The Quran

Preface

فَبِما نَقضِهِم ميثاقَهُم لَعَنّاهُم وَجَعَلنا قُلوبَهُم قاسِيَةً ۖ يُحَرِّفونَ الكَلِمَ عَن مَواضِعِهِ ۙ وَنَسوا حَظًّا مِمّا ذُكِّروا بِهِ ۚ وَلا تَزالُ تَطَّلِعُ عَلىٰ خائِنَةٍ مِنهُم إِلّا قَليلًا مِنهُم ۖ فَاعفُ عَنهُم وَاصفَح ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ المُحسِنينَ

Yusuf Ali

But because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them,¹ and made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them- barring a few - ever bent on (new) deceits:² but forgive them, and overlook³ (their misdeeds): for God loveth those who are kind.

Cursed them: that means that because of the breach of their Covenant, God withdrew His overflowing Grace from them. The withdrawal of Grace made their hearts grow hard in two ways: (1) they were no longer protected from the assaults of evil, and (2) they became impervious even to the message of forgiveness and mercy which is open to all God’s creatures.
Israel, when it lost God’s grace as above, began to sin against truth and religion in three ways: (1) they began to misuse Scripture itself, by either taking words out of their right meaning, or applying them to things for which they were never meant, (Cf. 5:41); (2) in doing so, they conveniently forgot a part of the Message and purpose of God; and (3) they invented new deceits to support the old ones.
Cf. 2:109 and n. 110, where I have explained the different shades of meaning in the words for “forgiveness.”