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John 12 blends the Hebrew and Greek versions of Isaiah 6. The Hebrew has God hardening the people; the Septuagint has them blinding themselves. John uses a third option: a third party has blinded them, likely the devil, called the prince of this world.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Isaiah 6:10
Septuagint
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people? And I said, look, I am here, send me. 9 And he said, Go, and say to this people, You shall hear indeed, but you shall not understand; and you shall see indeed, but you shall not perceive. 10 For the heart of this people has become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; for fear that they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. 11 And I said, How long, Lord? And he said, Until cities be deserted by reason of their not being inhabited, and the houses by reason of there being no men, and the land shall be left desolate.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
John 12:37
New Testament
37 Although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in him, 38 so that the word of the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled. He said, “Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 For this reason they could not believe because again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn to me, and I would heal them.” 41 Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ’s glory and spoke about him.
Date: 90–110 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Who is it that blinded people’s eyes and hardened their hearts? Commentators tend to assume that it is God that has hardened their hearts; this interpretation finds support in the Masoretic text for Isaiah 6:9–10 where God tells his prophet to dull the minds, stop the ears, and shut the eyes of the people, so that they do not believe. Their inability to believe appears to be in accordance with God’s will. In the Hebrew text, it is God who has willed that the eyes of the people be shut and their hearts hardened; this reading fits well with the use given the passage in Mark 4:11–12. John does not give a straight translation of the Hebrew, however. Rather he seems to combine expressions from the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, in addition to making other changes to the text ... In the Septuagint, God does not ask the prophet to make it impossible for the people to hear his word; here the people have closed their eyes all by themselves. In John’s version of the quote, someone else is responsible for the people not being able to see. The verbs “blinded” and “hardened” are in the third person singular, while the final verb “heal” is in the first person singular as in the Septuagint. I will argue that John is implying that the people’s blindness was caused by the “prince of this world,” i.e., the devil ..."
T. Löfstedt, “Who is the Blinder of Eyes and Hardener of Hearts in John 12:40?” SEÅ 84 (2019): 167–192.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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