Jeremiah 23 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Jeremiah 23

The Righteous Branch

23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD. 3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.

5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’

7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 8 but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he¹ had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

Lying Prophets

9 Concerning the prophets:

  My heart is broken within me;
    all my bones shake;
  I am like a drunken man,
    like a man overcome by wine,
  because of the LORD
    and because of his holy words.
10   For the land is full of adulterers;
    because of the curse the land mourns,
    and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
  Their course is evil,
    and their might is not right.
11   “Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
    even in my house I have found their evil,
      declares the LORD.
12   Therefore their way shall be to them
    like slippery paths in the darkness,
    into which they shall be driven and fall,
  for I will bring disaster upon them
    in the year of their punishment,
      declares the LORD.
13   In the prophets of Samaria
    I saw an unsavory thing:
  they prophesied by Baal
    and led my people Israel astray.
14   But in the prophets of Jerusalem
    I have seen a horrible thing:
  they commit adultery and walk in lies;
    they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
    so that no one turns from his evil;
  all of them have become like Sodom to me,
    and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
15   Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets:
  “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
    and give them poisoned water to drink,
  for from the prophets of Jerusalem
    ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

16 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

18   For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD
    to see and to hear his word,
    or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
19   Behold, the storm of the LORD!
    Wrath has gone forth,
  a whirling tempest;
    it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
20   The anger of the LORD will not turn back
    until he has executed and accomplished
    the intents of his heart.
  In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
21   “I did not send the prophets,
    yet they ran;
  I did not speak to them,
    yet they prophesied.
22   But if they had stood in my council,
    then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
  and they would have turned them from their evil way,
    and from the evil of their deeds.

23 “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD. 25 I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ 26 How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, 27 who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? 28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD. 29 Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? 30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another. 31 Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’ 32 Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD.

33 “When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the LORD?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden,² and I will cast you off, declares the LORD.’ 34 And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the LORD,’ I will punish that man and his household. 35 Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 But ‘the burden of the LORD’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God. 37 Thus you shall say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 38 But if you say, ‘The burden of the LORD,’ thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have said these words, “The burden of the LORD,” when I sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The burden of the LORD,’” 39 therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up³ and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your fathers. 40 And I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.’”

Footnotes

[1] 23:8 Septuagint; Hebrew I
[2] 23:33 Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew What burden?
[3] 23:39 Or surely forget you

Commentary

v1-4: The responsibility of leaders to care for their flock. The specific prophecy here was that the shepherds would be judged; but the flock restored, and taught faithfully by new shepherds raised up by God.

A consistent pattern in scripture, that leaders maintain the highest standards of life. Jeremiah writes into a context where the leaders had manifestly and deliberately failed.

v5-6: Christ's reign in justice and righteousness, pictured by Josiah, 22.15. But Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely. These things were not fulfilled by Zerubbabel, Ezra, of Nehemiah, for none of them reunited the whole nation, nor reigned as king. The King is Christ, the Son of David, the Lord our Righteousness; the leader par excellence.

v7-8: See 16.14-15; the people shall dwell in their own land. With these wonderful words prophesying the return of the nation, Jeremiah closes this section.

Jeremiah had already prophesied that those who fled to the Babylonians would save their lives (21.9). Many others would be taken forcefully to Babylon, the land of the north.

But the return from there would be remembered. such will be the dramatic return that subsequent generations would look back to that return, rather than the deliverance from Egypt.

v9-10: Jeremiah's denunciation of the prophets. The Lord had brought His holy word, and those prophets had declared by life and lip something quite different and unholy. The land was full of adulterers, and the prophets were no different. Elsewhere this might refer to spiritual unfaithfulness, but here Jeremiah speaks of their sexual misdemeanours. These words are Jeremiah’s observation of the situation, to which the Lord then responded.

v11: Prophet and priest were guilty before God; even in the temple sin was apparent.

v12: The Lord was not ignorant of the leaders' sins, and He had disaster planned for them.

v13: The bad example of Samaria's prophets, by which the northern kingdom had been led astray. No doubt those in Judah would have witnessed this, for the northern kingdom had been defeated some 120 years earlier. But it seems they did not appreciate the real spiritual reason for the events.

v14: There was folly in the Samaritan prophets, but adultery and lies in the prophets of Jerusalem; they encouraged sins and discouraged godly living. The description here is that they were like Sodom and Gomorrah.

v15: The influence of the prophets, spreading ungodliness throughout the land. They would be punished for this.

v16-17: The message of the prophets;

a vision of their own hearts, not from the mouth of the Lord;
promising peace to those who persisted in sin and rebellion against God.

v18: Who has stood in the counsel of the Lord? See 1 Kings 22.19-23, where Micaiah testified of having done so. As we give time to being with Him, we shall understand His actions, and be able to apply His word. The clear implication is that the false prophets had not sought the mind of God.

v19-20: God's fury to be poured out on the wicked. Eventually, the people of Judah would realise why this disaster happened; and they will recognise the rebellion in their own hearts.

v21-22: The prophets fall short; weighed in the balance and found wanting. They claimed to have spoken in the name of the Lord, but they did not encourage repentance and godliness. Had they truly heard the voice of the Lord, their ministry would have been very different. The true prophet declares the word of the Lord, which has the power to turn people from wrong to right.

v23-24: The people may be deceived, but God cannot be deceived. He remained the great, omnipotent God, irrespective of His people's rebellion. There is only one infinite; there cannot be two who fill heaven and earth; there is only one true God.

v25-27: The Lord had heard, He had seen; the false prophets were exposed, as were their motives, and the effect of their words, for they had turned the people away from God. Although God does communicate through dreams, not every dream is from Him.

v28-29: The challenge; let them speak their dreams; but we see the difference with the word of God delivered by Jeremiah. Similarly, on Mount Carmel, Elijah's ministry was clearly seen as distinct from the false prophets'. We believe there is real power in the truth of God (Heb 4.12)..

v30: False prophets stole words from each other, and did not seek the word from God. Like many in Jesus’ day, there was a lack of real authority amongst the prophets.

v31: They claimed divine inspiration, but wagged their own tongues.

v32: They led the people astray.

v33: The message from God, that the people would be forsaken, whatever the false prophets claimed. Jeremiah uses the similarity between Hebrew words for ‘oracle,’ the authoritative word of God, and ‘burden,’ which God Himself would cast off.

v34: God would judge those who made false claims.

v35-36: Every man's word was effectively his oracle, each one doing what was right in their own eyes, and walking in the evil imagination of their hearts. Here, the claimed ‘oracle’ becomes a ‘burden’ which drags them down.

v37-40: The false prophets claimed to speak on behalf of God. But they and the people they deceived would suffer judgment.