Ezekielchapter 13
23 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel spoke this among exiles who had several prophets to choose from, and most of the others promised a quick return home. He was a priest by birth, trained to tell the holy from the common, and here he applies that training to speech. The chapter sets out how to tell a word God has given from a word a person has made up. It is addressed first to men and then to women who sold comfort for a living. Listen for the builder's picture that carries the first half and the hunter's picture that carries the second. Both ask a hearer what the message they like is resting on.
Context
- Who
- Exiles trying to decide which of several prophets to believe
- What
- Two oracles against the prophets and prophetesses who spoke messages of peace that God had not given.
- Where
- Tel Abib by the Chebar canal in Babylonia, among exiles who had their own prophets and diviners.
- When
- About 592 to 591 BC, in the years before Jerusalem fell, while rival voices promised a quick end to the exile.
- Why
- To show the exiles how to tell a true word from a false one, and to name the harm false comfort does.
Historical context
Whitewash is a building term with teeth. Mud-brick walls were coated with lime plaster to seal and smarten them. A good plaster coat over shoddy brick and bad mortar looks perfect until the first heavy rain, and then the wall comes down all at once. Ezekiel says the prophets are the plasterers, and God is sending the rain, the hailstones and the wind.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The other image is a wall breach and a hedge. When a wall was broken, someone had to go up into the gap and rebuild it. These prophets never did. They neither repaired the breach nor stood in it, the two things a watchman's colleagues were for.
The women in the second half are practising something more specific than bad preaching. They sew bands for people's wrists and make veils for heads of every size, and they hunt souls with them. Mesopotamian magic worked exactly this way: knotted cords, bindings and amulets used to bind or release a person, backed by incantations, and the ritual texts describing them fill tablets. The payment named, handfuls of barley and scraps of bread, tells you the clientele was poor and the trade was steady.
The charge against both groups is the same one: they say the LORD declares, and the LORD has not spoken. In Israel that was not a professional failing. It was a capital offence under the Law, because a nation that cannot tell a real word from a manufactured one cannot be led at all.
Significance
The exiles were hearing two messages: Ezekiel's, which said the city would fall, and a popular one that said peace. This chapter tells them how to tell the difference, not by which is more comforting, but by whether the wall behind the plaster is sound.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It also names the harm done. These prophets disheartened the righteous, whom God had not disheartened, and strengthened the hands of the wicked so they would not turn from their way. False comfort is not neutral; it keeps people walking toward the cliff.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings ties no weekly portion and no Haftarah to this chapter. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Ezekiel 13, and no festival reading for the book. The table holds the Haftarah of each weekly portion and the six books read whole on a feast or a fast. Across chapters 1 to 24 of Ezekiel the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 20 and 22.
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The false prophets are "Like foxes in ruins". When a man comes to a breach, "the fox flees through another breach, and it does not stand in the breach to fight" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:4:1). They did not go up into the breaches: "You did not do good deeds so that you could prevent the evil from coming" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:5:1).
The wall and its whitewash are the people and their prophets. The people build a partition and the prophets plaster it with a daub "which does not resist the rains" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:10:1). When the calamity comes, they will be asked, "Where is the peace that you promised?" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:12:1). The wall "is Jerusalem" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:14:1).
The women who sew bands are diviners. "They would sew something like small cushions and hang them on the armpits of those consulting them" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:18:1). The handfuls of barley Rashi reads two ways, as double handfuls or as a measure (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:19:1). They break the heart of the righteous "When you divine unfavorably for him" (Rashi on Ezekiel 13:22:1).
The corpus carries 12 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Radak's notes stand at 13:1:1, 13:2:1, 13:7:1, 13:8:1, 13:9:1, 13:13:1, 13:15:1, 13:16:1, 13:17:1, 13:21:1 and 13:23:1. Metzudat David's note stands at 13:2:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 17 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 6 filed under the Talmud and 11 under the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 3 it holds Ruth Rabbah, Petichta 5. On verse 4 it holds Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 1:5:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4:1. On verse 6 it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33:14. On verse 9 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Ketubot 13:22, Ein Yaakov, Ketubbot 13:18, Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 2:5:5, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 1:2:14 and Ketubot 112a:16. On verse 10 it holds Jerusalem Talmud Sheviit 3:6:3 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 4:1.
On verse 11 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 2:14:1 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 21:16:1. On verse 18 it holds Ein Yaakov, Eiruvin 6:9 and Tractate Kallah Rabbati 6:7. On verse 19 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:5 and Eruvin 64b:20.
The corpus also files one entry from a modern study, Introductions to Amoraic Literature, on verse 10. It is left out of the list above because it is not a saying of the rabbis.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 13:4:1 to 13:22:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 13:1:1 to 13:23:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 13:2:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/13.json, the 17 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 13: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Foolish prophets who follow their own spirit
Ezekiel 13:1-3
Then the word of the LORD came to me: The word turns to their prophets, “those who prophesy out of their own imagination” while claiming to speak for the Lord. The woe is aimed at “the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, yet have seen nothing.” They invented the source itself, calling it the word of the LORD.
Ezekiel 13:1
“And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Giving orders to prophesy against the false prophets and prophetesses, which were either in the land of Israel, of whom the prophet had notice; or rather who were among the captives in Babylon, where Ezekiel now was.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 13:1
“The identity of phrases and ideas of this chapter with Jer. 23 leads to the conclusion that Ezekiel took up a well-known prophecy to enforce and apply it to his companions in exile. They probably had read Jeremiah’s words as referring to others than themselves.”
out of their own imagination: The prophets of Israel speak from their own imagination, the charge Jeremiah 23:16 had already laid against the prophets of Jerusalem. Barnes holds that the exiles heard it as a word for others. The LORD now sends it to them.
Ezekiel 13:2
“That prophesy out of their own hearts - Who are neither inspired nor sent by Me. They are prophets out of their own hearts. They have their mission from their own assumption, and proceed in it from their own presumption. Such either go of themselves, or are sent by man. Such prophets, ministers, preachers, and clergy have been a curse to the Church and to the world for some thousands of years.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Woe to the foolish prophets: The Hebrew pairs nebiim, prophets, with nebalim, foolish ones. These prophets follow their own spirit, yet they speak as men who see visions. Calvin says they promised the captives a speedy return home.
Ezekiel 13:3
“But the end which they proposed to themselves was to promise the people a speedy return, and so to will the favor of the multitude. For the captives were already almost broken-hearted by weariness: and seventy years was a long period.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:3
“A refutation of those who set the inward word above the objective, and represent the Bible as flowing subjectively from the inner light of its writers, not from the revelation of the Holy Ghost from without. "They are impatient to get possession of the kernel without its fostering shell--they would have Christ without the Bible" [BENGEL].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 13:4-5
like foxes among the ruins: “Your prophets, O Israel, are like foxes among the ruins,” animals that burrow in rubble rather than build. A watchman stands in the breach. The rebuke is for cowardice as much as falsehood.
Ezekiel 13:4
“The prophets of Israel are like foxes, committing thefts of domestic birds every day: those who live, according to Aquila and the Septuagint, in the deserts; according to Symmachus and Theodotion, in walls and ruins: who cannot advance opposite, nor oppose a wall for the house of Israel. We read that Aaron stood in the middle against the fire devouring the people of Israel, and opposed a wall for the salvation of the people. It is also said of Jeremiah, 'Do not confront the Lord, nor stand against His wrath with persevering prayer.'”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:4
“Thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts - The cunning of the fox in obtaining his prey has been long proverbial. These false prophets are represented as the foxes who, having got their prey by great subtlety, run to the desert to hide both themselves and it. So the false prophets, when the event did not answer to their prediction, got out of the way, that they might not be overwhelmed with the reproaches and indignation of the people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
go up to the gaps: Barnes notes that in a siege the leaders go up to defend the breaches in the wall. Here the LORD Himself is the attacker, and a true prophet would have called the people to repentance. Moses stood in the breach this way at Psalm 106:23.
Ezekiel 13:5
“Ye have not gone up into the gaps,.... Or "breaches" (d); so the Targum. The allusion is to breaches made in the walls of a city when besieged; at which time those within gather together in great numbers to meet the enemy, and prevent his entrance by the breaches.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 13:5
“For - Or, before. In a time of siege when there are gaps or breaches in the walls, it is the part of the leaders to go up to defend them, and to throw up works to stop the in-road of the enemy. Yahweh is now assailing His people as an enemy (compare Isa 63:10; Job 16:11-13), and where are those who claim to be prophets, leaders of the people?”
Ezekiel 13:5
“Whom does he mean by all those who have come before me? Those who say, "Thus says the Lord!" But the Lord has not sent them; they who have come on their own authority and have not been sent are the thieves and robbers.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Homily 87 (on John 1:1-14)patristic
Ezekiel 13:6-7
They see false visions and speak lying divinations: “They claim, ‘Thus declares the LORD,’ when the LORD did not send them; yet they wait for the fulfillment of their message.” The lie raises a hope that must fail. Verse 7 asks, “Haven’t you seen a false vision and spoken a lying divination,” when the LORD has not spoken.
Ezekiel 13:6
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:6
“And they have made others ... - Rather, “and they hope for the confirmation of their word.” They come to believe their own lies.”
even though I have not spoken?: Deuteronomy 18:20-22 gave Israel the test for a prophet who speaks a word the LORD has not commanded. A word that fails to come to pass marks him as false, and the law sentenced him to death. These prophets stood under that law.
Ezekiel 13:7
“Under the guise of prophets, this speech is against heretics, who speak empty words and see falsehood, and they persist in establishing their own doctrine. May the Lord Himself come against them and rise up, and may He stretch out His hand against them to strike, and may He not hold back in sparing them. And He threatens that they will not be among the assembly of the people of the Lord in the future, nor in His Church, but in the synagogue of the devil, nor will they be written in the house of Israel.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 13:8-9
I am against you: Because they “have uttered vain words and seen false visions,” the Lord says, “I am against you.” The sentence fits their office. The prophets who promised the nation safety are cut off from it, “Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.”
recorded in the register: The register of the house of Israel was the roll of the people by family. Ezra 2:62 records priests whose names were not found in it and who were kept from the priesthood. The false prophets will have no place in the land.
Ezekiel 13:9
Because [Judas] was corrupted by the plague of covetousness and had his name struck out from that heavenly list, it is suitably said of him … "They shall not be in the counsel of my people, nor shall they enrolled in the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel."
John Cassian · written before 435 · Conference 17:25patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 13:9
“Assembly - Here “the congregation of the people.” These false prophets were to be struck off from “the writing” or, the rolls, in which the names of all Israelites were registered (compare Psa 87:6; Exo 32:32); and therefore when the restoration Eze 11:17 shall take place these men shall not have part in it.”
Ezekiel 13:9
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 13:9
“Joh 1:47, and those not so. Literally fulfilled (Ezr 2:59, 62; compare Ne 7:5; Ps 69:28). neither . . . enter . . . land--They shall not so much as be allowed to come back at all to their country.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Whitewash on a wall that is going to fall
Ezekiel 13:10-12
whitewashing any flimsy wall that is built: A “flimsy wall” is built, and the prophets follow behind whitewashing it, a smooth coat over a structure that cannot bear weight. The whitewash is the false peace of verse 10, for they have led the people astray, “saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace.”
Ezekiel 13:10
“One built up a wall - A true prophet is as a wall of defense to the people. These false prophets pretend to be a wall of defense; but their wall is bad, and their mortar is worse. One gives a lying vision, another pledges himself that it is true; and the people believe what they say, and trust not in God, nor turn from their sins. The city is about to be besieged; it needs stronger fortifications than what it possesses.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 13:10
“How is the cause helped by the people who dance attendance on these people with itching ears who know neither how to hear nor how to speak? They confound old mire with new cement and, as Ezekiel says, daub a wall with untempered mortar; so that, when the truth comes in a shower, they are brought to nothing.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 133.4patristic
Ezekiel 13:10
“Peace - They told sinners, no harm would happen to them. And those are the most dangerous seducers, who suggest to sinners that which tends to lessen their dread of sin, or their fear of God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Rain will come in torrents: Clarke notes that eastern walls were often built of unbaked brick, which torrents of rain dissolve. Whitewash only hid the weakness. The storm is the judgment of the LORD on Jerusalem, and the whitewashed wall will fall with the prophets who covered it.
Ezekiel 13:11
“There shall be an overflowing shower - That shall wash off this bad mortar; sweep away the ground on which the wall stands, and level it with the earth. In the eastern countries, where the walls are built with unbaked bricks, desolations of this kind are often occasioned by tempestuous rains. Of this sort of materials were the walls of ancient cities made, and hence the reason why no vestige of them remains. Witness Babylon, which was thus built. See the note on Eze 4:1.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gill hears the question on the lips of the deceived people after Jerusalem falls. Their prophets had promised peace and safety, and the ruins would answer them. Mockery would follow the false word.
Ezekiel 13:12
“Lo, when the wall is fallen,.... Jerusalem is taken: shall it not be said unto you; the false prophets, by the people who had been deceived by them: where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? what is become of all your promises of peace, and assurance of safety and prosperity; your smooth words and plausible arguments; your specious pretences, and flattering prophecies? thus would they be insulted by those they had deceived, as well as laughed at by such who disregarded their predictions, and believed the prophets of the Lord.”
Ezekiel 13:13-14
I will release a windstorm: The Lord answers the false coat with real weather. The storm announced in verse 11 comes as the Lord’s own act. “I will tear down the wall you whitewashed and level it to the ground, so that its foundation is exposed,” and the builders are destroyed.
Ezekiel 13:13
“The staff in their hand is my indignation, Isa. x. 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?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
its foundation is exposed: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the wall as the nation's sense of security and its foundation as Jerusalem, whose fortifications the people trusted. The prophets who plastered the wall die in its ruins. Their end is the city's end.
Ezekiel 13:14
“The repetition of the same threat (see on Eze 13:11) is to awaken the people out of their dream of safety by the certainty of the event. foundation--As the "wall" represents the security of the nation, so the "foundation" is Jerusalem, on the fortifications of which they rested their confidence.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 13:15-16
those who whitewashed it: The first half of the oracle ends by naming its target. “those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw a vision of peace for her when there was no peace.” The phrase repeats verse 10 and frames the whole charge, comfort offered where warning was owed.
Ezekiel 13:15
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a vision of peace for her: Jeremiah 6:14 had already accused the prophets of Jerusalem of crying peace when there was no peace. The LORD names the same prophets of Israel here. Henry sees blind leaders and blind followers falling with the wall.
Ezekiel 13:16
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Women who hunt souls with pillows and veils
Ezekiel 13:17-19
set your face against the daughters of your people: The second half turns to women who “sew magic charms on their wrists and make veils,” objects used “to ensnare their souls.” Their lies cut both ways, for they “have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not have lived.”
Ezekiel 13:17
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
sew magic charms on their wrists: The Hebrew words for the charms and the veils occur only in this chapter, and their exact form is uncertain. Wesley reads people of every height as people of every age. The closing question asks whether the women can keep alive the souls they deceive.
Ezekiel 13:18
“That sew pillows to all arm holes - I believe this refers to those cushions which are so copiously provided in the eastern countries for the apartments of women; on which they sit, lean, rest their heads, and prop up their arms. I have several drawings of eastern ladies, who are represented on sofas; and often with their arm thrown over a pillow, which is thereby pressed close to their side, and against which they thus recline.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 13:18
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 13:18
“Stature - That is, of every age, whether younger or elder, which usually is seen by their stature. To hunt - All this is really spreading a net, as hunters do, to catch the prey. Will ye save - Can you preserve them alive, whom you deceive by your promises?”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
You have profaned Me: The women profaned the LORD among His people for handfuls of barley, a beggar's price in Henry's words. Their lies killed souls and spared the wicked. Gregory applied the verse to pastors who judge by favor.
Ezekiel 13:19
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:19
“It often happens that a Pastor is moved by hatred or favor toward any neighbor; but those who follow their own hatreds or favor in the cases of their subjects cannot judge worthily concerning their subjects. Whence it is rightly said through the prophet: They were putting to death souls that do not die, and giving life to souls that do not live. For he puts to death one who is not dying who condemns the just. And he strives to give life to one who will not live who attempts to absolve the guilty from punishment.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 26patristic
Ezekiel 13:20-21
the magic charms with which you ensnare souls like birds: The Lord answers the hunting language with hunting language of his own, undoing the charm and freeing the souls that were taken. Henry reads the reversal as exact, the tools of the trade destroyed rather than merely forbidden, so the practice cannot simply resume with new materials.
Ezekiel 13:20
“The souls that ye hunt to make them fly - לפרחות lephorechoth, into the flower gardens, says Parkhurst. These false prophetesses decoyed men into these gardens, where probably some impure rites of worship were performed, as in that of אשרה Asherah or Venus. See Parkhurst under פרח.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:20
“I am against your pillows--that is, against your lying ceremonial tricks by which ye cheat the people. to make them fly--namely, into their snares, as fowlers disturb birds so as to be suddenly caught in the net spread for them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
tear off your veils: Gill reads the torn veils as the women's tricks exposed before the people. The rescued would stop being their prey in the land. Gill adds that some would flee to Egypt and the rest go captive to Babylon.
Ezekiel 13:21
“Your kerchiefs also will one tear,.... From their heads; discover their tricks, and expose them to the contempt of the people, and destroy both them and their works: and deliver my people out of your hand; from being hunted, ensnared, and deceived by them: and they shall be no more in your land to be hunted; but should either flee into Egypt, and other countries, for shelter, or be carried captive into Babylon: and ye shall know that I am the Lord; see Eze 13:9.”
Ezekiel 13:22-23
you have disheartened the righteous with your lies: The good are grieved and the wicked emboldened. It ends where it began: “you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. I will deliver My people from your hands.”
Ezekiel 13:22
“With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad - Here is the ministry of these false prophetesses, and its effects. They told lies: they would speak, and they had no truth to tell; and therefore spoke falsities. They “saddened the souls of the righteous, and strengthened the hands of the wicked.” They promised them life, and prevented them from repenting and turning from their sins.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:22
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
no longer see false visions: Henry expects the deceived to turn their backs on these women once events prove them false. Divination was forbidden to Israel outright at Deuteronomy 18:10. Its end here comes with the people's rescue.
Ezekiel 13:23
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 13:23
“Ye shall see no more vanity - They pretended visions; but they were empty of reality. Nor divine divinations - As God would not speak to them, they employed demons. Where God is not, because of the iniquity of the people, the devil is, to strengthen and support that iniquity. And if he cannot have his priests, he will have his priestesses; and these will have a Church like themselves, full of lying doctrines, and bad works.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Gregory the Dialogist, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 26; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.