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Jeremiah 5-6

Daily Devotional from Jeremiah 6—

Verse 10b
Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen.

What does that mean? Circumcision is the ritual surgery they did on all male babies, to bring them into the covenant as a son of Israel. How can a person’s ears be circumcised? Let’s look at another use of this phrase, from Acts 7:51. Stephen is speaking to the Pharisees, before he was martyred: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit!”

An uncircumcised heart is hardened to the Spirit’s nudges, and closed off to God. It resists His work. Uncircumcised ears are those that hear the Word of God imperfectly, usually because they hear only what they want to hear, or they hear with such a strong prejudice that they reject the truth. Thus, as Jeremiah laments, “They cannot listen.”

Oh church, let’s have circumcised ears and hearts – ears open and attentive to the Word of God, and hearts soft and pliable to the Holy Spirit’s working!

Audrey Rogers

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