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sought Him, that they are a joy, that His joy is in them, and that their days shall be "as the
days of a tree" (Isa. 65: 10, 18, 19, 22).
Let us now consider a little more closely the words used in Isa. 6: 9 and 10:
"Understand not";
"perceive not";
"make the heart of this people fat";
"make their ears heavy"; "shut their eyes"; "convert"; "be healed".
The word "understand" is the Hebrew bin, which is rendered "consider" in Isa. 1: 3:
"My people doth not consider." The word "perceive" is the Hebrew yada, which occurs
in the same verse (Isa. 1: 3) in the sentence: "The ox knoweth her owner . . . . . but Israel
doth not know." The Hebrew word translated "to make fat" is shamon, and is connected
with the word shemen, "ointment" (Isa. 1: 6). It occurs but five times in the O.T. and
always in a bad sense--rather in the same way as we speak of the fatty degeneration of
the heart. The five occurrences are as follows:
"Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art
covered with fatness; then he forsook God" (Deut. 32: 15).
"Make the heart of this people fat" (Isa. 6: 10).
"They are waxen fat . . . . . they overpass the deeds of the wicked" (Jer. 5: 28).
"They became fat . . . . . nevertheless they were disobedient" (Neh. 9: 25, 26).
If the judicial fattening of the heart is connected with the same word that gives us
"ointment", and the anointing of the Messiah, "the making heavy" of Israel's ears seems
to be associated with their failure to recognize and further the Lord's glory, for the word
that gives us "glory" in Isa. 6: 3 (kabod) also gives us "heavy" (kabed). The underlying
link between the words is the conception of "weight". Riches were conceived of in the
terms of weight as in Gen. 13: 2, and Paul, who had been a "Hebrew of the Hebrews",
uses the same idea when he speaks of the "weight of glory".
The expression "shut their eyes" in Isa. 6: is rendered, in Young's literal translation:
"And its eyes declare dazzled." In its various forms, the verb shaa is translated "delight"
(Psa. 119: 16, 47, 70; 94: 19) and "cry ye out and cry" (Margin: Take your pleasure
and riot: Isa. 29: 9). Once again it seems that, as Israel did not "delight" or "take their
pleasure" in the glorious purposes of the Lord, the very glory dazzled their eyes, just as
the glory of the risen Lord resulted in the Apostle's three days of blindness on the road to
Damascus.
The word "convert" is the translation of the Hebrew shub, which appears again in
verse 13 with special emphasis. The same word (shub) occurs several times in Isa. 1::
"And I will turn My hand upon thee, and purely purge away they dross . . . . . and I
will restore thy judges as at the first . . . . . Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and
her converts with righteousness" (Isa. 1: 25, 26, 27).
The word "heal" in Isa. 6: is the Hebrew rapha which occurs in Isaiah seven times,
as follows: