But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart: and went backward and not forward,

“In a manner most germane to this parable, He said by Jeremiah: "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and ye shall walk in all my ways, which I have commanded you." This is the invitation of God. "But," says He, "they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear." This is the refusal of the people. "They departed, and walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart." "I have bought a field-and I have bought some oxen-and I have married a wife." And still He urges them: "I have sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early even before day-light." The Holy Spirit is here meant, the admonisher of the guests. "Yet my people hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck."”

“Here he excludes confidence in sacrifices: and first he excludes concern for sacrifices, setting down the statement: "Add your burnt offerings to your victims"; as if to say: just as the greater part of the victims goes to your own use, so eat the burnt offerings for yourselves entirely, since I am not delighted by the consumption of flesh. Psalm 49: "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" And he gives the cause: "for I did not speak." For the Lord did not want this for his own sake, but so that through it he might call them back from idolatry. Hence before the worship of the calf, of which Exod. 33 speaks, no precepts about sacrifices were given. Psalm 39: "Sacrifice and oblation you did not desire; but ears you have perfected for me. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. Then I said: behold, I come." Second, he argues the disobedience in moral matters; and first he shows the fault; second, he threatens the punishment, at the place, "cut off your hair." Concerning the first, two things. First he proves the disobedience as it were by induction, showing them disobedient to the law, by setting down the law's precepts: "but this word I commanded" — from the beginning, as it were chiefly intended. "Hear my voice" — concerning the moral precepts. Ezech. 36: "You shall be to me a people, and I will be to you a God." And the contempt of the precept: "and they did not hear (...) and they turned backward," always adding sins afterward. Isa. 56: "All have turned aside to their own way, each one to his own avarice, from the greatest even to the last." He also shows them disobedient to the preceding prophets: "and I sent to you all the servants the prophets." 4 Kings 17: "The Lord testified in Israel and in Judah, by the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: Turn back from your most evil ways, and keep my precepts and ceremonies, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and as I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets. Who did not hear, but hardened their neck, according to the neck of their fathers, who were unwilling to obey the Lord their God." He also foretells that they would not obey him. "And you shall speak (...) and they will not hear." Ezech. 3: "The house of Israel is unwilling to hear you, because they are unwilling to hear me: for indeed the whole house of Israel is of a hardened forehead and a hard heart." Isa. 65: "I called, and you did not answer; I spoke, and you did not hear, and you did evil in my eyes, and what I did not want, you chose." Second, he draws the conclusion: "and you shall say to them." Above, ch. 2: "In vain I struck your sons; they did not receive discipline." Faith, of the Lord. Romans 10: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Or fidelity toward one's neighbor. Prov. 20: "Who shall find a faithful man?"”

“But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear,.... Neither to the law that was given them, nor to the promises that were made unto them, this was the case of the Jewish fathers, and also of their posterity, to whom belonged the law, and the promises, and the service of God: but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart; what their evil heart imagined, advised and directed to, that they attended to, walked in, and pursued after. The heart of man is evil; it is desperately wicked, even wickedness itself; and so is every thought and every imagination of the thoughts of it and all its counsels, machinations and contrivances; and therefore the consequence of walking in these, or steering the course of life according to them, must be bad: and went backward, and not forward; they went backwards from the ways of God, and walked not in them. The Targum is, "they turned the back in my worship, and did not put my fear before their face;'' or else this may design, not their sin, but their punishment, as Kimchi interprets it; they did not prosper, but suffered adversity; a curse, and not a blessing, attended the works of their hands.”

“But they have not regarded that which was foremost and most cardinal in the law. They hearkened not, sc. to my voice; and instead of walking in the ways commanded, they walked in the counsels of the stubbornness of their evil heart. בּמעצות is stat. absol., and בּשׁררוּת is co-ordinated with it in apposition, instead of being subordinated; cf. Ew. 289, c. The lxx have not seen their way to admit such a co-ordination, and so have omitted the second term; and in this, Movers, Hitz., and Graf have followed them, deleting the word as a mere gloss. As to "the stubbornness of their evil heart," see on Jer 3:17. יהיוּ לאחור, they were backwards, not forwards, i.e., they so walked as to turn to me the back and not the face. היה with ל expresses the direction or aim of a thing. The subject to these clauses is the Israelites from the time of Moses down to that of Jeremiah. This is shown by the continuation of the same idea in Jer 7:25 and Jer 7:26. From the time the fathers were led out of Egypt till the present time, God has with anxious care been sending prophets to exhort and warn them; but they have not hearkened, they have made their neck hard, i.e., were stiffnecked, and did worse than their fathers, i.e., each succeeding generation did more wickedly than that which preceded it. On למן היּום, (the period) from the day...until...cf. the remarks on Hag 2:18. The ל gives to the mention of the time the value of an independent clause, to which that which is said regarding that time is joined by ו consec. יום is adverbial accusative: by the day, i.e., daily, in early morn, i.e., with watchful care sending (on this expression, see at Jer 7:13). יום acquires this sense, not in virtue of its standing for יום יום, but by reason of its connection with the two infinitives absoll.”