“Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.”
The Heart of Flesh vs. The Heart of Stone
Several passages in both the Old and New Testament speak of God taking the “heart of stone” and replacing it with a “heart of flesh” and is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and reverent and obedient to the Lord. The idea is that the heart becomes “stony” due to the effect of sinful habits over time that leads to rebellion against God, and that can take us to very bad situations.
The Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible gives an interesting contrast to Egyptian theology. They believed the heart decided one’s fate in the afterlife, and a heart heavy with sin was disastrous. When someone was mummified, a stone in the shape of a beetle (symbol of eternal life) was placed on top of the heart. In Ezekiel, God is the one who can replace a heart of stone with a heart of flesh and He promises to do so with the nation of Israel, preserving them through the trials of the centuries and returning them to Israel.
A Hard Heart is Not Just About Irreverence
But note this passage in Zechariah about people whose heart is hard. The defining characteristic is not hatred, but indifference. Indifference is dangerous. Indifference is the opposite of love, so they say, but here it is not just indifference that is a lack of reverence toward God, but an indifference to His commands to show mercy to the suffering. A person can have the trappings of reverence but indifference to suffering shows a hard heart wrapped in religious clothing. We should always pray to have a heart soft and sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but that includes one that is sensitive to the trials of those suffering. We cannot have one without the other.
Zechariah 7:8-13 Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.’ But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts.
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