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With them, as froward, the All-seeing will, in the psalmist's terribly bold phrase, "show Himself froward"; they will incur that penalty which Scripture describes as a blinding of their eyes and a hardening of their heart, and which essentially consists in their being left to themselves without the light which they do not sincerely seek for — left, in fact, to take their own way, and see what will come of it. This line of Biblical language has caused difficulties which cannot be passed over; the more so, because one passage in which it is found (Isaiah 6:10) is of all passages in the Old Testament the one most frequently cited in the New Testament; and St. John, with a startling distinctness, attributes the "blinding" and "hardening" to the Lord. The explanation must be found in that law of ethical life whereby persistency in self-will — the process, as Shakespeare, in an awfully vivid passage, calls it, of "growing hard in viciousness" — does inevitably produce moral insensibility. All serious moralists, whatever be their theological standpoint, will admit this to be a fact; and all who believe in a God will see in it a revelation of His character, so that when it works He is, in fact, allowing it to take its course. And it is the method of Scripture writers to impress the fact on men's minds with a concrete vividness, by representing such action on God's part as a literal penal infliction. There, anyhow, stands the fact, and we have to reckon with it. Let us' also fear, and be on our guard, lest, for lack of the single-eyed purpose which our Lord insists upon in His great sermon, we too should be left in the great darkness which waits like a shadow on hardness of heart.

(Canon Bright.)

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KJV: Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

WEB: Therefore speak to them, and tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet; I Yahweh will answer him therein according to the multitude of his idols;