His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
The verse belongs among the questions and mysteries in nature that even the greatest intellect cannot answer and the most profound scholar cannot solve. It was not given to be answered, but to call attention to the deep mysteries of God, to teach the limitation of human wisdom, to show that the surroundings of daily life hold many things beyond the comprehension of finite beings, and to require as much faith for what He does not reveal as for what is open to limited understanding.
Its picture of a heart firm as stone and hard as the lower millstone means a conscience made unfeeling and unresponsive. It describes condemning words as hard as nether millstones that crush all hope and courage out of the soul. It presents such hard hearts as unfit soil, hopeless and profitless ground where heavenly truth cannot take root. It applies this hardness to self-righteous accusers who cherish a self-deluding feeling of superiority and suppose others are at fault, whose reproof and condemnation are strong and hard, who are full of evil thoughts and suspicion even toward the purest, and whose exalted self claims all faith and honor and love. In such hearts the goodness of heart seen in true Christians only stirs roots of bitterness.
This lower-millstone hardness comes upon youth growing up in sin and impenitence and folly when parents indulge rather than restrain them, disregard divine requirements in training, and leave them under the control of the enemy of all good. Such hardness places many on the broad road to ruin. Parents who neglect to follow the divine plan in forming the characters of their children will be held accountable by God in the day of God.
The verse belongs among the questions and mysteries in nature that even the greatest intellect cannot answer and the most profound scholar cannot solve. It was not given to be answered, but to call attention to the deep mysteries of God, to teach the limitation of human wisdom, to show that the surroundings of daily life hold many things beyond the comprehension of finite beings, and to require as much faith for what He does not reveal as for what is open to limited understanding.
Its picture of a heart firm as stone and hard as the lower millstone means a conscience made unfeeling and unresponsive. It describes condemning words as hard as nether millstones that crush all hope and courage out of the soul. It presents such hard hearts as unfit soil, hopeless and profitless ground where heavenly truth cannot take root. It applies this hardness to self-righteous accusers who cherish a self-deluding feeling of superiority and suppose others are at fault, whose reproof and condemnation are strong and hard, who are full of evil thoughts and suspicion even toward the purest, and whose exalted self claims all faith and honor and love. In such hearts the goodness of heart seen in true Christians only stirs roots of bitterness.
This lower-millstone hardness comes upon youth growing up in sin and impenitence and folly when parents indulge rather than restrain them, disregard divine requirements in training, and leave them under the control of the enemy of all good. Such hardness places many on the broad road to ruin. Parents who neglect to follow the divine plan in forming the characters of their children will be held accountable by God in the day of God.