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They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came 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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do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
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But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear.
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They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that 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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Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts,
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and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.