Scripture Daily

Context No. 701 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 23:30-40: in context

30“Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who each steal my words from his neighbor. 31Behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who use their tongues, and say, ‘He says.’ 32Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams,” says the LORD, “who tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting; yet I didn’t send them or command them. They don’t profit this people at all,” says the LORD. 33“When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, asks you, saying, ‘What is the message from the LORD?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘“What message? I will cast you off,” says the LORD.’ 34As for the prophet, the priest, and the people, who say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ I will even punish that man and his household. 35You will say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ and, ‘What has the LORD said?’ 36You will mention the message from the LORD no more, for every man’s own word has become his message; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of Armies, our God. 37You will say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 38Although you say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ therefore the LORD says: ‘Because you say this word, “The message from the LORD,” and I have sent to you, telling you not to say, “The message from the LORD,” 39therefore behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off with the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence. 40I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which will not be forgotten.’”

Jeremiah spent his life among prophets who told the people what they wanted to hear, and here God turns on them. I am against the prophets, he says, three times over. Against the ones who steal my words from each other, passing off borrowed lines as revelation. Against the ones who wag their own tongues and stamp them, he declares. Against the ones who peddle their own dreams and lead my people astray, whom I never sent. Their trade is counterfeit authority: their own thoughts, sold under God's name.

Then Jeremiah plays on a single word. The Hebrew for oracle of the LORD also means burden, and the false prophets love the phrase, always announcing the burden of the LORD. So God tells him how to answer when someone asks for it. You are the burden, he says, and I will cast you off. They keep invoking the formula after being told to stop, because, as the passage puts it, every man's own word has become his message, and in the process they have twisted the words of the living God. The judgment is fitting and final: the name they used as a stamp will be taken from them, and they will be remembered only with shame.

The false prophets made their own words carry God's name. Where do I stamp what I already wanted with God's authority, and call my own message his?

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