O Yahweh, 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.
World English Bible
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O Yahweh, 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.
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
James 1:5 and Luke 11:10 present God as giving freely and liberally to all who ask. But John 12:40 (quoting Isaiah 6:10) has God blinding eyes and hardening hearts so people cannot be converted; Joshua 11:20 says it was "of the LORD to harden their hearts" so they would fight Israel and be destroyed; and Isaiah 63:17 has the prophet accusing God of making his people "err from thy ways" and hardening their hearts.
Critical scholarship: Genuinely disputed among scholars.
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Isaiah 63:17 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/isaiah/63/17?version=WEB (retrieved 26 August 2026).