Jeremiah 27:10

For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) To remove you far from your land.—The prophet speaks of what he foresees will be the result of the rebellion to which soothsayers and diviners were urging men, as if it were actually contemplated by them. They are to him like the lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets persuading him to go up to Ramoth Gilead to battle, in order that he might perish.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:1-11 Jeremiah is to prepare a sign that all the neighbouring countries would be made subject to the king of Babylon. God asserts his right to dispose of kingdoms as he pleases. Whatever any have of the good things of this world, it is what God sees fit to give; we should therefore be content. The things of this world are not the best things, for the Lord often gives the largest share to bad men. Dominion is not founded in grace. Those who will not serve the God who made them, shall justly be made to serve their enemies that seek to ruin them. Jeremiah urges them to prevent their destruction, by submission. A meek spirit, by quiet submission to the hardest turns of providence, makes the best of what is bad. Many persons may escape destroying providences, by submitting to humbling providences. It is better to take up a light cross in our way, than to pull a heavier on our own heads. The poor in spirit, the meek and humble, enjoy comfort, and avoid many miseries to which the high-spirited are exposed. It must, in all cases, be our interest to obey God's will.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To remove you far ... - That would be the result of their vaticinations.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. to remove you—expressing the event which would result. The very thing they profess by their enchantments to avert, they are by them bringing on you. Better to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and remain in your land, than to rebel, and be removed from it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Let them come by their pretended knowledge which way they will, what they say is false; and the issue of your belief of what they say will be nothing but your carrying into captivity out of your own country, and your ruin and destruction.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For they prophesy a lie unto you,.... That which was vain and false, and proved so; though they might not know it was when delivered:

to remove you far from your land; not that they designed it by their prophecies, but so it was eventually; for, standing it out against Nebuchadnezzar, encouraged by the lies and dreams of their prophets, he, in process of time, took them, and carried them captive into Babylon; whereas, had they surrendered at once, they might have continued in their own land, paying a tax or tribute to the king of Babylon:

and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish; drive them out of their own land, and so perish in a foreign land: God is said to do that which his servant or instrument did, being provoked by the sin and disobedience of the people, hearkening to their lying prophets, and not to him.

Geneva Study Bible

For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. to remove you] not of course that this was the false prophets’ aim, but that it would be the result of their advice, if adopted.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - To remove you far; or, more distinctly, that I may remove you far. So Isaiah 6:12, "(Until) Jehovah have removed men afar off." The deportation policy of the Assyrians and Babylonians was overruled by God for his own deep purposes. Jeremiah 27:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Therefore they must not hearken to their prophets, soothsayers, and sorcerers, that prophesy the contrary. The mention of dreams between the prophets and soothsayers on the one hand, and the enchanters and sorcerers on the other, strikes us as singular. It is, however, to be explained from the fact, that prophets and soothsayers often feigned dreams and dream-revelations (cf. Jeremiah 23:25); and other persons, too, might have dreams, and could give them out as significant. Cf. Jeremiah 29:8, where dreams are expressly distinguished from the discourse of the prophets and soothsayers. Whether the reckoning of five kinds of heathen prophecy has anything to do with the naming of five kings (Hitz.), appears to us to be questionable; but it is certain that Jeremiah does not design to specify five different, i.e., distinct and separate, kinds of heathen divination. For there was in reality no such distinction. Heathen prophecy was closely allied with sorcery ad soothsaying; cf. Deuteronomy 18:9., and Oehler on the Relation of Old Testament Prophecy to Heathen Divination (Tb. 1861). The enumeration of the multifarious means and methods for forecasting the future is designed to show the multitude of delusive schemes for supplying the lack of true and real divine inspiration. כּשּׁפים, equivalent to מכשּׁפים , the same which in Deuteronomy 18:10 is used along with מעונן. The explanation of the last-mentioned word is disputed. Some take it from ענן, cloud equals cloud-maker or storm-raiser; others from עין, eye equals fascinator, the idea being that of bewitching with the evil eye; see on Leviticus 19:26. The use of the word along with מנחשׁ וּמכשּׁף, Deuteronomy 18:10, favours the latter rendering, whereas no passage in which the word is used in the Old Testament supports the sig. storm-raiser. "That I should remove you," as is shown by the continuation of the infinitive by והדּחתּי. The false prophets delude the people, inducing them to rise in rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, contrary to God's will, and thus simply bringing about their expulsion from their land, i.e., removal into banishment. למען shows, as frequently, that the inevitable consequence of these persons' proceedings is designed by them.