E
Z E K I E L
CHAP. XIII.
Mention
had been made, in the chapter before, of the vain visions and flattering
divinations with which the people of
Israel
suffered themselves to be imposed upon (ver.
24); now this whole chapter is levelled against them. God's faithful prophets
are nowhere so sharp upon any sort of sinners as upon the false prophets, not
because they were the most spiteful enemies to them, but because the put the
highest affront upon God and did the greatest mischief to his people. The
prophet here shows the sin and punishment, I. Of the false prophets, ver.
1-16. II. Of the false prophetesses, ver. 17-23. Both agreed to sooth men up
in their sins, and, under pretence of comforting God's people, to flatter them
with hopes that they should yet have peace; but the prophets shall be proved
liars, their prophecies mere shams, and the expectations of the people
illusions; for God will let them know that "the deceived and the deceiver
are his," are both accountable to him, Job xii. 16.
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The
Guilt of False Prophets.
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B.
C. 593.
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1 And the word of the LORD
came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, prophesy against the prophets
of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own
hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD;
3 Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen
nothing! 4 O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the
deserts. 5 Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the
hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
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. 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? 8 Therefore thus saith
the Lord GOD;
Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am
against you, saith the Lord GOD.
9 And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine
lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be
written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into
the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
The false prophets, who are here prophesied against, were some of them at
Jerusalem (Jer. xxiii. 14): I have seen in the prophets at Jerusalem a
horrible thing; some of them among the captives in Babylon, for to them
Jeremiah writes (Jer. xxix. 8), Let not your diviners, that be in the midst
of you, deceive you. And as God's prophets, though at a distance from each
other in place or time, yet preached the same truths, which was an evidence
that they were guided by one and the same good Spirit, so the false prophets
prophesied the same lies, being actuated by one and the same spirit of error.
There were little hopes of bringing them to repentance, they were so hardened
in their sin; yet Ezekiel must prophesy against them, in hopes that the people
might be cautioned not to hearken to them; and thus a testimony will be left
upon record against them, and they will thereby be left inexcusable.
Ezekiel had express orders to prophesy against the prophets of Israel;
so they called themselves, as if none but they had been worthy of the name of
Israel's prophets, who were indeed Israel's deceivers. But it is observable
that Israel was never imposed upon by pretenders to prophecy till after they
had rejected and abused the true prophets; as, afterwards, they were never
deluded by counterfeit messiahs till after they had refused the true Messiah
and rejected him. These false prophets must be required to hear the word of
the Lord. They took upon them to speak what concerned others as from God;
let them now hear what concerned themselves as from him. And two things the
prophet is directed to do:--
I. To discover their sin to them, and to convince them of that if possible, or
thereby to prevent their proceeding any further, by making manifest their
folly unto all men, 2 Tim. iii. 9. They are here called foolish
prophets (v. 3), men that did not at all understand the business
they pretended to; to make fools of the people they made fools of themselves,
and put the greatest cheat upon their own souls. Let us see what is here laid
to their charge. 1. They pretend to have a commission from God, whereas he
never sent them. They thrust themselves into the prophetic office, without
warrant from him who is the Lord God of the holy prophets, which was a
foolish thing; for how could they expect that God should own them in a work to
which he never called them? They are prophets out of their own hearts
(so the margin reads it, v. 2), prophets of their own making, v.
6. They say, The Lord saith; they pretend to be his messengers, but the
Lord has not sent them, has not given them any orders. They counterfeit
the broad seal of heaven, than which they cannot do a greater indignity to
mankind, for hereby they put a reproach upon divine revelation, lessen its
credit, and weaken its credibility. When these pretenders are found to be
deceivers atheists and infidels will thence infer, They are all so. The
Lord has not sent them; for though crafty enough in other things like
the foxes, and very wise for the world, yet they are foolish prophets
and have no experimental acquaintance with the things of God. Note, Foolish
prophets are not of God's sending, for whom he sends he either finds fit or
makes fit. Where he gives warrant he gives wisdom. 2. They pretend to have
instructions from God, whereas he never made himself and his mind known to
them: They followed their own spirit (v. 3); they delivered that
as a message from God which was the product either of their subtle invention,
to serve a turn for themselves, or of their own crazed and heated imagination,
to give vent to a fancy. For they have seen nothing, they have not
really had any heavenly vision; they pretend that what they say the Lord
saith it, but God disowns it: "I have not spoken it, I never
said it, never meant any such thing." What they delivered was not what
they had seen or heard, as that is which the ministers of Christ deliver (1
John i. 1), but either what they had dreamed or what they thought would please
those they coveted to make an interest in; this is called their seeing
vanity and lying divination (v. 6); they pretended to have seen
that which they did not see, and produced that as a divine truth which they
knew to be false. To the same purport (v. 7): You have see a vain
vision and spoken a lying divination, which had no divine original and
would have no effect, but would certainly be disproved by the event; the words
are changed (v. 8): You have spoken vanity and seen lies; what
they saw and what they said was all alike, a mere sham; they saw nothing, they
said nothing, to the purpose, nothing that could be relied on or that deserved
regard. Again (v. 9), They see vanity and divine lies; they
pretended to have had visions, as the true prophets had, whereas really they
had none, but either it was the creature of their own fancy (they thought they
had a vision, as men in a delirium do, that was seeing vanity) or it
was a fiction of their own politics, and they knew they had none, and then
they saw lies, and divined lies. See Jer. xxiii. 16, &c. Note,
Since the devil is universally know to be the father of lies, those put the
highest affront imaginable upon God who tell lies, and then father them upon
him. But those that had put God's character upon Satan, in worshipping devils,
arrived at length at such a pitch of impiety as to put Satan's character upon
God. 3. They took no care to prevent the judgments of God that were breaking
in upon the kingdom. They are like the foxes in the deserts, running to
and fro, and seeming to be in a great hurry, but it was to get away and shift
for their own safety, not to do any good: The hireling flees, and leaves
the sheep. They are like foxes that are greedy of prey for themselves,
crafty and cruel to feed themselves. But (v. 5), "You have not
gone up into the gaps, nor made up the hedge of the house of Israel. A
breach is made in their fences, at which judgments are ready to pour in upon
them, and then, if ever, is the time to do them service; but you have done
nothing to help them." They should have made intercession for them, to
turn away the wrath of God; but they were not praying prophets, had no
interest in heaven nor intercourse with heaven (as prophets used to have, Gen.
xx. 7) and so could do them no service that way. They should have made it
their business by preaching and advice to bring people to repentance and
reformation, and so have made up the hedge, and put a stop to the
judgments of God; but this was none of their care: they contrived how to
pleased people, not how to profit them. They saw a deluge of profaneness and
impiety breaking in upon the land, waging war with virtue and holiness, and
threatening to crush them and bear them down, and then they should have come
in to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty,
by witnessing against the wickedness of the time and place they lived in; but
they thought that would be as dangerous a piece of service as standing in a
breach to make it good against the besiegers, and therefore they declined it,
did nothing to stem the tide, stood not in the battle against vice and
immorality, but basely deserted the cause of religion and reformation, in
the day of the Lord, when it was proclaimed, Who is on the Lord's side?
Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Ps. xciv. 16. Those were
unworthy the name of prophets that could think so favourably of sin, and had
so little zeal for God and the public welfare. 4. They flattered people into a
vain hope that the judgments God had threatened would never come, whereby they
hardened those in sin whom they should have endeavoured to turn from sin (v.
6): They have made others to hope that all should be well, and they
should have peace, though they went on still in their trespasses, and that the
event would confirm the word. They were still ready to say, "We will
warrant you that these troubles will be at an end quickly, and we shall be in
prosperity again." as if their warrants would confirm false prophecies,
in defiance of God himself.
II. He is directed to denounce the judgments of God against them for these
sins, from which their pretending to the character of prophets would not
exempt them. 1. In general, here is a woe against them (v. 3),
and what that woe is we are told (v. 8). Behold, I am against you,
saith the Lord God. Note, Those are in a woeful condition that have God
against them. Woe, and a thousand woes, to those that have made him their
enemy. 2. In particular, they are sentenced to be excluded from all the
privileges of the commonwealth of Israel, for they are adjudged to have
forfeited them all (v. 9): God's hand shall be upon them, to
seize them and bring them to his bar, to shut them out from his presence, and
they will find it a fearful thing to fall into his hands. They pretend
to be prophets, particular favourites of heaven, and authorized to preside in
the congregation of his church on earth; but, by pretending to the honours
they were not entitled to, they lost those that otherwise they might have
enjoyed, Matt. v. 19. Their doom is, (1.) To be expelled from the communion of
saints, and not to be looked upon as belonging to it: They shall not be in
the secret of my people; their folly shall be so clearly manifested that
they shall never be consulted, nor their advice asked; they shall not be
present at any debates about public affairs. Or, rather, they shall not be in
the assembly of God's people for religious worship, for they shall be ashamed
to show their heads there, when they are proved by the events to be false
prophets, and, like Cain, shall go out from the presence of the Lord.
The people that are deceived by them shall abandon them, and resolve to have
no more to do with them. Those that usurped Moses's chair shall not be allowed
so much as a door-keeper's place. In the great day they shall not stand in
the congregation of the righteous (Ps. i. 5), when God gathers his
saints together to him (Ps. l. 5, 16), to be for ever with him.
(2.) To be expunged out of the book of the living. They shall die in their
captivity, and shall die childless, shall leave no posterity to take their
denomination from them, and so their names shall not be found among those who
either themselves or their posterity returned out of Babylon, of whom a
particular account was kept in a public register, which was called the
writing of the house of Israel, such as we have Ezra ii. They shall not be
found among the living in Jerusalem, Isa. iv. 3. Or they shall not be found
written among those whom God has from eternity chosen to be vessels of his
mercy to eternity. We read of those who prophesied in Christ's name,
and yet he will tell them that he never knew them (Matt. vii. 22, 23),
because they were not among those that were given to him. The Chaldee
paraphrase reads it, They shall not be written in the writing of eternal
life, which is written for the righteous of the house of Israel. See Ps.
lxix. 28. (3.) To be for ever excluded from the land of Israel. God has sworn
in his wrath concerning them that they shall never enter with the
returning captives into the land of Canaan, which a second time remains a rest
for them. Note, Those who oppose the design of God's threatenings, and will
not be awed and influenced by them, forfeit the benefit of his promises, and
cannot expect to be comforted and encouraged by them.
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The
Punishment of False Prophets; The Doom of False Prophets.
B. C. 593.
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10 Because, even because they have seduced my
people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall,
and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar: 11 Say
unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall
fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall
fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. 12 Lo, when the wall
is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing
wherewith ye have daubed it? 13 Therefore thus saith the
Lord GOD;
I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be
an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to
consume it. 14 So will I break down the wall that ye have
daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that
the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be
consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
15 Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have
daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is
no more, neither they that daubed it; 16 To wit, the
prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions
of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord GOD.
We have here more plain dealing with the false prophets, and some further
articles of their doom. We have seen the people made ashamed of the false
prophets (though sometimes they had been fond of them) and casting them away,
as they shall do their false gods, with indignation; now here we find them as
much ashamed of their false prophecies, which they had sometimes depended upon
with much assurance. Observe,
I. How the people are deceived by the false prophets. Those flatterers seduce
them, saying, Peace, and there was no peace, v. 10. They
pretended to have seen visions of peace, v. 16. But that could
not be, for there was no peace, saith the Lord God. There was no
prosperity designed for them, and therefore there could be no ground for their
security; yet they told them that God was at peace with them, and had mercy in
reserve for them, and that the war they were engaged in with the Chaldeans
should soon end in an honourable peace, and their land should enjoy a happy
repose and tranquillity. They told the idolaters and other sinners that there
was neither harm nor danger in the way they were in. Thus they seduced
God's people; they put a cheat upon them, led them into mistakes, and drew
them aside out of that way of repentance and reformation which the other
prophets were endeavouring to bring them into. Note, Those are the most
dangerous seducers who suggest to sinners that which tends to lessen their
dread of sin and their fear of God. Now this is compared to the building of a
slight rotten wall, or, according to our Saviour's similitude, which is to the
same purport with this (Matt. vii. 26), the building of a house upon the
sand, which seems to be a shelter and protection for a while, but will
fall when a storm comes. One false prophet built the wall, set up the notion
that God was not at all displeased with Jerusalem, but that the city should be
confirmed in its flourishing state, and be victorious over the powers that now
threatened it. This notion was very pleasing, and he that started it made
himself very acceptable by it and was caressed by every body, which invited
others to say the same. They made the matter look yet more plausible and
promising; they daubed the wall, which the first had built, but it was
with untempered mortar, sorry stuff, that will not bind nor hold the
bricks together; they had no ground for what they said, nor had it any
consistency with itself, but was like ropes of sand. They did not strengthen
the wall, were in no care to make it firm, to see that they went upon sure
grounds; they only daubed it to hide the cracks and make it look well to the
eye. And the wall thus built, when it comes to any stress, much more to any
distress, will bulge and totter, and come down by degrees. Note, Doctrines
that are groundless, though ever so grateful, that are not built upon a
scripture foundation nor fastened with a scripture cement, though ever so
plausible, ever so pleasing, are not of any worth, nor will stand men in any
stead; and those hopes of peace and happiness which are not warranted by the
word of God will but cheat men, like a wall that is well daubed indeed, but
ill-built.
II. How they will be soon undeceived by the judgment of God, which, we are
sure, is according to truth. 1. God will in anger bring a terrible storm that
shall beat fiercely and furiously upon the wall. The descent which the
Chaldean army shall make upon Judah, and the siege which they shall lay to
Jerusalem, will be as an overflowing shower, or inundation (such as
Solomon calls a sweeping rain that leaves no food, Prov. xxviii. 3),
will bear down all before it, as the deluge did in Noah's time: You, O
great hailstones! shall fall, the artillery of heaven, every hailstone
like a cannon-ball, battering this wall, and with these a stormy wind,
which is sometimes so strong as to rend the rocks (1 Kings xix. 11),
much more an ill-built wall, v. 11. But that which makes this rain,
and hail, and wind, most terrible is that they arise from the
wrath of God, and are enforced by that; it is that which sends them; it is
that which gives them the setting on (v. 13); it is a stormy wind in
my fury, and an overflowing shower in my anger, and great
hailstones in my fury. The fury of Nebuchadnezzar and his princes, who
highly resented Zedekiah's treachery, made the invasion very formidable, but
that was nothing in comparison with God's displeasure. The staff in their
hand is my indignation, Isa. x. 5. Note, An angry God has winds and storms
at command wherewith to alarm secure sinners; and his wrath makes them
frightful and forcible indeed; for who can stand before him when he is
angry? 2. This storm shall overturn the wall: it shall fall, and
the wind shall rend it (v. 11), the hailstones shall consume
it (v. 13); I will break it down (v. 14) and bring
it to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered;
it will appear how false, how rotten it was, to the prophetical reproach of
the builders. When the Chaldean army has made Judah and Jerusalem desolate
then this credit of the prophets, and the hopes of the people, will both sink
together; the former will be found false in flattering the people and the
latter foolish in suffering themselves to be imposed upon by them, and so
exposed to so much the greater confusion, when the judgment shall surprise
them in their security. Note, Whatever men think to shelter themselves with
against the judgments of God, while they continue unreformed, will prove but a
refuge of lies and will not profit them in the day of wrath. See
Isa. xxviii. 17. Men's anger cannot shake that which God has built (for the
blast of the terrible ones is but as a storm against the wall, which makes
a great noise, but never stirs the wall; see Isa. xxv. 4), but God's anger
will overthrow that which men have built in opposition to him. They and all
their attempts, they and all the securities wherein they intrench themselves,
shall be as a bowing wall and as a tottering fence (Ps. lxii. 3, 10);
and when their vain predictions are disproved, and their vain expectations
disappointed, then it will be discovered that there was no ground for either,
Hab. iii. 13. The day will declare what every man's work is, and the
fire will try it, 1 Cor. iii. 13. 3. The builders of the wall, and those
that daubed it, will themselves be buried in the ruins of it: It shall
fall, and you shall be consumed in the midst thereof, v. 14.
And thus the threatenings of God's wrath, and all the just intentions of it,
shall be accomplished to the uttermost, both upon the wall and upon
those that have daubed it, v. 15. The same judgments that will
prove the false prophets to be false will punish them for their falsehood; and
they themselves shall be involved in the calamity which they made the people
believe there was no danger of, and become monuments of that justice which
they bade defiance to. Thus, if the blind lead the blind, both the
blind leaders and the blind followers will fall together into the ditch.
Note, Those that deceive others will in the end prove to have deceived
themselves; and no doom will be more fearful than that of unfaithful
ministers, that flattered sinners in their sins. 4. Both the deceivers and the
deceived, when they thus perish together, will justly be ridiculed and
triumphed over (v. 12): When the wall has fallen shall it not be
said unto you, by those that gave credit to the true prophets, and feared
the word of the Lord, "Now where is the daubing wherewith you have
daubed the wall? What has become of all the fine soft words and fair
promises wherewith you flattered your wicked neighbours, and all the
assurances you gave them that the troubles of the nation should soon be at an
end?" The righteous shall laugh at them, the righteous God shall,
righteous men shall, saying, Lo, this is the man that made not God his
strength, Ps. lii. 6, 7. I also will laugh at your calamity, Prov.
i. 26. They will say unto you (v. 15), "The wall is no more,
neither he that daubed it; your hopes have vanished, and those that
supported them, even the prophets of Israel," v. 16. Note,
Those that usurp the honours that do not belong to them will shortly be filled
with the shame that does.
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The
Guilt of the False Prophetesses.
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B.
C. 593.
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17 Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face
against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart;
and prophesy thou against them, 18 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs
upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my
people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?
19 And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for
pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls
alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your
lies? 20 Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD;
Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to
make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the
souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.
21 Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand,
and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am
the LORD.
22 Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have
not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not
return from his wicked way, by promising him life: 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.
As God has promised that when he pours out his Spirit upon his people both their
sons and their daughters shall prophesy, so the devil, when he acts as a
spirit of lies and falsehood, is so in the mouth not only of false prophets,
but of false prophetesses too, and those are the deceivers whom the prophet is
here directed to prophesy against; for they are not such despicable enemies to
God's truths as deserve not to be taken notice of, nor yet will either the
weakness of their sex excuse their sin or the tenderness and respect that are
owing to it exempt them from the reproaches and threatenings of the word of
God. No: Son of man, set they face against the daughters of thy people,
v. 17. God takes no pleasure in owning them for his people. They are thy
people, as Exod. xxxii. 7. The women pretend to a spirit of prophecy, and
are in the same song with the men, as Ahab's prophets were: Go on, and
prosper. They prophesy out of their own heart too; they say what
comes uppermost and what they know nothing of. Therefore prophesy against
them from God's own mouth. The prophet must set his face against them,
and try if they can look him in the face and stand to what they say. Note,
When sinners grow very impudent it is time for reprovers to be very bold. Now
observe,
I. How the sin of these false prophetesses is described, and what are the
particulars of it. 1. They told deliberate lies to those who consulted them,
and came to them to be advised, and to be told their fortune: "You do
mischief by your lying to my people that hear your lies (v. 19);
they come to be told the truth, but you tell them lies; and, because you
humour them in their sins, they are willing to hear you." Note, It is ill
with those people who can better hear pleasing lies than unpleasing truths;
and it is a temptation to those who lie in wait to deceive to tell lies when
they find people willing to hear them and to excuse themselves with this, Si
populus vult decipi, decipiatur--If the people will be deceived, let them.
2. They profaned the name of God by pretending to have received those lies
from him (v. 19): "You pollute my name among my people, and
make use of that for the patronising of your lies and the gaining of credit to
them." Note, Those greatly pollute God's holy name that make use of it to
give countenance to falsehood and wickedness. Yet this they did for
handfuls of barley and pieces of bread. They did it for gain; they cared
not what dishonour they did to God's name by their lying, so they could but
make a hand of it for themselves. There is nothing so sacred which men of
mercenary spirits, in whom the love of this world reigns, will not profane and
prostitute, if they can but get money by the bargain. But they did it for poor
gain; if they could get no more for it, rather than break they would sell you
a false prophecy that should please you to a nicety for the beggar's dole, a piece
of bread or a handful of barley; and yet that was more than it was
worth. Had they asked it as an alms, for God's sake, surely they might have
had it, and God would have been honoured; but, taking it as a fee for a false
prophecy, God's name if polluted, and the smallness of the reward heightens
the offence. For a piece of bread that man will transgress, Prov.
xxviii. 21. Had their poverty been their temptation to steal, and so to
take the name of the Lord in vain, it would not have been nearly so bad as
when it tempted them to prophesy lies in his name and so to profane it.
3. They kept people in awe, and terrified them with their pretensions: "You
hunt the souls of my people (v. 18), hunt them to make them flee
(v. 20), hunt them into gardens (so the margin reads it); you
use all the arts you have to court or compel them into those places where you
deliver your pretended predictions, or you have got such an influence upon
them that you make them do just as you would have them to do, and tyrannise
over them." It was indeed the people's fault that they did regard them,
but it was their fault by lies and falsehoods to command that regard; they
pretended to save the souls alive that came to them, v. 18. If
they would but be hearers of them, and contributors to them, they might be
sure of salvation; thus they beguiled unstable souls that had a concern about
salvation as their end but did not rightly understand the way, and therefore
hearkened to those who were most confident in promising it to them. "But
will you pretend to save souls, or secure salvation to your party?" Those
are justly suspected that make such pretensions. 4. They discouraged those
that were honest and good, and encouraged those that were wicked and profane: You
slay the souls that should not die, and save those alive that should not live,
v. 19. This is explained (v. 22): You have made the heart of
the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; because they would not, they
durst not, countenance your pretensions, you thundered out the judgments of
God against them, to their great grief and trouble; you put them under
invidious characters, to make them either despicable or odious to the people,
and pretended to do it in God's name, which made them go many a time with a
sad heart; whereas it was the will of God that they should be comforted, and
by having respect put upon them should have encouragement given them. But on
the other side, and which is still worse, you have strengthened the hands
of the wicked and emboldened them to go on in their wicked ways and
not to return from them, which was the thing the true prophets with
earnestness called them to. "You have promised sinners life in their
sinful ways, have told them that they shall have peace though they go on, by
which their hands have been strengthened and their hearts
hardened." Some think this refers to the severe censures they passed upon
those who had already gone into captivity (who were humbled under their
affliction, by which their hearts were made sad), and the commendations
they gave to those who rebelled against the king of Babylon, who were hardened
in their impieties, by which their hands were strengthened; or by their
polluting the name of God they saddened the hearts of good people who have a
value and veneration for the word of God, and confirmed atheists and infidels
in their contempt of divine revelation and furnished them with arguments
against it. Note, Those have a great deal to answer for who grieve the
spirits, and weaken the hands, of good people, and who gratify the lusts of
sinners, and animate them in their opposition to God and religion. Nor can any
thing strengthen the hands of sinners more than to tell them that they may be
saved in their sins without repentance, or that there may be repentance though
they do not return from their wicked ways. 5. They mimicked the true prophets,
by giving signs for the illustrating of their false predictions (as Hananiah
did, Jer. xxviii. 10), and they were signs agreeable to their sex; they sewed
little pillows to the people's arm-holes, to signify that they might be
easy and repose themselves, and needed not be disquieted with the
apprehensions of trouble approaching. And they made kerchiefs upon the head
of every stature, of persons of every age, young and old, distinguishable
by their stature, v. 18. These kerchiefs were badges of liberty or
triumph, intimating that they should not only be delivered from the Chaldeans,
but be victorious over them. Some think these were some superstitious rites
which they used with those to whom they delivered their divinations, preparing
them for the reception of them by putting enchanted pillows under their arms
and handkerchiefs on their heads, to raise their fancies and their
expectations of something great. Or perhaps the expressions are figurative:
they did all they could to make people secure, which is signified by laying
them easy, and to make people proud, which is signified by dressing them fine
with handkerchiefs, perhaps laid or embroidered on their heads.
II. How the wrath of God against them is expressed. Here is a woe to them (v.
18), and God declares himself against the methods they took to delude and
deceive, v. 20. But what course will God take with them? 1. They shall
be confounded in their attempts, and shall proceed no further; for (v.
23) you shall see no more vanity nor divine revelations; not that they
shall themselves lay down their pretensions in a way of repentance, but when
the event gives them the lie they shall be silent for shame; or their fancies
and imaginations shall not be disposed to receive impressions which assist
them in their divinations as they have been; or they themselves shall be cut
off. 2. God's people shall be delivered out of their hands. When they see
themselves deluded by them into a false peace and a fool's paradise, and that
though they would not leave their sin their sin has left them, and they see
no more vanity nor divine divinations, they shall turn their back upon
them, shall slight their predictions. The righteous shall be no more saddened
by them, no, nor the wicked strengthened: The pillows shall be torn from
their arms, and the kerchiefs from their heads; the fallacies shall
be discovered, their frauds detected, and the people of God shall no more be
in their hand, to be hunted as they had been. Note, It is a great mercy to be
delivered from a servile regard to, and fear of, those who, under colour of a
divine authority, impose upon and tyrannise over the consciences of men, and
say to their souls, Bow down, that we may go over. But it is a sore
grief to those who delight in such usurpations to have their power broken and
the prey delivered; such was the reformation to the church of Rome. And, when
God does this, he makes it to appear that he is the Lord, that it is his
prerogative to give law to souls.
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