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Give warning, Heb. make protestation; noting with what earnestness the prophet would bespeak them in his warning of them: see Jer_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 Jer_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, 2Ki_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, Eze_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, Act_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, Luk_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, Pro_15:12. See Jer_5:31 2Ti_4:3.