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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 6

1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord seated on a high, elevated throne.⁠ The hem of his robe filled the temple.⁠ 2 Seraphs stood over him;⁠ each one had six wings.⁠ With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly.⁠ 3 They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy⁠ is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!⁠ His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!”⁠ 4 The sound of their voices shook the door frames, and the temple was filled with smoke.⁠ 5 I said, “Woe to me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” 6 But then one of the seraphs flew toward me. In his hand was a hot coal he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Look, this coal has touched your lips. Your evil is removed; your sin is forgiven.” 8 I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Whom will I send? Who will go on our behalf?”⁠ I answered, “Here I am, send me!” 9 He said, “Go and tell these people:⁠ “‘Listen continually, but don’t understand. Look continually, but don’t perceive.’⁠ 10 Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind.⁠ Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”⁠ 11 I replied, “How long, Lord?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated, 12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place, and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. 13 Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.”⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 6:9 and Jeremiah 5:21

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Jeremiah repeats language from Isaiah about people who hear but do not understand and see but do not perceive. Both use this to describe stubbornness with divine teaching, showing how writers adapted Isaiah’s language for their own audience.

Passages

Isaiah 6:9

Hebrew Bible
7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Look, this coal has touched your lips. Your evil is removed; your sin is forgiven.” 8 I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Whom will I send? Who will go on our behalf?” I answered, “Here I am, send me!” 9 He said, “Go and tell these people: “‘Listen continually, but don’t understand. Look continually, but don’t perceive.’ 10 Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind. Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.” 11 I replied, “How long, Lord?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Jeremiah 5:21

Hebrew Bible
19 “So then, Jeremiah, when your people ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So you must serve foreigners in a land that does not belong to you.’ 20 “Proclaim this message among the descendants of Jacob. Make it known throughout Judah. 21 Tell them: ‘Hear this, you foolish people who have no understanding, who have eyes but do not discern, who have ears but do not perceive: 22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord. “You should tremble in awe before me! I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” 23 But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts. They have turned aside and gone their own way.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jeremiah

References

"... The next reference to Israel as rebellious ... describes them as more wicked than the nations around them, for their rebellion against the משפטים and for acts of wickedness. Israel has rejected the rules, משפטים, and has not walked in the statutes, חקות. This “stereotypical pair … denotes the total moral basis the Lord gave Israel, what rabbinic Judaism calls Torah. Jerusalem, the Lord says, has rebelled against this.” ... This section ends with the pronouncement that YHWH’s eye will not spare and he will have no pity. There are strong verbal links with this phrase throughout the first half of Ezekiel. The same announcement of judgment is found in Ezekiel 7:4, 9; 8:18; 9:5, 10; 16:5; and 24:14. There are two startling exceptions, however. In 20:17, the passage discussed above where mitigation of punishment is mentioned without a motive clause, there is the phrase, “but, my eye spared them.” Given the overwhelmingly destructive use of the phrase earlier in Ezekiel this usage now stands in even greater relief. Furthermore, the final use of חמל, often translated as “pity,” in these passages, is 36:21 where the reader encounters YHWH’s statement ... This is followed by the motive statement in 36:22 where he specifies that his soon coming acts of deliverance are not for the sake of the house of Israel, but rather for his holy name. Remarkably, the concern that YHWH has sworn to withhold, with which he rescued Israel on one occasion (20:17) is the concern he has for his holy name. The next cluster of occurrences of rebellion language is in chapter 12. These uses echo language from Isaiah 6:9 and Jeremiah 5:21, which also note the people’s refusal to respond to the prophetic message. The use here is to combat the complacency of the exiles noted above in the discussion of the proverb recorded in Ezekiel 12:22 ..."
Michael Thigpen, Divine Motive in the Hebrew Bible: A Comprehensive Survey and Analysis (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2015), 107–108.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 6:9 and Jeremiah 5:21

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