STIFFNECKED — literally 'hard of neck,' the image of a stubborn ox refusing the yoke or the goad. Jehovah uses the phrase of Israel three times running (32:9; 33:3, 5, already on these pages) before Moses himself takes the word up as his own plea for pardon, the fourth and final use — 'it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity' (34:9, already on these pages). Moses repeats it once more to the next generation in Deuteronomy (9:6, 13, not yet on these pages). It survives into Greek almost unchanged: the only New Testament use of sklerotrachēloi (Strong's 4644) is Stephen's, at the climax of a speech that has just retold this exact scene, nearly verbatim — 'you stiffnecked people... you always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did' (Acts 7:51). → first discussed at Exod 32:9