God Forced Israel To Reject

"Who will go for me?" requested the Lord God.
"Here am I," responded Isaiah; "Send me!"
"Go! And tell this stubborn people, 'You trod
On me, though I brought you from Egypt, free!
You've trampled my laws, and hardened your hearts;
My words are ignored, like smoke in the night!
Alien wives you have taken from these pagan parts;
You worship idols that pervert the light!'
"Say, 'Your eyes see, but your minds are more slow;
Your ears hear, but you will not comprehend;
Hearts are more calloused to truths Christ will sow;
You'll be blind and deaf to Messiah I send!'"
These grim words by Isaiah faithfully went
Seven hundred years ere Jesus was sent!

The Chosen People (Israel) were stubborn, rebellious, disobedient and incorrigible failures in keeping their end of the covenant with God. Time after time, He forgave them and rescued them, only to be rewarded with new transgressions. For several hundred years He relented His anger and restored them. Finally, in the time of the prophet Isaiah, He imposed a permanent (or seemingly permanent; it's still in effect in 2009) judgment of stonehearted callousness upon them, which insured they would reject the Messiah Jesus when He came. This judgment had the effect of delaying Israel's salvation while opening it up for the whole world under a spiritual covenant of faith.

"He said, 'Go and tell this people: Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.'" (Isaiah 6:9-10)

No one can come to a saving belief in Jesus Christ spiritually blind. The Jews have always prided themselves on earthiness, practical words interpreted in a literal, concrete manner. This was the trait that inspired Jesus' strongest indictments. The Pharisees took God's commandments---for example, Keep the Sabbath day holy---and made hundreds of picayune oral rules defining what a Jew had to do to be considered obedient, with no flexibility, no mercy, no exceptions, no matter what. So when Jesus healed a crippled man on the Sabbath, it infuriated the religious leaders; and when the disciples picked kernels of corn to eat while walking on the Sabbath, also aroused anger. Jesus answered them that God required mercy rather than sacrifice, and spiritually the Sabbath wasn't dishonored by doing good.

Some Jews overcame the doubled callousness, believed the words of Jesus, accepted Him as the Messiah, and were saved all through the years. Most, however, will be delayed in spiritual understanding until Christ returns and lifts the judgment.