You see some people are selective listeners. When God speaks some things they listen, but when he speaks others they do not.
For instance, at Isaiah 6:9, 10, where Jehovah appears to Isaiah and says, Go, and tell this people, He says: Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
Now, did God mean for Isaiah to actually go and fatten their hearts and stop up their ears and close their eyes to forestall any repentance. No, but he was predicting that that would be the effect of the message that Isaiah had been commanded to go tell the people, that the people themselves would show closed eyes and unhearing ears and fatty hearts, that they would not repent and turn to Jehovah for healing spiritually.
Then too you have that controversial where it says Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh.
He said: I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you.” (Ex. 7:3, 4) Now, Jehovah did not harden the heart of Pharaoh, but he was predicting that Pharaoh’s heart would be hardened as a result of the message sent to him by Moses and Aaron, and that the repeated extension of God’s mercy to him would not soften him but would cause his heart to harden even more.
So It is not unusual for wicked men to interpret Jehovah’s as a sign of weakness and thus become more set in their evil ways, thinking the time of reckoning will never come. This is shown by Ecclesiastes 8:11: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. So it simple for you lot.