Jeremiah 6:10

6:9-17 When the Lord arises to take vengeance, no sinners of any age or rank, or of either sex escape. They were set upon the world, and wholly carried away by the love of it. If we judge of this sin by God's word, we find multitudes in every station and rank given up to it. Those are to be reckoned our worst and most dangerous enemies, who flatter us in a sinful way. Oh that men would be wise for their souls! Ask for the old paths; the way of godliness and righteousness has always been the way God has owned and blessed. Ask for the old paths set forth by the written word of God. When you have found the good way, go on in it, you will find abundant recompence at your journey's end. But if men will not obey the voice of God and flee to his appointed Refuge, it will plainly appear at the day of judgment, that they are ruined because they reject God's word.

These are the words of the prophet, despairing of any success by his ministry; suggesting that the people were so universally depraved, that there were none that would hear him; that speaking to them was only beating the air, and that all expostulations, warnings, remonstrances, and testimonies, would signify nothing: behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken; their ears were stopped with the filth of sin naturally, and they wilfully stopped their ears like the adder; and so being unsanctified, they neither could hear nor desired to hear the word of the Lord, as to understand it; see Acts 7:51, behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they reproached it, and blasphemed it, as a novel and false doctrine, and thought it a dishonour to them to receive and profess it; and just so the Jews vilified the Gospel, in the times of Christ and his apostles; and as many do now, who treat it with contempt, as unworthy of God, as contrary to reason, as opening a door to licentiousness, and think it a scandal to preach or profess it: they have no delight in it; they see no beauty nor glory in it; they taste nothing of the sweetness of it; its doctrines are insipid things to them, they having never felt the power of it in their hearts; whereas such who are the true circumcision, who are circumcised in heart and ears, who are born again, these desire the sincere milk of the word; it is to them more than their necessary food; and, with this Prophet Jeremiah, they

Jeremiah 6:10 . To whom shall I speak and give warning? — I cannot find out any that will so much as give me a patient hearing, much less will any take warning. I cannot speak with any hope of success. Behold, their ear is uncircumcised — A figurative expression, not unfrequent with the prophets, signifying the rejecting of instruction; as an uncircumcised heart signifies an obstinate and rebellious will. As if he had said, Their mind is unbelieving and carnal, and therefore not disposed to hearken to the voice of God. Nay, they are not only deaf to it, but prejudiced against it; and they cannot hearken — Namely, because they are resolved they will not. Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach — Both the reproofs and the threatenings of it are so; they consider themselves as wronged and affronted by both, and resent plain dealing as they would the most causeless slander and calumny. They have no delight in it — More is implied than expressed; they have an antipathy to it, their hearts rise against it; it exasperates them, and inflames their passions; and they are ready to fly in the face of their reprovers.

Verse 10. - Their ear is uncircumcised ; covered as it were with a foreskin, which prevents the prophetic message from finding admittance. Elsewhere it is the heart ( Leviticus 26:41 ; Ezekiel 44:7 ), or the lips ( Exodus 6:12 ) which are said to be " circumcised ;" a passage in Stephen's speech applies the epithet both to the heart and to the ears ( Acts 7:51 ). Jeremiah 6:10

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is {k} uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it. (k) They delight to hear vain things, and to shut up their ears to true doctrine.

(10) To whom shall I speak . . . ?—The prophet, who now speaks in his own name, has heard the message from the Lord of Hosts; but what avails it? who will listen? As elsewhere the lips ( Exodus 6:30 ) and the heart ( Leviticus 26:41 ; Ezekiel 44:7 ), so here the ear of Israel was uncircumcised, as though it had never been brought into covenant with Jehovah or consecrated to His service. A reproach.—i.e., the object of their scorn.

Give warning, Heb. make protestation ; noting with what earnestness the prophet would bespeak them in his warning of them: see Jeremiah 11:7 . The prophet taking notice of their obstinacy, speaks as one astonished, and highly makes complaint, being greatly grieved that he can find none that will take warning; the like Jeremiah 7:23,24 ; he labours to persuade, but all is in vain; they turn a deaf ear to him, as the next expression intimates. Their ear is uncircumcised; a figurative kind of speech frequent with the prophets: an uncircumcised ear signifying the rejecting of instruction; an uncircumcised heart , an obstinate and rebellious will: hence circumcision was for a testimony of obedience; and therefore the prophet doth tacitly insinuate their falseness to God, to whom they had promised to be obedient, 2 Kings 11:17 23:3 . And the Scripture calls those that are void of the fear of God, and carried out to all manner of lusts, uncircumcised, Ezekiel 44:7,9 ; for uncircumcision was abominable among the Jews; so that it notes both their sin and their shame, their ear being stopped, unfit for hearing, as if it were with a foreskin or film over it, Acts 7:51 .

They cannot hearken: the prophet doth not here lessen their crimes by their inability and want of power, but rather aggravates it, inasmuch as they had brought themselves under that incapacity by their obstinacy and willfulness; as a drunken man that hath deprived himself of his reason by excess, renders the want of his understanding the more inexcusable. A reproach; either they reproach it in the messenger’s mouth, Luke 11:45 , or rather they laugh at it and scorn it, they cannot bear counsel, they look upon reproving them to be reproaching them; they take no delight in hearing such things: a further reason of their impotency and obstinacy; all their admonitions and instructions seemed insipid, and therefore were they so stupid, according to the next words, Proverbs 15:12 . See Jeremiah 5:31 2 Timothy 4:3 .