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Isaiah 63 · a question people ask

"O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear?" (63:17). What does the chapter say to that?

In the text

It is a question the prayer puts to the LORD, and the chapter records it without answering it. Right after it comes a plea: "Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance" (63:17). The chapter gives no reason for the question and no answer to it, and these notes set no other verse beside it to supply one. In Hebrew harden is qashach, a verb the Hebrew Bible has only twice (tap harden). The prayer goes on into chapter 64, and these notes leave the question where the chapter leaves it.

The verses

“O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.”
Isaiah 63:17 · World English Bible
“She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,”
Job 39:16 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 63

Isaiah 63: You are our Father

Isaiah 63:10-11 has two of the Hebrew Bible's three verses with Holy Spirit; the third is Psalm 51:11. The prayer that begins at 63:7 calls the LORD our Father twice in one verse (63:16), and the WEB has our Redeemer only there and in 47:4.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions