Psalms 81:12 - Exposition

So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust. God's Spirit will not always strive with men ( Genesis 6:3 ). After a time, if they persist in evil courses and disobedience to his commands, he "gives them up," withdraws from them, leaves them to themselves, to the "lust," or rather "stubbornness" of their own hearts—to their own perverse wills and imaginations. And they walked in their own counsels (comp. Jeremiah 7:24 ). This result is inevitable. If God no longer guides their thoughts and enlightens their understandings, they can but follow their own foolish counsels, and the result cannot but be disastrous.