Ezekiel 2:4
For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD.
For they are impudent children,.... "Hard of face" {w}; as is commonly said of impudent persons, that they are brasen faced; they had a whore's forehead, and refused to be ashamed, and made their faces harder than a rock, Jeremiah 3:3; they declared their sin as Sodam, and hid it not; they sinned openly, and could not blush at it:
and stiffhearted; or, "strong of heart" {x}; whose hearts were like an adamant stone, and harder than the nether millstone; impenitent, obdurate, and inflexible; they were not only stiff-necked, as Stephen says they were in his time, and always had been; but stiff-hearted; they were not subject to the law of God now, nor would they submit to the Gospel and ordinances of Christ in his time, and in the times of his apostles, nor to his righteousness, Romans 10:3;
I do send thee unto them; even to such as they are: this is a repetition, and a confirmation, of his mission; and suggests, that though they were such, he should not refuse to go to them, since he had sent him:
and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD: that what he said came from the Lord, and was spoken in his name.
{w} Mynp yvq "duri facie", Pagninus, Vatablus, Calvin, Cocceius, Starckius.
{x} bl yqzx "duri corde", Pagninus, Montanus; "fortes carde", Vatablus, Polanus.