“but Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see and ears to hear, until this day.” This verse is using the Semitic idiom of permission (cp. Exod. 4:21). It is not that God somehow blinded the people’s minds so they could not know what He was asking or hear His commands until this very time. For the 40 years of the wilderness wandering He had begged and pleaded with Israel to obey Him, and His commands were clearly communicated. In the same way that Pharaoh hardened his heart when he heard God’s commands, the people of Israel hardened themselves against God’s commands and did not want to know or obey them, and in the Semitic idiom that is stated as if God had not given them a heart to know Him. But now, at the end of the 40 years of wandering, this next generation that was about to go into the Promised Land was more willing to hear and obey, although many of them still held on to some idols and ungodly practices.