Jeremiah 23:30

Therefore, behold, I [am] against the prophets, saith the Lord,.... The false prophets, with whom the Lord was displeased; he set himself against them, and was determined to bring wrath and ruin on them.

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.

There are various opinions as to what the prophet meaneth here by those prophets that stole the Lord’ s words from their neighbours. Some, by their neighbour, understanding the true prophets, from whom they stole those forms of speech, Thus saith the Lord, or, The word of the Lord, or, The burden of the Lord. Or some of the matter which they prophesied, though they mixed it with their own lies and deceits. Others by neighbours understanding their associates, think that these false prophets conspired together what to say to deceive the people, and so stole what they said one from another: or, the generality of the people, from whom they are said to steal the Lord’ s word because they withheld it from them injuriously; or by their arts and flatteries brought men out of love with or fear of the words of the Lord, which had by the true prophets been delivered to them.

Jeremiah 23:30 Therefore, behold, I [am] against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.Ver. 30. Behold, I am against those prophets.] Heb., Behold, I against, by an angry aposiopesis. That steal my word every one from his neighbour.] That filch it, either by hiding it from others, as the Popish doctors do from the common people, or by wresting it to the defence of their false doctrines, as Marcion the heretic, whom, therefore, Tertullian fitly calleth Murem Ponticum, the rat of Pontus, for his gnawing and tawing of the Scriptures, to bring them to his purpose. Or, by a fraudulent imitating of God’ s true prophets, taking up their parables, and making use of their expressions, such as are, Thus saith the Lord; Grace be to you and peace, &c. Wasps also have their combs as well as bees; and apes will be doing as they see men to do. Or, lastly, by causing the people to forget and lose the good that they had once learned of the true prophets. This we see daily done by the cunning fetches and flatteries of the seducers of our times, causing many to lose the things that they had wrought. A rhetorical artifice, in which the speaker comes to a sudden halt, as if unable or unwilling to proceed.

(30) That steal my words . . .—Another note of the counterfeit prophet is found in the want of any living personal originality. The oracles of the dreamers were patchworks of plagiarism, and they borrowed, not as men might do legitimately, and as Jeremiah himself did, from the words of the great teachers of the past, but from men of their own time, false and unreal as themselves. What we should call the “clique” of false prophets went on repeating each other’s phrases with a wearisome iteration. In “my words” we have, probably, the fact that, in part also, they decked out their teaching with the borrowed plumes of phrases from true prophets.

Verse 30. I am against the prophets] Three cases are mentioned here which excited God's disapprobation: 1. The prophets who stole the word from their neighbour; who associated with the true prophets, got some intelligence from them, and then went and published it as a revelation which themselves had received, Jeremiah 23:30. 2. The prophets who used their tongues; הלקחים לשונם hallokechim leshonam, who lick or smooth with their tongues - gave their own counsels as Divine revelations, flattering them in their sins, and promising peace, when God had not spoken; and prefaced them, "Thus saith the Lord," Jeremiah 23:31. 3. The prophets who made up false stories, which they termed prophecies, revealed to them in dreams; and thus caused the people to err, Jeremiah 23:32.

Jeremiah 23:9-40. Condemnation of the prophets Following on the prophecies relating to successive kings of Judah, we have a section dealing with the iniquities of a class who also grievously misled the nation. The passage doubtless contains much that is genuine, but, from the diffuseness of style, especially in the latter part, it may be safely inferred that additional matter has been inserted. Commentators, however, are by no means agreed as to the amount of the latter. Du. omits all after Jeremiah 23:15, Co. nearly all after Jeremiah 23:24, Gi. Jeremiah 23:30-40, while the last-named also rejects Jeremiah 23:18-21. Jeremiah 23:9-17 and again 23–29 are in Ḳ ?inah rhythm. Elsewhere metre is for the most part irregular or absent. The collection of utterances, so far as genuine, may have probably belonged to the last part of Zedekiah’s reign. The section may be thus subdivided. (i) Jeremiah 23:9-15. Jeremiah is undone and nerveless because of the Lord’s message to a land whose profligacy has brought on it a curse. The Temple itself is polluted by the iniquities of prophets and priests. They shall be as men driven in the dark along slippery ways till they fall. The prophets of Samaria led the people astray by alleged prophecies of their false deity, while the prophets of Jerusalem shock Jehovah still more by immorality, lying, and the encouragement of others in permanent evil-doing. They have reached the infamy of the cities of the plain. They have infected all the land; therefore shall wormwood and gall be their food. (ii) Jeremiah 23:16-18. It is from the prophets’ own imaginations and not from Jehovah that their pleasing promises of immunity from evil come. Who is there who has visited His heavenly abode, there to learn His purposes? (iii) Jeremiah 23:19-20. Jehovah’s wrath shall break, like a storm, on the head of the wicked, and shall not be recalled till His purpose is fully achieved. (iv) Jeremiah 23:21-24. Those prophets were not commissioned nor inspired by the Lord; else they would have delivered His rebuke of the people’s sins. He is omnipresent. They cannot escape His observation. (v) Jeremiah 23:25-29. How long shall they adduce dreams, dreams forsooth, in support of their lying predictions, making the real character of Jehovah to be forgotten by the people, even as their fathers thought of Him as though He were no better than one of the Baals? Let the dream be told, and let Jehovah’s message be told as well; but let the utterances which embody the two be sharply distinguished, as stubble from wheat. Jehovah’s word is as fire, and as a hammer which breaketh the rocks. (vi) Jeremiah 23:30-32. He is against the prophets who steal their announcements from the true prophets, and with ready tongue claim that they are from Him, who lead His people astray with delusive dreams and claims to Divine authority. They have not His commission, and so are without value. (vii) Jeremiah 23:33-40.

Jeremiah gives in succession the main characteristics of the teaching of the false prophets. The first is that they steal God’s words from one another. Having no message from God, they try to imitate the true prophets.

30-32. Some of the leading characteristics of false prophets are here grouped together.