I foretold the former things long ago,
    my mouth announced them and I made them known;
    then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
4 For I knew how stubborn you were;
    your neck muscles were iron,
    your forehead was bronze.
5 Therefore I told you these things long ago;
    before they happened I announced them to you
so that you could not say,
    “My images brought them about;
    my wooden image and metal god ordained them.”
6 You have heard these things; look at them all.
    Will you not admit them?

When I was a boy, one of the comics I devoured was called ‘The Dandy’. In it there was a character named ‘Brassneck’ – a rather fun and loveable metallic type figure. I very much enjoyed reading about him.

But there was nothing funny or attractive about Israel’s resistance of God.

Again, the Lord speaks about all He foretold. He had given them many promises that had already come to pass (e.g. the ‘exodus’ from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and their subsequent growth and prosperity as a nation). He did this so that they would not be able to say that their gods had brought all of this about. But then, as now, people were largely unwilling to face up to the evidence (see 6b). Derek Kidner calls them ‘determined sceptics’.

‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’

But they claimed (1,2) to be the Lord’s people!

PRAYER: Lord, have mercy on us please. Keep us from being ‘unbelieving believers’.