He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand; and you see indeed, but don’t perceive.’
God takes Isaiah at his word, and here sends him on a strange errand - to foretel the ruin of his people and even to ripen them for that ruin - to preach that which, by their abuse of it, would be to them a savour of death unto death.
Commenting on Isaiah 6:9-13
9. Then he said, Go, and tell that people. And he said, Go, and tell this people. — Eng. Ver. This shows still more clearly how necessary the vision was, that Isaiah might not all at once fail in his course.
Hear . . . indeed--Hebrew, "In hearing hear," that is, Though ye hear the prophet's warnings again and again, ye are doomed, because of your perverse will (Joh 7:17), not to understand. Light enough is given in revelation to guide those sincerely seeking to know, in order that they may do, God's will; darkness enough is left to confound the wilfully blind (Isa 43:8).