Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 10:16
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses the Israelites in the plains of Moab, immediately after God’s declaration of choosing their descendants and just before describing His impartial justice. He issues a covenant command to replace external ritual with internal obedience.
The words — עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם (orlat levavkhem) translates literally to “foreskin of your heart,” paired with תַקְשׁוּ (takshu), meaning “you will make stiff.” The phrasing couples a surgical metaphor with a cessation command.
The thread — The metaphor runs through Jeremiah 4:4 as a prophetic call to remove heart foreskins, Deuteronomy 30:6 as a future divine act of heart circumcision, and Leviticus 26:41 where stubborn hearts trigger past exile.
Why it lands — The text commands the immediate end of rebellious resistance and demands internal covenant alignment. Readers must abandon stubbornness and submit to a God who accepts no bribe and shows no partiality.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds.”
- Deuteronomy 30:6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
- Leviticus 26:41 and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,
- Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.
- Romans 2:28 A man is not a Jew because he is one outwardly, nor is circumcision only outward and physical.
- Deuteronomy 9:6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
- Jeremiah 4:14 Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?
- Deuteronomy 9:13 The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.
- Deuteronomy 31:27 For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you are already rebelling against the LORD while I am still alive, how much more will you rebel after my death!
- James 4:6 But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”