But what a strange message he is commanded to deliver. This almost sounds as though the Lord did not want the people to be converted. However, Paul interprets this passage as he understood it and says: “For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”1 In other words these people are scared to death they might be converted if they opened their hearts and heard the truth. Apparently the Lord had indicated that the hardheartedness and stiffneckedness would cause this people to be sorely afflicted and therefore he asks:
“Then said I: Lord, how long? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate; And the Lord have removed men far away, for there shall be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”