Jeremiah 23:9-40

Jeremiah 23:9-40. Condemnation of the prophets

Following on the prophecies relating to successive kings of Judah, we have a section dealing with the iniquities of a class who also grievously misled the nation. The passage doubtless contains much that is genuine, but, from the diffuseness of style, especially in the latter part, it may be safely inferred that additional matter has been inserted. Commentators, however, are by no means agreed as to the amount of the latter. Du. omits all after Jeremiah 23:15, Co. nearly all after Jeremiah 23:24, Gi. Jeremiah 23:30, while the last-named also rejects Jeremiah 23:18; Jeremiah 23:9 and again 23 29 are in Ḳinah rhythm. Elsewhere metre is for the most part irregular or absent. The collection of utterances, so far as genuine, may have probably belonged to the last part of Zedekiah's reign.

The section may be thus subdivided. (i) Jeremiah 23:9. Jeremiah is undone and nerveless because of the Lord's message to a land whose profligacy has brought on it a curse. The Temple itself is polluted by the iniquities of prophets and priests. They shall be as men driven in the dark along slippery ways till they fall. The prophets of Samaria led the people astray by alleged prophecies of their false deity, while the prophets of Jerusalem shock Jehovah still more by immorality, lying, and the encouragement of others in permanent evil-doing. They have reached the infamy of the cities of the plain. They have infected all the land; therefore shall wormwood and gall be their food. (ii) Jeremiah 23:16. It is from the prophets" own imaginations and not from Jehovah that their pleasing promises of immunity from evil come. Who is there who has visited His heavenly abode, there to learn His purposes? (iii) Jeremiah 23:19. Jehovah's wrath shall break, like a storm, on the head of the wicked, and shall not be recalled till His purpose is fully achieved. (iv) Jeremiah 23:21. Those prophets were not commissioned nor inspired by the Lord; else they would have delivered His rebuke of the people's sins. He is omnipresent. They cannot escape His observation. (v) Jeremiah 23:25. How long shall they adduce dreams, dreams forsooth, in support of their lying predictions, making the real character of Jehovah to be forgotten by the people, even as their fathers thought of Him as though He were no better than one of the Baals? Let the dream be told, and let Jehovah's message be told as well; but let the utterances which embody the two be sharply distinguished, as stubble from wheat. Jehovah's word is as fire, and as a hammer which breaketh the rocks. (vi) Jeremiah 23:30. He is against the prophets who steal their announcements from the true prophets, and with ready tongue claim that they are from Him, who lead His people astray with delusive dreams and claims to Divine authority. They have not His commission, and so are without value. (vii) Jeremiah 23:33. When asked, What is the Lord's burden, Jeremiah will answer, It is ye, and He will rid Himself of you as such. All who use the word "burden" shall be punished. The message shall be expressed in the simplest language, and your use of the word "burden" shall recoil upon yourselves. If ye nevertheless persist in its use, ye shall be banished for ever in disgrace from this ancestral city and from Jehovah's presence.