Ye stiffnecked
Or "hard necked", the same with (Prwe hvq) , which is a character frequently given of
this people, ( Exodus 32:9 ) (
Exodus 33:3
Exodus 33:5 )
( 34:9 )
and elsewhere, and is expressive of their obstinacy, stubbornness
and refractoriness; who would not submit their necks to the yoke
of God's law, and be obedient to his commands:
and uncircumcised in heart and ears;
for though they had the mark of circumcision in their flesh, of
which they boasted; yet they had not the true circumcision of the
heart; their hearts were not circumcised to fear and love the
Lord, nor their ears to hear the word of the Lord and the Gospel
of Christ; so that notwithstanding their confidence in carnal
privileges, they were uncircumcised persons:
ye do always resist the Holy Ghost;
the resistance made by these persons was not to the Spirit of God
in them, of which they were destitute, but to the Spirit of God
in his ministers, in his apostles, and particularly in Stephen;
nor to any internal operation of his grace, but to the external
ministry of the word, and to all that objective light, knowledge,
evidence, and conviction that it gave of Jesus's being the
Messiah: and such who resist Christ's ministers, resist him, and
such who resist him, may be said to resist his Holy Spirit; and
the word here used signifies a rushing against, and falling upon,
in a rude and hostile way, and fitly expresses their ill
treatment of Christ and his ministers, by falling upon them and
putting them to death: which is the resistance here designed, as
appears by the following verse: so that this passage is no proof
of the resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the operations of his
grace in conversion, when he is in men, and acts with a purpose
and will to convert them; since it does not appear that he was in
these persons, and was acting in them, with a design to convert
them; and if he was, it wilt be difficult to prove that they so
resisted, and continued to resist, as that they were not
hereafter converted; since it is certain that one of them, Saul,
was really and truly converted, and how many more we know not.
Though it will be allowed, that the Holy Ghost in the operations
of his grace upon the heart in conversion may be resisted, that
is, opposed; but not so as to be overcome or be hindered in, or
be obliged to cease from, the work of conversion, insomuch that
may come to nothing:
as your fathers did, so do ye;
or as "your fathers were, so are ye"; as they were stiffnecked,
self-willed, obstinate, and inflexible, so are ye; as they were
uncircumcised in heart and ears, so are ye; and as they resisted
the Spirit of God in his prophets, so do ye resist him in the
apostles and ministers of the Gospel.
