Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 6:10

10 To whom[illegible: 1 letter]shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.

Heb. make protestation, noting with what earnestness the Prophet would bespeak them in his warning of them see, chap. 11.7. The Prophet taking notice of their obstinacy, speaks as one astonished, and highly makes him complain, being greatly grieved, that he can find none that will take warning; the like chap. 7.23, 24. he labours to perswade, but all is in vain, they turn a deaf ear to him, as the next expression intimates.

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 tacitely insinuate their falseness to God, to whom they had promised to be obedient: 2 King. 11.17. and 23.3. and the Scripture calls those, they are void of the fear of God, and carried out to all manner of lusts, uncircumcised; Ezek. 44.7, 9. for uncircumcision was abominable among the Iews, so that it notes both their sin and their shame, their Ears being stopped, unfit for hearing, as if it were a foreskin, or film over it, Acts 7.5[illegible: 1 letter].

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 wilfulness: As a drunken man, that hath deprived himself of his reason by excess, renders the want of his understanding the more inexcusable.

Either they reproach it in the messengers 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 farther reason of their impotency, and obstinacy, all their admonitions, and instructions seemed insipid, and therefore were they so stupid, according to the next words, Prov. 15.12. See chap. 5.31. 2 Tim. 4.3.

Marginal references: chap. 7.26.