“These prophets of falsehood were likened to foxes in waste places, preying on the desolation around them and under-mining foundations and causing havoc everywhere.

The idea is of animals that burrow among the ruins, helping nothing, adding nothing, and delighting in the destruction. Your prophets are like foxes in the deserts: This probably means jackals more than foxes and ruins more than deserts. Their message followed their own spirit, not God’s Holy Spirit.Ĭ. Who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing: Their message was not based on a true relationship with God. “These prophets, whether in good faith but self-deluded or in bad faith and deliberately deceiving, have professed to speak the mind of the Lord when in reality no spirit other than their own moved them.” (Vawter and Hoppe)ī. It was a broad term that encompassed spiritual and moral insensitivity contrary to the nature of a wise man.” (Alexander) “The word ‘foolish’ ( nabal) implied more than our concept of stupidity. One reason they were foolish was because they regarded what came from their own heart and their own spirit to be more important than what God has said. Woe to the foolish prophets: These self-proclaimed prophets were not only false they were also foolish. Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you not spoken false divination? You say, ‘The LORD says,’ but I have not spoken.”Ī.

They have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD!’ But the LORD has not sent them yet they hope that the word may be confirmed. You have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD: “Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! O Israel, your prophets are like foxes in the deserts. They needed to stop listening to the message of their own heart and start paying close attention to the word of the LORD. Hear the word of the LORD: This was the fundamental message these false prophets needed to hear. The wish was father to the thought, and they spoke accordingly.” (Feinberg)Ĭ. “They were misled by their own desires, which is the scriptural method of asserting they were not inspired of God. Their own desires, their own hopes, their own wisdom, their own need for acceptance prompted their words. There was simply a large element of their own heart in what they said. Who prophesy out of their own heart: The source of their false prophecy wasn’t necessarily directly demonic. The sense is that they were always blabbing on and on with their pretended words from God.ī.

Block sees the phrase the prophets of Israel who prophesy as a deliberate repetition, meant to be sarcastic. These false prophets of Israel mostly had an optimistic, positive message: God will deliver Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonians, and those already in exile will come home soon. Prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy: Among the Jewish people of Ezekiel’s time there were many false prophets, both in Israel and in the Babylonian exile. (1-2) The command to speak against the false prophets.Īnd the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the LORD!’”Ī. Ezekiel 13 – Against False and Foolish Prophets A.

False prophets bible verse esv