| Matthew 13:15
| For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
| And should be converted. In this the prophet shews the atrocity of the Jewish wickedness, and the malice of their hearts, but that he may attach them to God, their Father, he immediately subjoins, lest being converted, I should heal them; and this he says, in order to manifest to them the goodness of God, if they would repent. (St. Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas) --- There is some difference between the text of Isaias, given by St. Matthew, and the original. But we have elsewhere observed, that the evangelists attend more to the sense than the words. The Septuagint have translated this text in the same manner. The prophecy here mentioned regarded the Jews in the time of Isaias, according to the strict letter, but still more particularly the Jews in the time of Christ. (Bible de Vence) --- They were authors of their own blindness, sin, damnation, and not Jesus Christ, as Calvin teaches. See also Acts xxviii. and Romans 1:and 9:18. etc. God is not the author of evil. (Bristow)
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