Ezekiel 13:6

They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. THEY HAVE MADE OTHERS TO HOPE ... - rather, 'they hoped' to confirm (i:e. make good) 'their word' by the event corresponding to their prophecy. The Hebrew [ yichªluw (H3176)] requires this (Havernick). Also the parallel clause, "they have seen vanity," implies that they "believed their own lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Subjective revelation is false, unless it rests on the objective....

Here again he pronounces generally that those false prophets were vain, and this assertion depends upon the principle that they had spoken from their own heart or spirit, for nothing false or vain can proceed from God. It follows, therefore, that they are here condemned of vanity and lying, because they dared falsely to use the name of God when they uttered nothing but their own dreams. He now confirms what we saw in the last verse, when he says, _they hoped to establish their word_. Hence they puffed up the people with vain hope, when they said that God would not be so severe as to exact continual punishment of the holy and elect nation. True prophets also often recall sinners to the mercy of God, and magnify it so, that those who wrestle with despair may not doubt God’s long-suffering, since he is said to be slow to anger, and inclined to reconciliation; and his pity endures for a life...

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....

AND THEY HAVE MADE OTHERS ... - Rather, “and they hope for the confirmation of their word.” They come to believe their own lies....

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,...

THEY HAVE SEEN VANITY, AND LYING DIVINATION,.... The visions the false prophets pretended to see were nothing but the fruit of their own fancies and imaginations, and had nothing real in them; and what they divined or foretold should be were all lies, and never came to pass, and never would: SAYING THE LORD SAITH: AND THE LORD HATH NOT SENT THEM; they came to the people with a lie in their mouths, giving out that the Lord spoke by them; when they had no mission from him; nor any commission to say what they did; or any warrant from him for their prophecies: AND THEY HAVE MADE [OTHERS] TO HOPE THAT THEY WOULD CONFIRM THE WORD; or, "that the word would be confirmed" e; that what was said by them would have its accomplishment; and that their prophecies would be fulfilled. By their solemn way of speaking; by the use they made of the name of the Lord; by the strong assurances they gave, and...

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 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

III. TWO SCATHING ORACLES DELIVERED 13:1-23 In chapter 13 Ezekiel directs his attack against those who spawned the blasphemous proverbs which he has just refuted in Ezekiel 12:21-28. Ezekiel denounces these prophet-types for undermining the stability of the nation at a time when it needed to be built up. He speaks first of the condemnation of the prophets (Ezekiel 13:1-16), and then of the prophetesses (Ezekiel 13:17-23). In order to grasp the magnitude of the problem faced by the faithful pro-claimer of God's word in this period, Jeremiah 29 should be read in connection with these denunciations....