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"They made their 1hearts like 2flintso that they could not hear the law and the 3wordswhich the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spiritthrough the 4formerprophets; therefore great5wrathcame from the LORD of hosts.
Yea, they made their hearts [as] an adamant stone The word here used is translated a "diamond" in ( Jeremiah 17:1 ) and it is said to be harder than a flint, ( Ezekiel 3:9 ) . The Jewish writers say
FOOTNOTES:
F7 it is a worm like a barley corn, so strong as to cut the hardest stones in pieces; Moses (they say) used it in hewing the stones for the two tables of the law, and in fitting the precious stones in the ephod; and Solomon in cutting the stones for the building of the temple; and is so hard that it cannot be broken by iron: and as hard is naturally the heart of man, and which becomes more so by sinning, and obstinate persisting in it, that nothing can remove the hardness of it but the powerful and efficacious grace of God: as hard as the adamant is, it is to be softened by the blood of a goat, as naturalists says F8; so the blood of Christ sprinkled on the heart, and a sense of forgiveness of sin by it, will soften the hardest heart: lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath seat in his Spirit by the former prophets; the words of reproof, admonition, caution, and exhortation, which Jeremiah and others were sent to deliver to them, under the influence of the Spirit of God: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts; which brought the Chaldeans upon them, who carried them captive into Babylon. F7 Misn. Sota, c. 9. sect. 12. Pirke Abot. c. 5. sect. 5. & Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. Kimchi in 1 Reg. vi. 7. Jarchi in Isa. v. 6. F8 Pausan. Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 485. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 37. c. 4.
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and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'
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"But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing.
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"They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
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"And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts;
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"but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate."