Jeremiah 23:14-17

23:14 But I see the prophets of Jerusalem ¹ 

doing something just as shocking.

They are unfaithful to me

and continually prophesy lies. ² 

So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil,

with the result that they do not stop their evildoing. ³ 

I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom,

and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah. ⁴ 

23:15 So then I, the Lord who rules over all, ⁵ 

have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem: ⁶ 

‘I will make these prophets eat the bitter food of suffering

and drink the poison water of judgment. ⁷ 

For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason ⁸ 

that ungodliness ⁹  has spread throughout the land.’”

23:16 The Lord who rules over all ¹⁰  says to the people of Jerusalem: ¹¹ 

“Do not listen to what

those prophets are saying to you.

They are filling you with false hopes.

They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,

not something the Lord has given them to say. ¹² 

23:17 They continually say ¹³  to those who reject what the Lord has said, ¹⁴ 

‘Things will go well for you!’ ¹⁵ 

They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,

‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’

Jeremiah 23:31-32

23:31 I, the Lord, affirm ¹⁶  that I am opposed to those prophets who are using their own tongues to declare, ‘The Lord declares….’ ¹⁷  23:32 I, the Lord, affirm ¹⁸  that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. ¹⁹  I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. ²⁰  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ²¹ 

Jeremiah 27:9-10

27:9 So do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim to predict the future by divination, ²²  by dreams, by consulting the dead, ²³  or by practicing magic. They keep telling you, ‘You do not need to be ²⁴  subject to the king of Babylon.’ 27:10 Do not listen to them, ²⁵  because their prophecies are lies. ²⁶  Listening to them will only cause you ²⁷  to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile. ²⁸ 

Ezekiel 22:25

22:25 Her princes ²⁹  within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows ³⁰  within it.

Ezekiel 22:28

22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. ³¹  They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken.

Micah 3:5

3:5 This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people

are as good as dead. ³² 

If someone gives them enough to eat,

they offer an oracle of peace. ³³ 

But if someone does not give them food,

they are ready to declare war on him. ³⁴ 

Zephaniah 3:4

3:4 Her prophets are proud; ³⁵ 

they are deceitful men.

Her priests defile what is holy; ³⁶ 

they break God’s laws. ³⁷ 

[23:14]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[23:14]  ² tn Or “they commit adultery and deal falsely.” The word “shocking” only occurs here and in 5:30 where it is found in the context of prophesying lies. This almost assures that the reference to “walking in lies” (Heb “in the lie”) is referring to false prophesy. Moreover the references to the prophets in 5:13 and in 14:13-15 are all in the context of false prophesy as are the following references in this chapter in 23:24, 26, 32 and in 28:15. This appears to be the theme of this section. This also makes it likely that the reference to adultery is not literal adultery, though two of the false prophets in Babylon were guilty of this (29:23). The reference to “encouraging those who do evil” that follows also makes more sense if they were preaching messages of comfort rather than messages of doom. The verbs here are infinitive absolutes in place of the finite verb, probably used to place greater emphasis on the action (cf. Hos 4:2 in a comparable judgment speech.)

[23:14]  ³ tn Heb “So they strengthen the hands of those doing evil so that they do not turn back from their evil.” For the use of the figure “strengthen the hands” meaning “encourage” see Judg 9:24; Ezek 13:22 (and cf. BDB 304 s.v. חָזַק Piel.2). The vav consecutive on the front of the form gives the logical consequence equivalent to “so” in the translation.

[23:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “All of them are to me like Sodom and its [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

[23:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…concerning the prophets.” The person is shifted to better conform with English style and the word “of Jerusalem” is supplied in the translation to avoid the possible misunderstanding that the judgment applies to the prophets of Samaria who had already been judged long before.

[23:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” For these same words of judgment on another group see 9:15 (9:14 HT). “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[23:15]  ⁸ tn The compound preposition מֵאֵת (me’et) expresses source or origin (see BDB 86 s.v. אֵת 4.c). Context shows that the origin is in their false prophesying which encourages people in their evil behavior.

[23:15]  ⁹ sn A word that derives from this same Hebrew word is used in v. 11 at the beginning of the Lord’s criticism of the prophet and priest. This is a common rhetorical device for bracketing material that belongs together. The criticism has, however, focused on the false prophets and the judgment due them.

[23:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:16]  ¹¹ tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:16]  ¹² tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”

[23:17]  ¹³ tn The translation reflects an emphatic construction where the infinitive absolute follows a participle (cf. GKC 343 §113.r).

[23:17]  ¹⁴ tc The translation follows the Greek version. The Hebrew text reads, “who reject me, ‘The Lord has spoken, “Things…”’” The Greek version is to be preferred here because of (1) the parallelism of the lines “reject what the Lord has said” // “follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts;” (2) the preceding context which speaks of “visions of their own imaginations not of what the Lord has given them;” (3) the following context which denies that they have ever had access to the Lord’s secrets; (4) the general contexts earlier regarding false prophecy where rejection of the Lord’s word is in view (6:14 [see there v. 10]; 8:11 [see there v. 9]); (5) the meter of the poetic lines (the Hebrew meter is 3/5/4/3; the meter presupposed by the translation is 5/3/4/3 with the 3’s being their words). The difference is one of vocalization of the same consonants. The vocalization of the MT is יְהוָה מְנַאֲצַי דִּבֶּר [mÿna’atsay dibber yÿhvah]; the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek would be vocalized as מְנַאֲצֵי דְּבַר יְהוָה (mÿna’atsey dÿvar yÿhvah).

[23:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “You will have peace.” But see the note on 14:13. See also 6:14 and 8:11.

[23:31]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:31]  ¹⁷ tn The word “The Lord” is not actually in the text but is implicit in the idiom. It is generally supplied in all the English versions.

[23:32]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:32]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.

[23:32]  ²⁰ sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.

[23:32]  ²¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[27:9]  ²² sn Various means of divination are alluded to in the OT. For example, Ezek 21:26-27 alludes to throwing down arrows to see which way they fall and consulting the shape of the liver of slaughtered animals. Gen 44:5 alludes to reading the future through pouring liquid in a cup. The means alluded to in this verse were all classified as pagan and prohibited as illegitimate in Deut 18:10-14. The Lord had promised that he would speak to them through prophets like Moses (Deut 18:15, 18). But even prophets could lie. Hence, the Lord told them that the test of a true prophet was whether what he said came true or not (Deut 18:20-22). An example of false prophesying and the vindication of the true as opposed to the false will be given in the chapter that follows this.

[27:9]  ²³ sn An example of this is seen in 1 Sam 28.

[27:9]  ²⁴ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508-9 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[27:10]  ²⁵ tn The words “Don’t listen to them” have been repeated from v. 9a to pick up the causal connection between v. 9a and v. 10 that is formally introduced by a causal particle in v. 10 in the original text.

[27:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “they are prophesying a lie.”

[27:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “lies will result in your being taken far…” (לְמַעַן [lÿma’an] + infinitive). This is a rather clear case of the particle לְמַעַן introducing result (contra BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. There is no irony in this statement; it is a bold prediction).

[27:10]  ²⁸ tn The words “out of your country” are not in the text but are implicit in the meaning of the verb. The words “in exile” are also not in the text but are implicit in the context. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[22:25]  ²⁹ tn Heb “a conspiracy of her prophets is in her midst.” The LXX reads “whose princes” rather than “a conspiracy of prophets.” The prophets are mentioned later in the paragraph (v. 28). If one follows the LXX in verse 25, then five distinct groups are mentioned in vv. 25-29: princes, priests, officials, prophets, and the people of the land. For a defense of the Septuagintal reading, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:720, n. 4.

[22:25]  ³⁰ tn Heb “her widows they have multiplied.” The statement alludes to their murderous acts.

[22:28]  ³¹ tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.

[3:5]  ³² tn Heb “concerning the prophets, those who mislead my people.” The first person pronominal suffix is awkward in a quotation formula that introduces the words of the Lord. For this reason some prefer to begin the quotation after “the Lord says” (cf. NIV), but this leaves “concerning the prophets” hanging very awkwardly at the beginning of the quotation. It is preferable to add הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) at the beginning of the quotation, right after the graphically similar יְהוָה (yÿhvah; see D. R. Hillers, Micah [Hermeneia], 44). The phrase הוֹי עַל (hoy ’al, “woe upon”) occurs in Jer 50:27 and Ezek 13:3 (with “the prophets” following the preposition in the latter instance).

[3:5]  ³³ tn Heb “those who bite with their teeth and cry out, ‘peace.’” The phrase “bite with the teeth” is taken here as idiomatic for eating. Apparently these prophets were driven by mercenary motives. If they were paid well, they gave positive oracles to their clients, but if someone could not afford to pay them, they were hostile and delivered oracles of doom.

[3:5]  ³⁴ tn Heb “but [as for the one] who does not place [food] in their mouths, they prepare for war against him.”

[3:4]  ³⁵ sn Applied to prophets, the word פֹּחֲזִים (pokhazim, “proud”) probably refers to their audacity in passing off their own words as genuine prophecies from the Lord (see Jer 23:32).

[3:4]  ³⁶ tn Or “defile the temple.”

[3:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “they treat violently [the] law.”