the settled self-will of the heart: a course a person has fixed on for himself and keeps walking instead of listening to God
This word never travels alone. In all ten places it appears it is joined to the word for "heart," and the pair describes a direction of travel rather than a mood: people "walk in" it or "walk after" it. It names the settled inner resolve of someone who has already decided on his own course and means to keep to it.
Deuteronomy 29:19 gives the phrase its clearest picture. A man listens to the covenant curses being read out, congratulates himself, and says he will be fine even while he walks in the stubbornness of his own heart. Jeremiah then takes the phrase up eight times and says the same thing about a whole nation: they would not listen, would not turn an ear, and went their own way instead (Jeremiah 7:24, 11:8, 16:12).
Three features of how the word is used are worth noticing:
- Jeremiah calls that heart "evil" in the same breath five times over, so this is not neutral independence but a settled preference for what is wrong.
- Going "after" one's own heart is the very phrase used for chasing other gods, and Jeremiah sets the two side by side (Jeremiah 9:14, 13:10), as though the heart itself had become the idol.
- Psalm 81:12 turns it into a sentence rather than a charge: God stops resisting and simply hands the people over to their own self-will, and that handing over is the punishment.
One use is hopeful. Jeremiah 3:17 promises a day when Jerusalem will be called the throne of the Lord and people will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. It is the only place the phrase describes something coming to an end.