False Prophets Condemned

131 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 Son of man, be a prophet against the prophets of Israel, and say to those prophets whose words are the invention of their hearts, Give ear to the word of the Lord; 3 This is what the Lord has said: A curse on the foolish prophets who go after the spirit which is in them and have seen nothing! 4 O Israel, your prophets have been like jackals in the waste places. 5 You have not gone up into the broken places or made up the wall for the children of Israel to take your place in the fight in the day of the Lord. 6 They have seen visions without substance and made use of secret arts, who say, The Lord has said; and the Lord has not sent them: hoping that the word would have effect. 7 Have you not seen a vision without substance and have you not falsely made use of secret arts, when you say, The Lord has said; though I have said nothing? 8 So this is what the Lord has said: Because your words are without substance and your visions are false, see, I am against you, says the Lord. 9 And my hand will be against the prophets who see visions without substance and who make false use of secret arts: they will not be in the secret of my people, and they will not be recorded in the list of the children of Israel, and they will not come into the land of Israel; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

10 Because, even because they have been guiding my people into error, saying, Peace; when there is no peace; and in the building of a division wall they put whitewash on it:

Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 13:1-10

Commentary on Ezekiel 13:1-9

(Read Ezekiel 13:1-9)

Where God gives a warrant to do any thing, he gives wisdom. What they delivered was not what they had seen or heard, as that is which the ministers of Christ deliver. They were not praying prophets, had no intercourse with Heaven; they contrived how to please people, not how to do them good; they stood not against sin. They flattered people into vain hopes. Such widen the breach, by causing men to think themselves deserving of eternal life, when the wrath of God abides upon them.

Commentary on Ezekiel 13:10-16

(Read Ezekiel 13:10-16)

One false prophet built the wall, set up the notion that Jerusalem should be victorious, and made himself acceptable by it. Others made the matter yet more plausible and promising; they daubed the wall which the first had built; but they would, ere long, be undeceived when their work was beaten down by the storm of God's just wrath; when the Chaldean army desolated the land. Hopes of peace and happiness, not warranted by the word of God, will cheat men; like a wall well daubed, but ill built.