In the year of King Uzziah’s death,^[1] y^ehôvâh (יהוה) sent the prophet Isaiah to harden the descendants of Israel living in the southern kingdom of Judah (Isaiah 6:9-12 NET):

“Go and tell these people: ‘Listen continually, but don’t understand!  Look continually, but don’t perceive!’  Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind!  Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?”

He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated, and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place, and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned.”

The NET translation of the final verse of this chapter extending the period of this hardening through the destruction of the Old Testament religion in 70 A.D. is almost unique: Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down.  That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.^[2]  Those who returned from Babylon still didn’t understand the message of the Old Testament Scriptures that they must all be born from above.^[3]  They continued in their own works believing, it works if you work it.

You have been given the opportunity to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus told his disciples, but they have not.  For whoever has will be given more, and will have an abundance.  But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.  For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand.^[4]  Jesus called the religious institutions created by people hardened by y^ehôvâh the power of darkness.^[5]  Paul’s old human Saul knew this power of darkness firsthand (Acts 26:4, 5, 9-11 NET).

Now all the Jews (Ἰουδαῖοι, a form of Ἰουδαῖος) know the way I lived from my youth, spending my life from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.  They know, because they have known me from time past, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee…Of course, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene.  And that is what I did in Jerusalem: Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons by the authority I received from the chief priests, but I also cast my vote against them when they were sentenced to death.  I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to force them to blaspheme.  Because I was so furiously enraged at them, I went to persecute them even in foreign cities.

I’ll consider the story of Jesus’ arrest as a measure of how calloused their hearts, how deaf their ears and how blind their eyes had become: Judas obtained a squad of soldiers and some officers of the chief priests and Pharisees,^[6] a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and experts in the law and elders.^[7]  Then Jesus, because he knew everything that was going to happen to him, came and asked them, “Who are you looking for?”^[8]

Jesus hearkened attentively to the Holy Spirit in ways that I can scarcely imagine, but He knew everything that was going to happen to him because of the scriptures that say it must happen this way.^[9]  Jesus’ Father in heaven revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ (e.g., Messiah), the Son of the living God.^[10]  But Peter was so calloused, deaf and blind he did not believe the scriptures that say it must happen this way even when Jesus told him (Matthew 16:21, 22 NET):

From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.  So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: “God forbid, Lord!  This must not happen to you!”

Who are you looking for? Jesus asked the crowd armed with swords and clubs (John 18:5, 6 NET):

They replied, “Jesus the Nazarene.”  He told them, “I am he.” (Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing there with them.)  So when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they retreated and fell to the ground.

I don’t know if this was a miraculous manifestation of Jesus’ presence or simply that He threw the arresting officers off-balance by standing there rather than running.  He had run before.  Or perhaps they expected Him or his disciples to resist (John 18:7-9 NET).

Then Jesus asked them again, “Who are you looking for?”  And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.”  Jesus replied, “I told you that I am he.  If you are looking for me, let these men go.”  He said this to fulfill the word he had spoken, “I have not lost a single one of those whom you gave me.”

Now this is the will of the one who sent me, Jesus said to those who had pursued Him across the lake after eating of the loaves and fishes He had blessed and multiplied, that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day.^[11]  When I was with them, He had prayed to his Father, I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me.  Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction (Matthew 27:3-10), so that the scripture could be fulfilled.^[12]

When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, the accounts of Jesus’ arrest continued, they said, “Lord, should we use our swords?”^[13]  They had two (Luke 22:35-38).  The crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and experts in the law and elders took hold of Jesus and arrested him.^[14]  Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, pulled it out and struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.  (Now the slave’s name was Malchus.)^[15]  But Jesus said, “Enough of this!”  And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.^[16]

Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath!  Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?^[17]  For all who take hold of the sword will die by the sword.  Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions of angels right now?  How then would the scriptures that say it must happen this way be fulfilled?”^[18]

Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come out to get him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs like you would against an outlaw?  Day after day when I was with you in the temple courts, you did not arrest me.  But this is your hour, and that of the power of darkness!^[19]  But this has happened so that the scriptures would be fulfilled.”^[20]

Then all the disciples left him and fled.  A young man was following him, wearing only a linen cloth.  They tried to arrest him, but he ran off naked, leaving his linen cloth behind.^[21]  Then the squad of soldiers with their commanding officer and the officers of the Jewish leaders arrested Jesus and tied him up.  They brought him first to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.  (Now it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jewish leaders that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.)  Simon Peter and another disciple followed them as they brought Jesus to Annas.^[22]

Now the ones who had arrested Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, in whose house the experts in the law and the elders had gathered.  But Peter was following him from a distance, all the way to the high priest’s courtyard.^[23]  (Now the other disciple was acquainted with the high priest, and he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard.)  But Simon Peter was left standing outside by the door.  So the other disciple who was acquainted with the high priest came out and spoke to the slave girl who watched the door, and brought Peter inside.^[24]  When they had made a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.^[25]

I’ve listened to sermons where Peter’s denial of Jesus was portrayed as cowardice.  A Gospel harmony such as this highlights how Peter and all the disciples would have fought to the death at Jesus’ command.  Both Matthew and Mark record that they fled only when Jesus made it clear that He intended to be arrested, tried and executed (Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:49b, 50) so that the scriptures of the prophets would be fulfilled.  Jesus’ disciples weren’t cowards; they had calloused hearts, deaf ears and blind eyes for the Scriptures.  But even as the rest fled, Peter followed Jesus at a distance (along with another, possibly John) when he was the one most guilty of a violent criminal act against the high priest.

The unbeliever assumes that the words recorded in the Gospel narratives do not recount what actually happened during Jesus’ arrest but are the post hoc literary inventions of religious minds.  If Jesus had actually said and done these things during his arrest, they reason, the response and outcome would have been different.  At very least the arresting officers would have returned empty-handed saying, “No one ever spoke like this man!”^[26]

The believer can use that hypothetical person who would have, or should have, responded differently to Jesus’ teaching and actions as a baseline to derive a relative measurement of the power of darkness, the effects of y^ehôvâh’s hardening (John 7:47-52 NET):

Then the Pharisees answered, “You haven’t been deceived too, have you?  None of the rulers or the Pharisees have believed in him, have they?  But this rabble who do not know the law are accursed!”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and who was one of the rulers, said, “Our law doesn’t condemn a man unless it first hears from him and learns what he is doing (ποιεῖ, a form of ποιέω), does it?”  They replied, “You aren’t from Galilee too, are you?  Investigate carefully and you will see that no prophet comes from Galilee (Matthew 4:12-16; Isaiah 9)!”

This is the religious milieu where Saul thrived and out of which the apostle Paul was called.  This nearly eight hundred years of calloused hearts, deaf ears and blind eyes, hardening in a word, provides the historical and cultural contexts for his religious mind.

The table I constructed to harmonize the Gospel narratives follows.  Some of the temporal arrangements are admittedly arguable.