year of King Uzziah, until the Exile. Alternatively עשיריה has been translated "a tenth" meaning that the surviving remnant will face further decimation. Hashem said the blindness which Yeshayahu haNavi (the Prophet Isaiah) spoke of would end hundreds of years before the audience the Nazarene applied it to would be born. Indeed, say what you like about post-exilic Judaism, but idolatry was never the stumbling block that it had been before, "Significantly, all this later clutter had disappeared from Judean usage once the Jews returned from Babylon in the Persian epoch" (Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, page 419).
This "proof" is an attempt by Christianity to explain why the people who knew the T'nakh rejected the Nazarene and those who didn’t know it accepted him. Since T'nakh was obviously the heritage of the Jews, the early Church found it difficult to comprehend how the Jews rejected the Nazarene and they didn't. They found it necessary to attribute their disbelief to supernatural forces because the situation as stood made their interpretation of the T'nakh suspect, so it is found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as in the mouth of Paul in the Book of Acts. The passage itself, has an entirely different meaning in which Isaiah speaks of his own generation, and the blindness was promised to end (albeit through suffering) many generations before the Nazarene was born.
Of course many Christians will be willing to concede that the primary intent was referring to Isaiah’s generation being unreceptive to his message, but will argue that the obstinacy described in this passage illustrates a typical unreceptive response to God’s messengers. Of course one must remember that, although at times of discouragement it can feel like it, it is not necessary for a messenger to speak truth for his message to find an unreceptive audience. Conversely it is not always the case that those who speak the truth are ignored by their peers. There would be no reason for someone living before the Nazarene (or those afterward) who had read this passage in Isaiah to infer that these words would apply to the "shoot" which will "spring forth from the stem of Jesse" when "the land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea bed." (Isaiah 11). While this expectation alone may not be mutually exclusive with the Messiah initially being unheeded, we can not infer from Isaiah 6 that the typical obstinacy to prophetic teachings could be expected with the [ultimately] atypically successful Messiah. The verses from Isaiah 6 did not in and of itself further the understanding of the Messiah for Isaiah’s original audience (or subsequent generations) and cannot at all be considered a "prophecy" of the Nazarene.