Isaiah 63 Footnotes

63:17 Isaiah apparently quoted a prayer of the people—or ascribed it to them as a literary device—who complained that the Lord caused them to stray and hardened their hearts. It is possible to interpret this complaint in several ways. (1) God eventually hardens the hearts of those who continually reject him through their own choice (see note on 6:9-10). (2) The people, in their prayer, were inappropriately blaming God rather than taking responsibility for their poor choices. (3) The verb could be translated in a tolerative sense, “Why do you allow us to stray?” rather than in a causative sense. God gives people freedom to obey or disobey him; when humans choose to ignore him and run counter to his directives, it is not primarily God’s doing. But God may eventually give them over to their own sinful inclinations simply by withdrawing his hand from the situation (Rm 1:18-25).