Ezekiel 13:3

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! WOE UNTO THE FOOLISH PROPHETS - through vaunting as though exclusively possessing "wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:19); the "fear of God" being the only "beginning of wisdom" (). THAT FOLLOW THEIR OWN SPIRIT - instead of the Spirit of God. A three-fold distinction lay between the false and the true prophets: (1) The source of their messages respectively: of the false, their own hearts;" of the true, an object presented to the spiritual sense (named from the noblest of the senses a seeing) by the Spirit of God as from without, not produced by their own natural powers of reflection. The word, the body of the though...

_Woe to, the foolish _or disgraceful _prophets _ נבל, _nebel_, signifies “a vile person,” “a castaway,” just as נבלה, _nebeleh_, means “foulness,” “crime,” “wickedness,” although נבל, _nebel_, is oftener taken for folly, and I willingly embrace this sense as it is generally received. He calls false prophets foolish, because they doubtless fiercely insulted the true servants of God — just like upstarts puffed up with wonderful self-conceit; for the devil, who reigns in them, is the father of pride: hence they carry themselves haughtily, arrogate all things to themselves, and wish to be thought angels come down from heaven. And when Paul speaks of human fictions, he grants them the form of wisdom. (Colossians 2:23.) Hence there is no doubt that these pretenders of whom Ezekiel speaks were held in g

1-9 Where God gives a warrant to do any thing, he gives wisdom. What they delivered was not what they had seen or heard, as that is which the ministers of Christ deliver. They were not praying prophets, had no intercourse with Heaven; they contrived how to please people, not how to do them good; they stood not against sin. They flattered people into vain hopes. Such widen the breach, by causing men to think themselves deserving of eternal life, when the wrath of God abides upon them....

THAT FOLLOW ... NOTHING - Better in the margin. A true prophet (like Ezekiel) spoke “the word of the Lord,” and declared what he had seen “in the visions of God.” These pretenders are stigmatized in scorn “prophets out of their own hearts,” “seers of what they have not seen.”...

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,...

THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD, WOE UNTO THE FOOLISH PROPHETS,.... The false prophets, as the Targum; who are foolish, as all are who are not sent of God, and furnished by him with wisdom and knowledge, and who prophesy out of their own hearts; for what else but folly can proceed from thence? this must be a great mortification to these prophets to be called foolish, when they reckoned themselves wise men, being vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds, and were accounted so by others; but what is wisdom with men is foolishness with God: THAT FOLLOW THEIR OWN SPIRIT; or "walk after it" c; and not the Spirit of God, who leads into all truth; they pretended to a spirit of prophecy, but it was their own spirit and the dictates of it they followed, and not the Spirit of the Lord; and therefore it is no wonder that they prophesied false things, and led the people wrong; as all such teachers do, who g...

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

EZEKIEL 13. DENUNCIATION OF THE FALSE PROPHETS (EZEKIEL 13:1) AND PROPHETESSES (EZEKIEL 13:17). Besides the delay of the doom which Ezekiel threatened, the people were deluded by the welcome and reassuring promises of the false prophets, of whose temper and methods this chapter draws a very living picture. EZEKIEL 13:1. The false prophets were jingoes, with no real inspiration, courage, or insight into the moral quality of the political situation. Some of them were sincere and hoped for the confirmation of their message, but all of them were shallow. They could repeat the formulæ of the true prophet, and preface their message with a Thus saith Yahweh, but they were not real messengers of His at all. I

THE LORD GOD. Hebrew Adonai Jehovah. See note on Ezekiel 2:4. foolish. Hebrew. _nabel._ See note on Proverbs 1:7. THEIR OWN SPIRIT. Not the Holy Spirit. SPIRIT. Hebrew. _roach._ App-9....

The lying prophets are like foxes among the ruins (1) Ezekiel 13:1. The inspiration of these prophets is not from the spirit of God but from their own heart. (2) Ezekiel 13:4. Consequently so far as the state was concerned they were like foxes among the ruins; they burrowed among these and only helped to bring down what might still be standing. (3) Ezekiel 13:6. They deceived the people, and were self-deceived. They prophesied lies, and looked that God would establish their lies. (4) Ezekiel 13:8. Therefore destruction shall overtake them. The people of the Lord, when the day of chastisement has passed, shall be again a p