For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and [their] ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with [their] eyes, and hear with [their] ears, and should understand with [their] heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
15. this people’s heart is waxed gross ] The heart was regarded as the seat of intelligence. Gross, literally, fat, so stolid, dull, like pinguis in Latin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 15. Heart is waxed gross] , is become fat – inattentive stupid, insensible. They hear heavily with their ears-are half asleep while the salvation of God is preached unto them.
Their eyes they have closed] Totally and obstinately resisted the truth of God, and shut their eyes against the light.
Lest-they should see, &c.] Lest they should see their lost estate, and be obliged to turn unto God, and seek his salvation. His state is truly deplorable who is sick unto death, and yet is afraid of being cured. The fault is here totally in the people, and not at all in that God whose name is Mercy and whose nature is love.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For this people’s heart is waxed gross, c,] Or fat, become stupid and sottish, and without understanding and so incapable of taking in the true sense and meaning of what they saw with their eyes, and heard with their ears; for they had their outward senses of hearing and seeing, and yet their intellectual powers were stupefied.
And their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; which is expressive of the blindness and hardness, which were partly brought upon themselves by their own wilfulness and obstinacy, against such clear evidence as arose from the doctrine and miracles of Christ; and partly from the righteous judgment of God, giving them up, for their perverseness, to judicial blindness and obduracy; Joh 12:40 and are in the prophet ascribed to the ministry of the word; that being despised, was in righteous judgment, the savour of death unto death, unto them; and they under it, as clay, under the influence of the sun, grew harder and harder by it, stopping their ears, and shutting their eyes against it:
lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart: which may be understood either of God’s intention, and view, in giving them up to judicial blindness, and hardness of heart, under such miracles, and such a ministry, as a punishment for their wilful contempt of them; that so they might never have any true sight, hearing, and understanding of these things, and be turned from the evil of their ways, have repentance unto life, and remission of sins; which seems to be the sense of the other evangelists, Mr 4:12 or, as if these people purposely stupefied themselves, stopped their ears, and pulled away the shoulder, and wilfully shut their eyes; fearing they should receive some conviction, light, and knowledge,
and be converted by the power and grace of God:
and I should heal them; or, as in Mark, “and their sins should be forgiven them”; for healing of diseases, and forgiveness of sins, are, in Scripture language, one and the same thing; and this sense of the phrase here, is justified by the Chaldee paraphrase, which renders it, , “and they be forgiven”, or “it be forgiven them”, and by a Jewish commentator on the place; who interprets healing, of the healing of the soul, and adds , “and this is pardon” m.
m R. David Kimchi in loc.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Is waxed gross (). Aorist passive tense. From , thick, fat, stout. Made callous or dull — even fatty degeneration of the heart.
Dull of hearing ( ). Another aorist. Literally, “They heard (or hear) heavily with their ears.” The hard of hearing are usually sensitive.
Their eyes they have closed ( ). The epic and vernacular verb is from (to shut down). We say shut up of the mouth, but the eyes really shut down. The Hebrew verb in Isa 6:10 means to smear over. The eyes can be smeared with wax or cataract and thus closed. “Sealing up the eyes was an oriental punishment” (Vincent). See Isa 29:10; Isa 44:18.
Lest (). This negative purpose as a judgment is left in the quotation from Isaiah. It is a solemn thought for all who read or hear the word of God.
And I should heal them ( ). Here the LXX changes to the future indicative rather than the aorist subjunctive as before.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Is waxed gross [] . Lit., was made fat. Wyc., enfatted.
Are dull of hearing [ ] . Lit., They heard heavily with their ears.
They have closed [] , kata, down, muw, to close, as in musthria above. Our idiom shuts up the eyes. The Greek shuts them down. The Hebrew, in Isa 6:10, is besmear. This insensibility is described as a punishment. Compare Isa 29:10; Isa 44:18; in both of which the closing of the eyes is described as a judgment of God. Sealing up the eyes was an oriental punishment. Cheyne (” Isaiah “) cites the case of a son of the Great Mogul, who has his eyes sealed up three years by his father as a punishment. Dante pictures the envious, on the second cornice of Purgatory, with their eyes sewed up :
“For all their lids an iron wire transpierces, And sews them up, as to a sparhawk wild Is done, because it will not quiet stay.” Purg., 13 70 – 72.
Be converted [] . Rev., turn again; ejpi, to or toward, strefw, to turn; with the idea of their turning from their evil toward God.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For this people’s heart is waxed gross,” (epachunthe gar he kardia tou laou toutou) “Because the heart of this people waxed gross,” became grossly hardened like wax, of their own emotional rejection of the appeal of Divine Truth, as presented to them, by 1) First, John the Baptist, 2) Second, by Jesus Himself, and 3) Third, by the apostles who had been sent forth to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Mat 3:1-12; Joh 1:11-12; Mat 10:1-23.
2) “And their ears are dull of hearing,” (kai tois osin bareos ekousan) “And with their ears they heard in a dull manner,” an incomprehensive manner. The sound they heard, but the meaning they did not grasp, though often reproved, Pro 29:1.
3) “And their eyes they have closed;” (kai tous ophthalmous auton ekammusan) “And they closed their eyes, of their own accord,” to what they saw, fulfilled in Jesus and John the Baptist, Mat 3:1-17.
4) “Lest at any time they should see with their eyes,” (mepote edosin tois ophthalmois) “Lest they should see with their eyes,” otherwise they would have perceived with their eyes, if they had not willfully turned away in covetousness, as the rich young ruler did, Mat 19:22.
5) “And hear with their ears,” (kai tois osin akousosin) “And should hear with their ears, in a comprehensive manner.
6) “And should understand with their hearts,” (kai te kardia sunosin) “And should understand or grasp with the heart,” with the center of their emotions, and believe on Him, Rom 10:9-10; Act 15:9.
7) “And should be converted, and I should heal them.” (kai epistrepsosin kai easomai autous) “And should turn back (be converted) and I will heal them;” of the malady of unbelief, Joh 3:18; Act 3:19.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mat 13:15
. Lest I should heal them In the word healing, Matthew, as well as the Prophet, includes deliverance from every evil; for a people afflicted by the hand of God is metaphorically compared by them to a sick man. They say that healing is bestowed, (188) when the Lord releases from punishment. But as this healing depends on the pardon of sins, Mark describes appropriately and justly its cause and source, lest they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them For whence comes the mitigation of chastisements, but because God has been reconciled to us, and makes us the objects of his blessing? Sometimes, no doubt, after removing our guilt, he continues to punish us, either with the view of humbling us the more, or of making us more cautious for the future. And yet, not only does he show evidences of his favor by restoring us to life and health; but as punishments usually terminate when the guilt is removed, healing and forgiveness are properly introduced together. It must not, however, be concluded, that repentance is the cause of pardon, as if God received into his favor converted men, because they deserved it; (189) for conversion itself is a mark of God’s free favor. Nothing more is expressed than such an order and connection, that God does not forgive the sins of any but those who are dissatisfied with themselves.
(188) “ Ils disent qu’il guarit, et remet en sante;” — “they say that he heals, and restores to health.”
(189) “ Il ne faut pas conclurre par cela que la repentance, ou conversion, soit cause de nous faire avoir remission et pardon de nos pechez; comme si Dieu prenoit a merci ceux qui se convertissent, pource qu’ils en sont dignes, et le meritent;” — “we must not therefore conclude, that repentance, or conversion, is the cause of making us have forgiveness and pardon of our sins; as if God exercised mercy towards those who are converted, because they are worthy of it, and deserve it.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15) Lest at any time they should see.The words point to the obstinate, wilful ignorance which refuses to look on the truth, lest the look should lead to conviction, and conviction to conversionthe ignorance of those who love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil (Joh. 3:19).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. For this people’s heart is waxed gross The reason is now given why those withholdings of truth are inflicted. The minds of the people had grown too gross to receive it. For instance, had the parable of the mustard seed been explained to the Pharisees as indicating that the Gospel would yet fill the earth, it would only have excited their additional hostility, and hastened their purpose of accusing him as intending to subvert the existing government. As their purpose had become too fixed, and their hearts too hard to enter into the spirit and plan of the kingdom of God, its teachings must remain mysteries to them. Dull of hearing That is, of hearing what was most deeply essential to their good. Their eyes they have closed It is they who have done it. Their blindness is wilful. They close their own eyes to the beauty of the Gospel, and therefore its real principles must be kept from them. I should heal them As I would gladly do, if they would but allow it to be done.
It is the law of God’s spiritual kingdom, that resistance to truth hardens the heart. To brace their minds against the truth and to defend themselves in opposition to it, they arm themselves with countless falsehoods. Their minds thereby get into that state that it benefits them not; nay, even damages and condemns them. It may be then even a mercy to withhold it from them. They may use it to evil purposes, and it may bring them into greater sin. Or they may have so insulted it that they have by their own heinous guilt rendered themselves, like the damned in hell, unworthy of it.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“For this people’s heart is grown gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest it happen that they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them.”
The reason for their failure is because of the condition of their ‘inner hearts’, that is, their minds, emotions and wills. Their hearts and minds and thoughts are full of other things so that they have become fat and dull and lazy as far as God is concerned, their ears are attuned to other things and therefore they give no credence to spiritual things, they close their spiritual eyes when they are challenged about God so that nothing comes home to them, and this is what prevents their hearing, and seeing, and understanding with the result that they do not ‘turn again’. Thus no genuine response results in their lives, and Jesus therefore does not heal them.
“Lest it happen that they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them.” There would appear here to be an indication that the condition of people’s hearts is actually intended by God to prevent them from understanding God’s words and responding to them. But we must reckon on two things, the prophet’s (and God’s) irony and his firm belief that God is the prime source of everything.
In His irony God sees the people as being almost afraid of hearing and seeing lest they might have to respond and be healed. And that is because they do not want to respond and be healed. They like being as they are. Certainly they want any benefits that God will dole out to them, but they do not want to be stirred out of their indolent, self-satisfied way of living. Thus they are afraid of hearing and seeing lest their should be changed.
But as one who believes that all that happens is of God Isaiah is also describing what he sees in the light of those terms. He is saying that this is so because although we cannot explain it, God has done it. But it should be noted here that he is not suggesting that God does directly intervene to close men’s eyes or to shut their ears, or to darken their understandings. He is simply saying that He allows their natural responses (which are of course the result of His creative work as wrecked by the Fall) to do it for them. He is saying that He refrains from interfering with the natural course of things. These are the people to whom in His sovereignty He has chosen not to make Himself known. But the final fault lies with them and the state of their hearts which they themselves have brought about. For ‘what may be known of God is manifest to them’ (Rom 1:19-20), if only their hearts would respond. Thus they are without excuse. (If we have free will we certainly have nothing to grumble about, and if we did not have freewill we would not be arguing about it).
The close correspondence with LXX that we find here is unusual in Matthew but may have resulted from a Hebrew text which closely paralleled LXX, which he then translates in accordance with his knowledge of LXX, or may even in fact have been taken from LXX itself (but why then do we not find it more often apart from when Mark is being interpreted), or from a list of a series of quotations from LXX. Many Greek speaking Jews in Palestine might well have favoured, and had available in their synagogues, copies of the Septuagint (LXX), which may have been utilised both by Jesus and by Matthew.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Ver. 15. For this people’s heart, &c. ] A fat heart is a fearful plague. “Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in thy law,” Psa 119:70 . None can delight in God’s law that are fat-hearted. Feeding cattle, we know, are most brutish and blockish. And physiognomers observe, that a full and fat heart betokens a dull and doltish disposition. Eglon’s fat paunch would not part with the poniard: and Pliny tells of bears so fat that they felt not the sharpest prickles.
Their ears are dull of hearing ] So were the disbelieving Hebrews, for the which they are much taxed and tutored by the apostle. a Surdaster erat M. Crassus; sed illud peius, quod male audiebat, saith Cicero. These here hear very ill, for their no better hearing.
Their eyes they have closed ] Or they wink hard with their eyes: they shut the windows, lest the light should come in: ut liberius peccent libenter ignorant, they do not what they might, toward the work. (Bern.)
Lest at any time they should see ] See we may here (in that which they should have seen and done) the right order of repentance to salvation never to be repented of. The blind eye is opened, the deaf ear unstopped, the dull heart affected, &c. God first puts his laws into men’s minds, that they may know them, and then writes the same in their hearts, that they may have the comfort, feeling, and fruition of them. And then it is, “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people,”Heb 8:10Heb 8:10 .
a , Heb 5:11 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
waxed gross = grown fat.
see. Greek. blepo. App-133.
be converted = be turned to [the Lord].
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 13:15. , FOR this peoples heart is waxed gross) It stands thus in the S. V.; but in the Hebrew there is no word corresponding to the Greek , for. The language, however, rapidly turns itself away from them.[607]- , the heart, – , with their ears, their eyes) These three occur again immediately in the opposite order: with their eyes, with their ears, with their heart. The heart is the first in the beginning, the last in the end. From the heart corruption flows into the ears and eyes; through the eyes and ears health[608] reaches the heart.— , they have closed, lest at any time I should heal them) God therefore had wished to heal them; and it is clear that healing was close to them, if they had only turned to it. In Mar 4:12, we read ; i.e. and their sins be forgiven them. Cf. Psa 103:3.-, should understand) The seat[609] of , understanding, and , perception, is the heart, not the brain: this is equally true of , hardening (see Joh 12:40), and of , darkening (see Rom 1:21); as also of , unbelief, and , faith, which is followed by , conversion.[610]
[607] Sermo autem celeriter se ab iis avertit. This is one of many instances where it is impossible to find an English equivalent to the Latin Sermo, Bengels moaning is that whereas, in Mat 13:9, God had commanded the prophet to go and speak to the Jews, saying, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not, in Mat 13:8, He suddenly changes the Sermo, i.e. the mode of speech, the direction of His words; and, instead of desiring Isaiah to address the people, turns from them, as it were, and gives an injunction to the prophet, regarding them, it is true, but not addressed to them: sc. Make the heart of this people fat, etc.-(I. B.)
[608] Sanitas, lit. soundness, an expression applied indifferently to mind or body, as in the well-known passage of Juvenal:-
[609] Subjectum quo.-(I. B.)
[610] The Hebrew accents undoubtedly connect the words (and should be converted) more closely with (should understand) than with (I should heal). And in many passages of the Old Testament which are quoted in the New, the Hebrew accents agree more accurately with the force of the exact words of the Inspired original than the punctuation employed by the Greeks: e.g. Mat 4:15; Mat 19:5; Mat 21:5; Luk 4:18; Act 7:6; Act 8:32; Heb 1:12; Heb 3:9; Heb 12:26; Heb 13:6. And yet these Greeks were Christians. We ought not, therefore, to think that the Hebrew accents have originated with the modern Jews left to their blindness. Their origin is far more ancient, far more sublime.-APP. CRIT., Ed. II., p. 120.
Ut sit mens sana in corpere sano.-(I. B.)
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
heart: Psa 119:70
ears: Zec 7:11, Joh 8:43, Joh 8:44, Act 7:57, 2Ti 4:4, Heb 5:11
their eyes: Isa 29:10-12, Isa 44:20, 2Th 2:10, 2Th 2:11
and should be: Act 3:19, 2Ti 2:25, 2Ti 2:26, Heb 6:4-6
and I: Isa 57:18, Jer 3:22, Jer 17:14, Jer 33:6, Hos 14:4, Mal 4:2, Mar 4:12, Rev 22:2
Reciprocal: Lev 13:29 – General Deu 32:28 – General 2Ch 24:19 – but they would Psa 14:2 – any Psa 17:10 – They are Psa 69:23 – Their eyes Pro 16:30 – shutteth Isa 6:9 – Hear ye Isa 6:10 – convert Isa 27:11 – for it is Isa 42:19 – Who is blind Isa 44:18 – for he hath Isa 56:11 – are shepherds Isa 58:8 – and thine Isa 59:1 – his ear Jer 36:3 – that I Eze 47:8 – the waters Zec 7:12 – lest Mat 18:3 – Except Mar 3:5 – hardness Mar 8:18 – see Luk 19:42 – but Joh 8:37 – because Act 28:26 – Go Rom 9:18 – will he Rom 11:7 – and the rest Eph 1:18 – eyes Eph 4:18 – blindness Heb 3:8 – Harden
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3:15
The condition described is with reference to their moral or spiritual situation, but the natural organs are named by way of illustration. Gross means “To make fat; to make stupid (to render the soul dull or callous).” And this was not an accident that came to them, for the verse states the motive they had for bringing on the condition. It was done deliberately for fear they might hear some truth that would expose their evil deeds and later lead them into the service of Christ.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 13:15. For this peoples heart. A more exact quotation, but changed into a prediction.
Waxed gross, become fat, carnal, losing its spiritual life.
Their eyes they have closed; a persistent course of action.
Lest haply. What they would not do, was what they at length could not do. The result of their own doings fulfilled Gods righteous judicial purpose, but the blame was theirs. The parables themselves betokened the existence of this state of things both as a result and as a punishment.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 15
Lest at any time, &c., that is, their eyes and ears were wilfully closed against the truth. The sentiment of this answer of our Savior’s, the meaning of which is rendered still more plain by the parallel passages, (Mark 4:11,12; Luke 8:10,) is, that, while divine truth is so revealed that the docile and spiritually-minded, and all really desirous to learn of him, can easily understand it, yet it is so presented that the captious, the proud, and the evil-minded, may hear and not understand. A veil covers and conceals the spiritual meaning, though it is a veil easily to be removed by all who wish to remove it.