Jeremiah Chapter 23

From The Open Bible Project

23:1 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says Yahweh.

• (a) Meaning the prince’s governors and false prophets as in (Ezekiel 34:2).
• (b) For which I have special care, and have prepared good pastures for them.

23:2 Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings, says Yahweh.

• (c) Whose charge is to feed the flock but they eat the fruit of it, (Ezekiel 34:3).

23:3 I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

• (d) Thus the prophets always used to mix the promises with the threatenings lest the godly should be too much beaten down and therefore he shows how God will gather his Church after this dispersion.

23:4 I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, says Yahweh.

23:5 Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

• (e) This prophecy is of the restitution of the Church in the time of Jesus Christ, who is the true branch, read (Isaiah 11:1,45:8; Jeremiah 35:15; Daniel 9:24).

23:6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name by which he shall be called: Yahweh our righteousness.

23:7 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that they shall no more say, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

• (f) Read (Jeremiah 16:14).

23:8 but, As Yahweh lives, who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them. They shall dwell in their own land.

23:9 Concerning the prophets. My heart within me is broken, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words.

• (g) Meaning, the false prophets who deceive the people: in which appears his great love toward his nation, read (Jeremiah 14:13).

23:10 For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

• (h) They run headlong to wickedness and seek vain help.

23:11 for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness, says Yahweh.

• (i) My temple is full of their idolatry and superstitions.

23:12 Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation, says Yahweh.

23:13 I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.

23:14 In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.

• (k) They who should have profited by my rods against Samaria, are become worse than they.
• (l) Though to the world they seem holy fathers, yet I detest them as I did these abominable cities.

23:15 Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is ungodliness gone forth into all the land.

• (m) Read (Jeremiah 8:14).

23:16 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Don't listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh.

• (n) Which they have invented of their own brain.

23:17 They say continually to those who despise me, Yahweh has said, You shall have peace; and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come on you.

• (o) Read (Jeremiah 6:14, Jeremiah 8:11).

23:18 For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should perceive and hear his word? who has marked my word, and heard it?

• (p) Thus they derided Jeremiah as though the word of God was not revealed to him, so also spoke Zedekiah to Micaiah, (1 Kings 22:24).

23:19 Behold, the storm of Yahweh, [even his] wrath, is gone forth, yes, a whirling storm: it shall burst on the head of the wicked.

23:20 The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until he has executed, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand it perfectly.

• (q) Both that God has sent me, and that my words will be true.

23:21 I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I didn't speak to them, yet they prophesied.

23:22 But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

• (r) He shows the difference between the true prophets and the false, between the hireling and the true minister.

23:23 Am I a God at hand, says Yahweh, and not a God afar off?

• (s) Do I not see your falsehood, however you cloak it, and wherever you commit it?

23:24 Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says Yahweh. Don't I fill heaven and earth? says Yahweh.

23:25 I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

• (t) I have a prophecy revealed to me as in (Numbers 12:6).

23:26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?

23:27 who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

• (u) He shows that Satan raises up false prophets to bring the people from God.

23:28 The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says Yahweh.

• (x) Let the false prophet declare that it is his own fantasy, and not slander my word as though it were a cloak to cover his lies.
• (y) Meaning, that it is not enough for God’s ministers to abstain from lies and to speak the word of God but that there is judgment in alleging it, and that it may appear to be applied to the same purpose that it was spoken, (Ezekiel 3:27; 1 Corinthians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 4:2; 2 Timothy 2:25).

23:29 Isn't my word like fire? says Yahweh; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

23:30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who steal my words everyone from his neighbor.

• (z) Who set forth in my Name that which I have not commanded.

23:31 Behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who use their tongues, and say, He says.

• (a) That is, the Lord.

23:32 Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says Yahweh, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I didn't send them, nor commanded them; neither do they profit this people at all, says Yahweh.

23:33 When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the burden of Yahweh? Then you shall tell them, What burden! I will cast you off, says Yahweh.

• (b) The prophets called their threatenings God’s burden, which the sinners were not able to sustain, therefore the wicked in deriding the word, would ask of the prophets, what was the burden as though they would say, "You seek nothing else, but to lay burdens on our shoulders" and thus they rejected the word of God as a grievous burden.

23:34 As for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall say, The burden of Yahweh, I will even punish that man and his house.

• (c) Because this word was brought to contempt and derision, he will teach them another manner of speech, and will cause this word burden to cease and teach them to ask with reverence, "What says the Lord?"

23:35 You shall say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, What has Yahweh answered? and, What has Yahweh spoken?

23:36 You shall mention the burden of Yahweh no more: for every man's own word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of Yahweh of Armies our God.

• (d) The thing which they mock and contemn will come on them.

23:37 You shall say to the prophet, What has Yahweh answered you? and, What has Yahweh spoken?

23:38 But if you say, The burden of Yahweh; therefore thus says Yahweh: Because you say this word, The burden of Yahweh, and I have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of Yahweh;

23:39 therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence:

23:40 and I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.