Isaiah 6:9-13
Persistent rejection of God’s word results in judicial hardening, but God preserves a remnant that carries forward His redemptive purpose.
9 He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’
10 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.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,
12 and Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land.
13 If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stump remains when they are cut down; so the holy seed is its stock.”
Persistent rejection of God’s word results in judicial hardening, but God preserves a remnant that carries forward his redemptive purpose.
To reveal the judicial hardening that will accompany Isaiah’s ministry and to affirm that even in devastation a holy seed will remain.
Isaiah's ministry occurs during a time of increasing moral decline in Judah, when the people's resistance to God's word would eventually lead to national devastation and exile.
The Holy King, the Cleansed Prophet, and the Hardening Commission
Isaiah 6 reveals the holy King whose glory exposes uncleanness, provides atoning cleansing, sends his prophet, hardens the resistant, and preserves a holy seed through judgment.