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All metaphors are figurative (cannot be interpreted literally). If you say 'Mary is a block of ice', you take it as meaning 'Mary is an unemotional, perhaps cruel, person'. So metaphor is a figure of speech where words (here, 'block of ice') have figurative meaning, that is mean something different than they literally say.
Whether in the Hebrew of the Old Testament (as in Exodus 32:9) or the Greek of the New (as in Acts 7:51), the figurative meaning of "stiff-necked" is "stubborn, obstinate, headstrong."
departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical
The opposite of figurative is literal.
Metaphor