By this it is not meant that Isaiah was to aim at and put forth what power he possessed to lead the people of Judah deeper and ever deeper into error and sire That was an errand on which God was morally incapable of sending him. His business was to teach them, not error, but truth; to set them an example not of rebellion, but obedience to the Divine win; to diminish and do away with their moral insensibility and wickedness, not increase them. The meaning is, that they would so act that the effect of all his diligence and ingenuity to instruct and reform them would be to render them still more stupid and wicked, and still more the objects of the Lord’s displeasure. Accordingly, both in Mat_13:14-15 and Act_28:25-27, we find the passage so quoted and interpreted as to bring out the guilt of the people themselves, and constrain us to throw all the blame on them. (G. Cron, M. A.)
