For the LORD has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers has he covered.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 29:10 Go To Isaiah 29
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
If they could not believe, what is the sin of a person not doing what he cannot do? But if they sinned by not believing, then they could believe and did not.… Then what will we answer about another testimony of the prophet that the apostle Paul cites, saying, “Israel did not obtain what he was seeking, but the election did obtain it. The rest indeed have been blinded, as it has been written, ‘God gave them a spirit of insensibility, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear until this present day.’ ”
You have heard, brothers, the question proposed; you see, of course, how profound it is. But we answer as best we can. “They could not believe,” because Isaiah the prophet foretold this. But the prophet foretold it because God foreknew that it would be. Why they could not, however, if it should be asked of me, I quickly answer, because they were not willing. For God foresaw their evil will and he, from whom the future cannot be hidden, foretold it through the prophet.
But, you say, the prophet states another cause, not of their will. What cause does the prophet state? That “God gave them a spirit of insensibility, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, and he blinded their eyes and hardened their heart.” I answer that their will earned even this. For thus God blinds, thus God hardens by abandoning and not helping; and he can do this by a hidden judgment, but he cannot do it by an evil one. The piety of the religious ought altogether keep this unshaken and inviolate; as the apostle says when he was discussing this very same, most difficult question: “What shall we say, then? Is there injustice with God? Not at all!” Therefore, if it is not at all the case that there is injustice with God, either when he helps, he acts mercifully, or when he does not help, he acts justly, because he does all things not with rashness but in judgment. Accordingly, if the judgments of the saints are just, how much more so those of the sanctifying and justifying God! Therefore they are just but hidden.
