Jer 23:9-32 | TNotes | STEP | Summary for Jer 23:9-32: 23:9-32 These short poems and interjections appear to be excerpts from a session in which the Lord prepared Jeremiah to prosecute the false prophets of Jerusalem. Because these leaders had misused the Lord’s name, they incurred his wrath (Exod 20:7 ). Summary for Jer 23:9-10: 23:9-10 Jeremiah stood in the Lord’s presence, shocked by the severity of the Lord’s decrees of doom on the religious leaders.

Summary for Jer 23:9-32: 23:9-32 ^a These short poems and interjections appear to be excerpts from a session in which the Lord prepared Jeremiah to prosecute the false prophets of Jerusalem. Because these leaders had misused the Lord’s name, they incurred his wrath (Exod 20:7 ^b).
Summary for Jer 23:9-10: 23:9-10 ^c Jeremiah stood in the Lord’s presence, shocked by the severity of the Lord’s decrees of doom on the religious leaders.
23:10 ^d People everywhere engaged in adultery. They thought that the ritual sex of Baal worship would guarantee good crops, but instead it brought the curse of a crop-destroying drought upon the people of Judah.
23:11 ^e Judah’s religious leaders had committed despicable acts, not just in their private lives and in the hills and fields where pagan worship occurred, but even in the Temple, in the presence of the Lord.
23:12 ^f As a result of their wickedness, these priests and prophets would have no stability in their lives; every moment would be filled with danger.
Summary for Jer 23:13-14: 23:13-14 ^g Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, had been dominated by Baal worship supported by the government prophets (1 Kgs 18:19 ^h; see also Jer 16:12 ⁱ). The religious leaders of Judah were even worse.

• Sodom and Gomorrah represented the worst of this kind of wickedness (Gen 18:20 ^j).
23:15 ^k Although the people needed to be held responsible for their own sins, the prophets bore the blame for Jerusalem’s spiritual apostasy.
Summary for Jer 23:16-32: 23:16-32 ^l The Lord appealed to the people to reject these prophets and listen instead to his word. 23:16 ^m The false prophets gave the people futile hopes; they had not been commissioned to speak for the Lord, and their ideas came from their own imaginations.
23:17 ⁿ These prophets lied to the people, assuring them that peace would soon come, even though they despise the Lord’s word. However, the Lord had already decreed destruction.
Summary for Jer 23:18-19: 23:18-19 ^o These prophets invented their messages (23:16 ^p); they had never been in the Lord’s presence, and none of them cared enough to listen to God’s instruction.
Summary for Jer 23:19-20: 23:19-20 ^q Contrary to the lies of the false prophets, the world was facing the storm of the Lord’s anger. The political situation was a whirlwind that would soon strike the wicked. The Lord had planned this punishment and would ensure that it took place. After the war, the survivors would look back and see that Jeremiah had prophesied correctly.
Summary for Jer 23:21-24: 23:21-24 ^r In this stanza, the Lord expressed his keen disappointment and disgust toward the false prophets.
23:22 ^s The messages of the false prophets would have been quite different if they had actually come from the Lord. God wanted the people to reject their evil ways (such as Baal worship) and turn to the one true God.
Summary for Jer 23:23-24: 23:23-24 ^t The Lord revealed the difference between himself and the Canaanite nature deities. The pagan deities were close at hand, as part of nature. The Lord was close at hand because he created all nature, but he was also far away in his distinction from it. His essence is different from nature, yet he is present in all the heavens and earth.
Summary for Jer 23:25-27: 23:25-27 ^u The false prophets placed a high value on dreams. The claim to have had a dream supposedly gave authority to a prophet’s message. However, these prophets were inventing everything they said in order to lead the people away from the Lord.
23:28 ^v The Lord temporarily allowed the false prophets to tell their dreams. At the same time, the Lord had his true messengers, such as Jeremiah, to proclaim his every word. This allowed the people to see the difference between the useless dreams of the false prophets (straw) and the nourishing words of the Lord’s messengers (grain); cp. Ps 1:3-4 ^w.
23:29 ^x The Lord’s word has power, like fire, to destroy false prophecies. It would smash the seemingly impregnable fortress of Jerusalem like a mighty hammer.
Summary for Jer 23:30-32: 23:30-32 ^y The Lord rebuked and opposed the prophets who spoke lies in his name.