(7) All the house of Israel--Means, of course, the people generally, as the word all is often used in Scripture and elsewhere. There were even then among them such saints as Jeremiah and Daniel.

Verse 7. - For they will not hearken unto me, etc. The words are, as it were, an a fortiori argument. Those who had despised the voice of Jehovah, speaking in his Law, or directly to the hearts of his people, were not likely to listen with a willing ear to his messenger. We are reminded of our Lord's words to his disciples in Matthew 10:24, 25. Impudent and hard-hearted; literally (the word is not the same as in Ezekiel 2:4), in Revised Version, of an hard forehead and of a stiff heart. The word "hard" is the same word as the first half of Ezekiel's name, and is probably used with reference to it as in the next verse.

3:1-11 Ezekiel was to receive the truths of God as the food for his soul, and to feed upon them by faith, and he would be strengthened. Gracious souls can receive those truths of God with delight, which speak terror to the wicked. He must speak all that, and that only, which God spake to him. How can we better speak God's mind than with his words? If disappointed as to his people, he must not be offended. The Ninevites were wrought upon by Jonah's preaching, when Israel was unhumbled and unreformed. We must leave this unto the Divine sovereignty, and say, Lord, thy judgments are a great deep. They will not regard the word of the prophet, for they will not regard the rod of God. Christ promises to strengthen him. He must continue earnest in preaching, whatever the success might be.But the house of Israel would not hearken unto thee,.... "They are not willing" (l); they have no desire, no inclination, to hear and hearken; but the reverse; they were capable of hearing and understanding his speech and language, and though he was sent unto them by the Lord: and indeed the reason why they did not hearken to him was not because they rejected him and his words, but because they rejected the Lord and his words; they were the words of the Lord, and his reproofs; and therefore they would not hearken to them as follows:

for they will not hearken unto me; and which is an argument why the prophet should bear with patience their disregard to him and his words, and their neglect and contempt of them; for, seeing they would not hear the Lord, how could he exact they should hear him? and therefore he should not be uneasy at it; see John 15:20;

for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted; or, "strong of front, and hard of heart" (m); they had a whore's forehead, an impudent face, that could not blush and be ashamed; and hearts of stone, like a rock, and harder than the nether millstone, on which no impressions, could be made by all the admonitions and reproofs given them; see Ezekiel 2:4; and this was the case of all of them in general, excepting some very few; which shows the sad degeneracy of this people.

(l) "non cupient", Montanus; "non volunt", Cocceius; "non illi volentes", Starckius. (m) "obfirmati fronte et duri corde", Polanus, Starckius; "obfirmati frontis et duri cordis", Piscator.