John 12:39
John 12:3939For this reason they were unable to believe. For again, Isaiah says:
Read as the introduction to John's second Isaiah quotation, explaining why those who would not believe could not believe — Jehovah had blinded their eyes. The Watchtower comfortably accepts the predestinarian-sounding language at the level of the original Isaiah context but does not engage with the implication of attributing the blinding action to the Christ of John's gospel.
Verse 39 sits between two Isaiah quotations and inside the same continuous "him" referent established at 12:37. John is preparing the reader for the quotation (the throne-room vision of Jehovah), and his interpretive frame in verse 41 — "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory" — covers both quotations. The blinding action of is attributed in John's frame to the Christ whose glory Isaiah saw. That is consistent with the hardening texts elsewhere (e.g., ) being divine acts; in John's reading, those divine acts trace through the same Person whose glory filled the temple in Isaiah 6.