Don’t be impossible to deal with like your ancestors. Reach out for the Lord. Come to his holy place that he made holy forever. Serve the Lord your God, and he will turn his burning anger away from you.
Zedekiah also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar had made Zedekiah swear an oath of allegiance to him in God’s name. But Zedekiah became so stubborn and so impossible to deal with that he refused to turn back to the Lord God of Israel.
He named that place Massah [Testing] and Meribah [Complaining] because the Israelites complained and because they tested the Lord, asking, “Is the Lord with us or not?”
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to trust me in spite of all the miraculous signs I have done among them?
These people have become close-minded and hard of hearing. They have shut their eyes so that their eyes never see. Their ears never hear. Their minds never understand. And they never return to me for healing!’
But when some people became stubborn, refused to believe, and had nothing good to say in front of the crowd about the way ⌞of Christ⌟, he left them. He took his disciples and held daily discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
This is the man who led our ancestors out of Egypt. He is the person who did amazing things and worked miracles in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for 40 years.
Why should you be as stubborn as the Egyptians and their Pharaoh were? After he toyed with the Egyptians, didn’t they send the Israelites on their way?