Deuteronomy 2:30

2:30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was unwilling to allow us to pass near him because the Lord our ¹  God had made him obstinate ²  and stubborn ³  so that he might deliver him over to you ⁴  this very day.

Joshua 11:20

11:20 for the Lord determined to make them obstinate so they would attack Israel. He wanted Israel to annihilate them without mercy, as he had instructed Moses. ⁵ 

Joshua 11:2

11:2 and the northern kings who ruled in ⁶  the hill country, the Arabah south of Kinnereth, ⁷  the lowlands, and the heights of Dor to the west.

Joshua 1:16

1:16 They told Joshua, “We will do everything you say. We will go wherever you send us.

Proverbs 15:10

15:10 Severe discipline ⁸  is for the one who abandons the way;

the one who hates reproof ⁹  will die.

John 12:39-40

12:39 For this reason they could not believe, ¹⁰  because again Isaiah said,

12:40 “He has blinded their eyes

and hardened their heart, ¹¹ 

so that they would not see with their eyes

and understand with their heart, ¹² 

and turn to me, ¹³  and I would heal them.” ¹⁴ 

¹ tc The translation follows the LXX in reading the first person pronoun. The MT, followed by many English versions, has a second person masculine singular pronoun, “your.”

² tn Heb “hardened his spirit” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “made his spirit stubborn.”

³ tn Heb “made his heart obstinate” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “made his heart defiant.”

⁴ tn Heb “into your hand.”

⁵ tn Heb “for from the Lord it was to harden their heart[s] to meet for the battle with Israel, in order to annihilate them, so that they would receive no mercy, in order annihilate them, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

⁹ tn Heb “and to the kings who [are] from the north in.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “Chinneroth,” a city and plain located in the territory of Naphtali in Galilee (BDB 490 s.v. כִּנֶּרֶת, כִּנֲרוֹת).

¹³ tn The two lines are parallel synonymously, so the “severe discipline” of the first colon is parallel to “will die” of the second. The expression מוּסָר רָע (musar ra’, “severe discipline”) indicates a discipline that is catastrophic or harmful to life.

¹⁴ sn If this line and the previous line are synonymous, then the one who abandons the way also refuses any correction, and so there is severe punishment. To abandon the way means to leave the life of righteousness which is the repeated subject of the book of Proverbs.

¹⁷ sn The author explicitly states here that Jesus’ Jewish opponents could not believe, and quotes Isa 6:10 to show that God had in fact blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. This OT passage was used elsewhere in the NT to explain Jewish unbelief: Paul’s final words in Acts (28:26-27) are a quotation of this same passage, which he uses to explain why the Jewish people have not accepted the gospel he has preached. A similar passage (Isa 29:10) is quoted in a similar context in Rom 11:8.

²¹ tn Or “closed their mind.”

²² tn Or “their mind.”

²³ tn One could also translate στραφῶσιν (strafwsin) as “repent” or “change their ways,” but both of these terms would be subject to misinterpretation by the modern English reader. The idea is one of turning back to God, however. The words “to me” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

²⁴ sn A quotation from Isa 6:10.