Bible Strands
Ezekiel 2:4
They are obstinate and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you are to say to them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says.’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Ezekiel to commission him to the Israelites, a nation that has persistently defied Him alongside their ancestors. This directive follows God's identification of their ongoing rebellion in Ezekiel 2:3.
The words — The phrase קְשֵׁי פָנִים וְחִזְקֵי לֵב (qeshê pānîm wəḥizqê lēḇ) literally translates to "stern of face and hard of heart," describing the people's unyielding resistance. This lexical pairing directly informs the BSB translation's description of them as obstinate children.
The thread — The motif of hardened hearts and stubborn faces recurs in Ezekiel 3:7, where Israel's refusal to listen mirrors their refusal to listen to God. It also echoes Psalms 95:8's warning against hardening hearts at Meribah and Isaiah 48:4's description of a neck like iron and forehead like bronze.
Why it lands — The text demands that Ezekiel deliver God's message regardless of the audience's receptivity. It requires the reader to recognize that prophetic obedience is not contingent on human response but on divine commission.
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
For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 3:7 But the house of Israel will be unwilling to listen to you, since they are unwilling to listen to Me. For the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted.
- Psalms 95:8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,
- Isaiah 48:4 For I knew that you are stubborn; your neck is iron and your forehead is bronze.
- Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
- Jeremiah 6:15 Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.
- Deuteronomy 10:16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
- 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!
- 1 Kings 22:14 But Micaiah said, “As surely as the LORD lives, I will speak whatever the LORD tells me.”
- 2 Chronicles 30:8 Now do not stiffen your necks as your fathers did. Submit to the LORD and come to His sanctuary, which He has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that His fierce anger will turn away from you.
- 2 Chronicles 36:13 He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. But Zedekiah stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel.