The people were demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of God's ways. It is true that in the Law God gave commands on sacrifices and burnt offerings, but the religious leaders had then decided that if they were obeying this part of the Law then everything would be OK. But God had given them many commands, and these could be summed up by saying they should walk in obedience to the Lord, which Judah was manifestly not doing. We need to beware of this feature of human nature. When disobeying God in one area we will make the excuse that obeying Him in some other area will make up for the disobedience. This is not the case. We need to follow the whole counsel of God.
God had repeatedly sent prophets to warn the people. Note that the primary purpose of a prophet is to keep the people on track with the Lord and to warn them when they are straying from God's path. We very much need such prophets today. But the people were stiff-necked and refused to heed the warnings. Verse 28 is a damning indictment of Judah. It is remarkable that you consider that the Old Testament is the national book of Israel, yet if you were to name the book that is most consistently critical of Israel, it is the Old Testament.
At the same time it is vital that we remember that all this applies to the whole human race. Israel is in a sense representative of the whole human race, and God's plan is that through Abraham all nations will be blessed. When we see these indictments of Israel and Judah we do well to remember that they are typical of the whole of humanity, and we can well see the truth of this.
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