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To complete the sense of the words, we must have recourse to the two precedent verses; which, being compared to the text, present us with a description of such a brutish temper as is not to be found in any people mentioned throughout the whole Book of God, or any history whatsoever.

I. WHAT IS MEANT BY GOD'S GIVING TO THE SOUL A PERCEIVING HEART? We have grace here set out by such acts as are properly acts of knowledge; as understanding, seeing, hearing; not because, as some imagine, grace is placed only in the understanding, which, being informed with such a principle, is able to govern, and practically to determine the will, without the help of any new principle infused into that. For grace is a habit equally placed in both these faculties, but it is expressed by the acts of the understanding: —

1. Because the understanding has the precedency and first stroke in holy actions, as well as in others; it is the head and fountain from whence they derive their goodness, the leading faculty: and therefore the works of all the rest may, by way of eminence, be ascribed to this, as the conquest of an army is ascribed to the leader only, or general.

2. Because the means of grace are chiefly and most frequently expressed by the word "truth"; 1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful (or a true) saying, that Christ came into the world to save sinners." And in John 3:33, "He that believeth hath set to his seal that God is true." And in John 17:17, "Thy Word is truth." From hence, therefore, I collect —

(1) That to understand and receive the Word, according to the letter and notion, by a bare assent to the truth of it, is not to have a heart to perceive nor an ear to hear: because it is evident, both from Scripture and ordinary observation, that such a reception of the means of grace is not always attended with these spiritual effects: as, for instance, the Jews heard Christ and admired Him, but afterwards they rejected His doctrine and crucified His person. To hear the Word of God, and to hear God speaking in His Word, are things vastly different.

(2) Therefore, in the second place, to have a perceiving heart and a hearing ear is to have a spiritual light begot in the mind by an immediate overpowering work of the Spirit, whereby alone the soul is enabled to apprehend the things of God spiritually, and to practise them effectually: and without this we may see and see, and never perceive, and hear again and again and never understand.

II. WHENCE IT IS THAT, WITHOUT THIS GIFT OF A PERCEIVING HEART, THE SOUL CANNOT MAKE ANY IMPROVEMENT OF THE MEANS OF GRACE. It arises from these two reasons —

1. From its exceeding impotence and inability to apprehend these things.

2. From its contrariety to them. And there are two things in the soul in which this contrariety chiefly consists.

(1)  Carnal corruptions.

(2)  Carnal wisdom.

III. ALTHOUGH UPON GOD'S DENIAL OF A PERCEIVING HEART THE SOUL DOES INEVITABLY REMAIN UNPROFITABLE UNDER THE MEANS OF GRACE, SO AS NOT TO HEAR NOR PERCEIVE; YET THIS HARDNESS, OR UNPROFITABLENESS, CANNOT AT ALL BE ASCRIBED TO GOD AS THE AUTHOR OF IT. In order to the clearing of this we know that God's "not giving a heart to perceive" may admit of a double acceptation.

1. As it implies only a bare denial of grace.

2. As it does also include a positive act of induration.

IV. HOW GOD CAN JUSTLY REPREHEND MEN FOR NOT HEARING NOR PERCEIVING, WHEN, UPON HIS DENIAL OF A HEART, THERE IS A NECESSITY LYING UPON THEM TO DO NEITHER. Now, there can be no just reprehension but for sin, and nothing can be sin but that which is voluntary and free, and how can that be flee for a man to do or not to do which from necessity he cannot do? Application —

1. This doctrine speaks refutation to that opinion that states a sufficiency of grace in the bare proposal of things to be believed and practised, without a new powerful work of the Spirit upon the heart, that may determine and enable it to believe and accept of these things.

2. Is of exhortation; that in the enjoyment of the means of grace we should not terminate in the means, but look up to God, who alone is able to give a heart to improve them.

(R. South, D. D.)

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KJV: Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

WEB: but Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.