Ezekiel 13:23

Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. YE SHALL SEE NO MORE VANITY. The event shall confute your lies, involving yourselves in destruction (; ; ; ). Remarks: (1) The leading characteristic of the false prophets, who are denounced in this chapter, is, they prophesied "out of their own hearts," and "followed their own spirit" (Ezekiel 13:2). The communications which they affected to give as if from God were what they and the people wished, no...

It follows, _you shall not see a lie any more_. He has hitherto explained the reason why God grew so warm against these women, because they destroyed miserable souls either by their cruelty or their flatteries, and thus were like false prophets: now he adds, _you shall not see a lie any more. _This ought not to be understood as if God promised these women a sound mind, so that they should cease to hurt the people by their lies: but he confirms the sentiment previously expressed, namely, that they should be subject to the taunts of all men, as boys themselves acknowledge that what they boasted to be oracles were mere imposture. It is just as if he had said — I will make you ashamed, so that hereafter you may be deprived of the use of the prophetic name, as you have hitherto used it. Although these women persisted in their madness, yet they saw vanity no more, since it became openly appare...

17-23 It is ill with those who had rather hear pleasing lies than unpleasing truths. The false prophetesses tried to make people secure, signified by laying them at ease, and to make them proud, signified by the finery laid on their heads. They shall be confounded in their attempts, and God's people shall be delivered out of their hands. It behoves Christians to keep close to the word of God, and in every thing to seek the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Let us so trust the promises of God as to keep his commandments....

Verse Ezekiel 13:23. _YE SHALL SEE NO MORE VANITY_] They pretended _visions_; but they were _empty_ of _reality_. _NOR DIVINE DIVINATIONS_] As God would not speak to them, they employed _demons_. Where God is not, because of the iniquity of the people, the _devil_ is, to strengthen and support that iniquity. And if he cannot have his _priests_, he will have his _priestesses_; and these will have a Church like themselves, full of lying doctrines, and bad works....

A rebuke to the false prophetesses, and a declaration that God will confound them, and deliver their victims from their snares. Women were sometimes inspired by the true God, as were Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, and Huldah; but an order of prophetesses was unknown among the people of God, and the existence of such a class in the last days of the kings of Judah was a fresh instance of declension into pagan usages. Ezekiel 13:18. Render thus: “Woe to the women that” put charms on every finger-joint, that set veils upon heads of every height to ensnare souls. “Will ye” ensnare “the souls of my people,” and keep your own souls alive, and will ye profane my name “among my people for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to” keep alive “the souls that should not live, by lying to my people” wh

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 13:1 Another interval follows, and then a fresh and fuller burst of inspiration, manifestly in close connection with Ezekiel 12:21, and to be read in combination with Jeremiah 23:1; which, as Jeremiah was in communication with the exiles (Jeremiah 29:1), Ezekiel may probably have seen. There were false prophets and prophetesses among the exiles as well as in Jerusalem, and an utterance is now found for his long pent up indignation. EZEKIEL 13:2,...

THEREFORE YE SHALL SEE NO MORE VANITY, NOR DIVINE DIVINATIONS,.... They should not be suffered any longer to impose upon the people; and they should be so sufficiently exposed, that the people would not give heed to their vain visions and lying divinations any more; and no gain coming to them hereby, they would not be disposed to make pretensions to them, as they had done: or the sense is, that they should perish in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem; and so they and their false prophecies would cease together: FOR I WILL DELIVER MY PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR HAND, AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I [AM] THE LORD; see Ezekiel 13:21....

Ezekiel 13:1. And now the Lord speaks through Ezekiel about the false prophets in the midst of His people. They prophesied out of their own hearts; or as it might be rendered, “Who prophesy from their own mind without having seen.” Such they were and such are the false teachers of this present age 2 Peter 2:1. Of such our Lord warned: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” Matthew 7:15. Every man who prophesies out of his own heart, who utters his own mind, whose preaching and teaching is not according to the oracles of God, is a false prophet, a blind leader of the blind. Like false prophets in Israel the false teachers in Christendom are the cause of the spiritua

THE FALSE PROPHETESSES. But women, as well as men, contributed, and just as fatally, to the popular delusion. The false prophets were public men, who exercised an influence on politics; the false prophetesses corresponded roughly to our modern fortune-tellers, and wielded an enormous private influence over a people prone to superstition, and confused by the complexity of the situation. We have here a very vivid picture of their mysterious practices. They are seen sewing magic bands or amulets (not pillows) on to the wrists or elbows of their clients, and attaching long, flowing veils to their heads. The professed object of these superstitious practices is the capture and control of souls more plainly to slay and to spare, _i.e._ to determine their fate by a solemn prediction of death or good fortune, as the case may be. Ezekiel takes three objections to all this profane jugglery: (_a_) i...

Denunciation of the false prophetesses Female prophets were not unknown in Israel whether in earlier or later times, as Deborah (Judges 4:3) and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14). The prophetesses referred to here were like the prophets, prophesying out of their own heart (Ezekiel 13:17). Their prophesying was by some species of divination, which they used in order to obtain oracles. The methods of divination practised are somewhat obscure: they bound fillets upon the joints and threw cloths or veils over the heads of those who consulted them. By these means they "hunted" souls; they saved souls alive that should not live and slew souls that should not die ...