17:1 point of a diamond. The ancients were well acquainted with the strength of iron and hardness of diamonds, using these to inscribe records on stone tablets and the horns of slain animals.

17:5 trusteth in man. This is a solemn warning, as applicable to modern Americans as to ancient Jews: God’s curse—not His blessing—is on anyone who trusts in himself or other men rather than God.

17:9 The heart is deceitful. One cannot even trust his own conscience. Only God’s Word gives fully reliable counsel.

17:10 I try the reins. This is quoted also in Revelation 2:23 in the letter to the church at Thyatira.

17:11 hatcheth them not. The habits of the Palestinian sand partridge are apparently uncertain. Whether or not the female is sitting on the eggs when they are hatched, these birds are quite common and so do get hatched somehow. It seems likely—especially in view of the contextual application—that many are hatched very soon after being laid, with the mother bird frequently absent at the time.

17:13 fountain. See note on Jeremiah 2:13. Those who reject the water of life will have their names blotted out of God’s book of life (Revelation 3:5); instead their names will only be “written in the earth,” which will “pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

17:27 hallow the sabbath day. In God’s ten commandments, He required the hallowing of the sabbath day, in commemoration of His completed work of creation (Exodus 20:8-11). Those who had rejected Him as Creator, in favor of the evolutionism of their idolatrous neighbors, thus saw no reason to keep His sabbaths. But eventually, God must punish such unbelief and disobedience.