IV.
Can you recall someone who struck you as “obstinate”?

Maybe even someone you would characterize as having an “obstinate” personality?

For that matter, might someone think you could be “obstinate”?

Apparently God has reason to see his people as being “obstinate” at times.

… I know that you are obstinate,
and your neck is an iron sinew
and your forehead brass … (Isaiah 48:4)

V.
Isaiah 48:3–8a, 17 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

The former things I declared long ago;
       they went out from my mouth, and I made them known;
       then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
Because I know that you are obstinate,
       and your neck is an iron sinew
       and your forehead brass,
I declared them to you from long ago,
       before they came to pass I announced them to you,
so that you would not say, “My idol did them;
       my carved image and my cast image commanded them.”

You have heard; now see all this;
       and will you not declare it?
From this time forward I tell you new things,
       hidden things that you have not known.
They are created now, not long ago;
       before today you have never heard of them,
       so that you could not say, “I already knew them.”
You have never heard; you have never known;
       from of old your ear has not been opened.
For I knew that you would act very treacherously
       and that from birth you were called a rebel.

Thus says the Lord,
       your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
       who teaches you how to succeed,
       who leads you in the way you should go.

VII.
The Message translation renders verse 4 as –

I know you’re a bunch of hardheads,
obstinate and flint-faced,

The New English Translation offers,

I know how stubborn you are.
Your neck muscles are like iron
and your forehead like bronze.

Additionally, the New English Translation in a note offers,

“The image is that of a person who has tensed the muscles of the face and neck as a sign of resolute refusal.”

What evidence does this passage offer for such a characterization of the people?

And even more importantly, why would God continue to have any hope in what such people could be?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}