Jeremiah 23:16 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 23:16
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֣הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
hosts
צְבָא֗וֹתtze.va.'ot
H6635
a mass of persons (or figuratively · noun, common feminine plural absolute
Hearken
תִּשְׁמְע֞וּtish.me.'U
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine plural
words
דִּבְרֵ֤יdiv.Rei
H1697
a word · noun, common masculine plural construct
prophets
הַנְּבִאִים֙ha.ne.vi.'Im
H5030
a prophet or (generally) inspired man · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
prophesy
הַנִּבְּאִ֣יםha.ni.be.'Im
H5012
to prophesy · definite article + verb, niphal active participle, masculine plural absolute
vain
מַהְבִּלִ֥יםmah.bi.Lim
H1891
to be vain in act · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine plural absolute
speak
יְדַבֵּ֔רוּye.da.Be.ru
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
vision
חֲז֤וֹןcha.Zon
H2377
a sight (mentally) · noun, common masculine singular construct
heart
לִבָּם֙li.Bam
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
mouth
מִפִּ֥יmi.Pi
H6310
the mouth (as the means of blowing) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them:…
Ezekiel 13:6 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…
Jeremiah 27:9-10 Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which…
Ezekiel 13:3 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
Galatians 1:8-9 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
2 Kings 17:15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and t…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 23:9-32
Here is a long lesson for the false prophets. As none were more bitter and spiteful against God's true prophets than they, so there were none on whom the true prophets were more severe, and justly. The prophet had complained to God of those false prophets (Jer 14:13), and had often foretold that they should be involved in the common ruin; but here they have woes of their own.
I. He expresses the deep concern that he was under upon this account, and what a trouble it was to him to see men who pretended to a divine commission and inspiration ruining themselves, and the people among whom they dwelt, by their falsehood and treachery (Jer 23:9): My heart within me is broken; I am like a drunken m…
make you vain--They seduce you to vanity, that is, idolatry, which will prove a vain trust to you (Jer 2:5; Kg2 17:15; Jon 2:8), [GESENIUS]. Rather, "they delude you with vain promises of security" (Jer 23:17; compare Psa 62:10) [MAURER].
of their own heart--of their own invention (Jer 23:21; Jer 14:14).
John Gill on Jeremiah 23:16
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you,.... Do not hear them; stop your ears at what they say; give no credit to them. The Targum is,
"do not receive the words of the false prophets that prophesy unto you:''
they make you vain; they filled their heads with vain and empty things, and their hearts with vain hopes, which deceived them; so the Targum,
"they deceive you;''
they taught them vain things, and made them vain and sinful in their lives and conversations; and therefore were not to be hearkened to:
they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord; what they imagined they saw was a device of their ow…
Jeremiah 23:16
16. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
16. Sic dicit Jehovah exercituum, Ne audiatis verba prophetarum, qui prophetant vobis; evanescere faciunt ipsi vobis, visionem cordis sui loquuntur, non ex ore Jehovae.
What is here said must have appeared very severe, and must have grievously offended the people; for Jeremiah forbade them to hear the teaching of the prophets. He indeed concedes to them the name of prophets, which was a sacred name; but yet he discredits them, and deprives them of all dignity. he speaks not of m…
The Church Fathers
Against such people as these the Lord cries out, from these he reins in and recalls his erring people, saying, "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who reject the words of the Lord, 'Peace shall be yours' and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, 'No evil shall come on you.' "
The Lord cries out and says, "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to them that reject the words of the Lord, "Peace shall be yours." They who themselves have neither peace nor the church are now offering peace; they who have withdrawn from the church are permitting the bringing back and recalling of the lapsed. God is one, and Christ, one, and the church, one, and the chair established on Peter by the voice of the Lord, one. Another altar cannot be set up or a new priesthood be made contrary to the one altar and the one priesthood.
God gives the promise, "I will deliver them from the hand of the grave, and from death I will redeem them." So the blessed prophets are in harmony with the decrees from on high. They speak to us not of their own heart or of the will of people but from the mouth of God, as it is written. It is the Holy Spirit speaking within them that declares in every matter what is the sentence of God and his almighty and unalterable will. The prophet Isaiah has said to us, "Your dead shall arise. Those in the graves shall be raised. They who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew from you is healing to them." And by the dew I imagine he means the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and that influence that abolishes death as being that of God and of life.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Doctrines, False · Should be avoided by: All men — Should be avoided by: All men
Prophets, False · Prophesied: Out of their own heart — Prophesied: Out of their own heart
Vision · 89:19; — 89:19;
Visions · False prophets pretended to have seen — False prophets pretended to have seen
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Against the False Prophets. - Next to the kings, the pseudo-prophets, who flattered the people's carnal longings, have done most to contribute to the fall of the realm. Therefore Jeremiah passes directly from his discourse against the wicked kings to rebuking the false prophets; and if we may presume from the main substance, the latter discourse belongs to the same time as the former. It begins
Jer 23:9-11
With a description of the pernicious practices of these persons. - Jer 23:9. "Concerning the prophets. Broken is mine heart within me; all my bones totter. I am become like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of Jahveh and because of His holy words. Jer 23:10. Fo…
The Lord appealed to the people to reject these prophets and listen instead to his word.
23:16 The false prophets gave the people futile hopes; they had not been commissioned to speak for the Lord, and their ideas came from their own imaginations.
Rashi on Jeremiah 23:14
And in the prophets of Jerusalem I now see. a horrible thing a shameful thing.
and they encouraged evil doers They say to the wicked, “You shall have peace.”
that none returns So that the evildoers would not return each one from his evil.
