To graphically illustrate for us the severity of a person’s spiritual stubbornness, more than a dozen times the Bible speaks of individuals or nations being “stiff-necked.” The first time was when the Israelites molded the golden calf at Mount Sinai. “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people” (Ex. 32:9; 33:3, 5). Moses used it four more times in Deuteronomy to the second generation (Deut. 9:6, 13; 10:16; 31:27). When the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell, it was because “they would not hear, but stiffened their necks” (2 Kgs. 17:14). As the Southern Kingdom of Judah was falling, the same charge was made – “They did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction” (Jer. 17:23; cf. 7:26; 19:15). Nehemiah said, “They shrugged their shoulders, stiffened their necks” (9:29). The word is used only once in the New Testament, when Stephen was addressing the defiant Jews (who eventually killed him), “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Acts 7:51).
Hezekiah presented the two options: “Do not be stiff-necked…but yield” (2 Chr. 30:8).