Jeremiah 23:30

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 23:30-32. Behold, I am against the prophets that steal my words, &c. — “That imitate the true prophets, speaking in my name, as they do, and saying, Thus saith the Lord, (see Jeremiah 23:31,) and using their words, but applying them to their own purpose: or, it may be, adding their own inventions to them.” So Lowth. Others paraphrase the verse thus, “That conspire together what to say to deceive the people, and to steal what they say one from another.” Or, perhaps the meaning rather is, That utter, as revelations made to themselves, things which they have learned, and, as it were, stolen from others. That use their tongues, &c. — That take their own tongues, as Blaney renders it, and say, He (the Lord) hath said. “The phrase of taking their own tongue,” he observes: “is, I think, very easily to be understood of those who, without any inspiration, took upon them to deliver messages to the people, and pretended that they came from God.” I am against them that prophesy false dreams — False things, under the notion of revelations made to them in their sleep. And cause my people to err — To wander from the right way; by their lies, and by their lightness — By their groundless assertions, their folly, their rashness and inconsistency with themselves: or, by the flatteries of their preaching, soothing men up in their sins, and by the looseness and lewdness of their conversation encouraging them to persist in them. Yet I sent them not, &c. — They are not my messengers, nor is what they say my message. Therefore they shall not profit this people at all — All the profit they aim at communicating is to make the people easy, but they shall not be able to do even that; for my providences will be such as will fill them with painful apprehensions and distressing fears. Some read the clause, They do not profit this people, considering the words as implying more than they express, namely, that these false prophets not only did the people no good, but did them a great deal of hurt. Observe, reader, none can expect God’s blessing upon their ministry who are not called and sent of God. And those that corrupt the word of God, while they pretend to preach it, are so far from edifying the church, that they do it the greatest mischief imaginable.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:23-32 Men cannot be hidden from God's all-seeing eye. Will they never see what judgments they prepare for themselves? Let them consider what a vast difference there is between these prophecies and those delivered by the true prophets of the Lord. Let them not call their foolish dreams Divine oracles. The promises of peace these prophets make are no more to be compared to God's promises than chaff to wheat. The unhumbled heart of man is like a rock; if not melted by the word of God as a fire, it will be broken to pieces by it as a hammer. How can they be long safe, or at all easy, who have a God of almighty power against them? The word of God is no smooth, lulling, deceitful message. And by its faithfulness it may certainly be distinguished from false doctrines.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

30. steal my words—a twofold plagiarism; one steals from the other, and all steal words from Jehovah's true prophets, but misapply them (see Jer 28:2; Joh 10:1; Re 22:19).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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. So the Targum,

"therefore, behold, I send my fury against the false prophets;''

that steal my word, or "words" (q),

everyone from his neighbour; either from the true prophets; beginning their prophecies as they did, with a "thus saith the Lord"; and mingling some words and phrases used by them, the better to ingratiate themselves among the people, and that they might be taken for the prophets of the Lord; as Pelagius, Austin says, used the word "grace", the better to hide his sentiments, and cause them the more easily to be received by the people: or from the false prophets; they privately meeting, and consulting, and agreeing together what they should say to the people, as if they were the words of the Lord: or else from the people themselves; lessening their esteem for the words of the Lord; making them negligent of them and indifferent to them; and causing them to forget what they had heard and received.

(q) "verba mea", Munster, Pagniuus, Montanus, Schmidt.

Geneva Study Bible

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

(z) Who set forth in my Name that which I have not commanded.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

30. steal my words] They have themselves no revelation to impart, and therefore proclaim as their own that which has been said by the really inspired.

30–32. See introd. summary to section.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 30-32. - The punishment solemnly introduced by a three times repeated, Behold, I am against, etc., corresponding to three several features of the conduct of the false prophets. First we are told that the prophets steal my words every one from his neighbor. The latter part of the phrase reminds us of ver. 27, but the neighbor in this case must mean, at any rate primarily, a fellow-prophet, one who has really received a revelation at first-hand from Jehovah. The "false prophets," not trusting to their "dreams" alone, listen greedily to the discourses of men like Jeremiah, not with a view to spiritual profit, but to making their own utterances more effective. We must remember that they lived by their prophesying (Micah 3:5). Jeremiah 23:30

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Threatening of punishment. לכן does not connect with Jeremiah 23:29, but with the main idea of the previous verses, the conduct of the false prophets there exposed. הנני על, behold, I will be against them, will come upon them as an enemy; cf. Ezekiel 5:8. The practice of these prophets is characterized in three ways, yet without marking out three classes of unworthy men. One habit of theirs is that of stealing the word of God one from another. Not inspired of God themselves, they tried to appropriate words of God from other prophets in order to give their own utterances the character of divine oracles. Another is: they take their tongues and say, God's word, i.e., they use their tongues to speak pretended words from God. The verb ינאמוּ occurs only here; elsewhere only the participle נאם, and that almost always joined with יהוה in the sig. effatum Domini; here without it, but in the same sense. The root meaning of נאם is disputed. Connected etymologically with נהם, המה, it doubtlessly denotes originally, that which is whispered, Jahveh's secret confidential communication; but it is constantly used, not for the word of God as silently inspired by God, but as softly uttered by the prophet. The meaning is not: their prophesying is "mere wagging of the tongue, talk according to their own caprice" (Graf); but: they give out their sayings for God's, whereas God speaks neither to nor by them. Finally, their third way of doing consists in feigning revelations by means of dreams, which are but deceptive dreams. At this point the discourse falls back on the description in Jeremiah 23:26. The words "and lead my people astray" refer to all their three ways of acting before characterized. פּחזוּת is their boasting of revelations from God. Then comes