Jeremiah 6:10

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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.

Benson Commentary

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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Give warning - Rather testify.

Reproach - They make the Word of God the object of their ridicule.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. ear is uncircumcised—closed against the precepts of God by the foreskin of carnality (Le 26:41; Eze 44:7; Ac 7:51).

word … reproach—(Jer 20:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear?.... 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 find it, and eat it, and it is the joy and rejoicing of their hearts, Jeremiah 15:16.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. their ear is uncircumcised] dedicated not to God’s service, but to profane uses only. Cp. Acts 7:51; so of the lips, Exodus 6:12; Exodus 6:30.

Pulpit Commentary

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

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Well might Jeremiah warn the people once more (cf. Jeremiah 6:8), in order to turn sore judgment away from it; but it cannot and will not hear, for it is utterly hardened. Yet can he not be silent; for he is so filled with the fury of God, that he must pour it forth on the depraved race. This is our view of the progress of the thought in these verses; whereas Hitz. and Graf make what is said in Jeremiah 6:11 refer to the utterance of the dreadful revelation received in Jeremiah 6:9. But this is not in keeping with "testify that they may hear," or with the unmistakeable contrast between the pouring out of the divine fury, Jeremiah 6:11, and the testifying that they may hear, Jeremiah 6:10. Just because their ear is uncircumcised to that they cannot hear, is it in vain to speak to them for the purpose of warning them; and the prophet has no alternative left but to pour out on the deaf and seared people that fury of the Lord with which he is inwardly filled. The question: to whom should I speak? etc. (על for אל, as Psalm 111:2 and often), is not to be taken as a question to God, but only as a rhetorical turn of the thought, that all further speaking or warning is in vain. "Testify," lay down testimony by exhibiting the sin and the punishment it brings with it. "That they may hear," ut audiant, the Chald. has well paraphrased: ut accipiant doctrinam. Uncircumcised is their ear, as it were covered with a foreskin, so that the voice of God's word cannot find its way in; cf. Jeremiah 5:24; Jeremiah 4:4. The second clause, introduced by הנּה, adduces the reason of their not being able to hear. The word of God is become a reproach to them; they are determined not to hearken to it, because it lashes their sins. Jeremiah 6:11 comes in adversatively: But the fury of the Lord drives him to speak. חמת יהוה is not a holy ardour for Jahveh (Graf and many ancient comm.), but the wrath of God against the people, which the prophet cannot contain, i.e., keep to himself, but must pour out. Because they will not take correction, he must inflict the judgment upon them, not merely utter it. The imper. שׁפך is to be taken like השׁב, Jeremiah 6:9, not as an expression of the irresistible necessity which, in spite of all his efforts against it, compels the prophet to pour forth, in a certain sense, the wrath of the Lord on all classes of the people by the very publishing of God's word (Graf); but it is the command of God, to be executed by him, as is shown by "for I stretch out mine hand," Jeremiah 6:12. The prophet is to pour out the wrath of God by the proclamation of God's word, which finds its fulfilment in judgments of wrath; see on Jeremiah 1:10. Upon all classes of the people: the children that play in the street (cf. Jeremiah 9:20), the young men gathered together in a cheerful company, the men and women, old men and them that are full of days, i.e., those who have reached the furthest limit of old age. כּי tells why the prophet is so to speak: for upon the whole population will God's wrath be poured out. ילּכד, not, be taken captive, but, be taken, overtaken by the wrath, as in Jeremiah 8:9; cf. 1 Samuel 14:41.