Ezekiel 13:7

_HAVE YE NOT SEEN A VAIN VISION, AND HAVE YE NOT SPOKEN A LYING DIVINATION, WHEREAS YE SAY, THE LORD SAITH IT; ALBEIT I HAVE NOT SPOKEN?_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

Here God shows why he had formerly pronounced that they brought forward nothing but vanity and falsehood, namely, because they used his name falsely, and out of light created darkness; for by the feint of speaking in God’s name, they darkened men’s minds. That sacred name is, as it were, a fount of splendor, so as far to surpass the light of the sun; nay, whatever light exists, is made apparent and refulgent by it. But, as I have said, the servants of Satan turn light, into darkness, because they audaciously boast that God has said so. This passage and similar ones show us how diligently we ought to guard against Satan’s fallacies. This is their astounding boldness to bring forward God’s name while they so wantonly trifle with his judgments. For to boast that God has spoken is as if we wished, by impious profanation, purposely to draw him into a dispute. For how can God bear us to turn h...

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....

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,...

HAVE YE NOT SEEN A VAIN VISION,.... A vision only in pretence, and not in reality; the effect of their own fancy, and not anything shown them by the Lord: AND HAVE YE NOT SPOKEN A LYING DIVINATION; delivered out a known lie, saying they had it from the Lord, when they had it not; or a prophecy that will deceive, and be without effect, and in the issue prove a falsehood: WHEREAS YE SAY, THE LORD SAITH [IT]; ALBEIT I HAVE NOT SPOKEN? this is a proof that what they gave out for a vision and prophecy was a vain and false one; seeing they pretended they had it from the Lord, when he never spoke a word to them, or by them....

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

SAITH IT; ALBEIT, &c.. solemn warning as to some of the changes made in tbe Vulgate versions. Compare Ezekiel 2:5; Jeremiah 23:21....

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....