Ezekiel 13:1 - Meaning and Application

The false prophets condemned here were some in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 23:14), where Jeremiah saw “a horrible thing” among the prophets. Some were also among the captives in Babylon, and Jeremiah wrote to them, “Do not let your diviners deceive you” (Jeremiah 29:8). God’s true prophets, though separated by place or time, spoke the same truth because one good Spirit guided them. These false prophets, by contrast, spread the same lies because one spirit of error drove them.

There was little hope of bringing such hardened people to repentance. Even so, Ezekiel had to prophesy against them, so the people would be warned not to listen to them. That warning would also stand as a record against the false prophets, leaving them without excuse. Ezekiel was told to speak against the prophets of Israel, as they called themselves, though they were really deceivers of Israel.

It is worth noticing that Israel was not misled by religious pretenders until after they had rejected and mistreated the true prophets. The same pattern later happened with false messiahs, those who claimed to be God’s chosen deliverer, after the people had refused the true Messiah. These false prophets were told to hear the word of the Lord. They had claimed to speak for God about others, so now they must hear what God says about them.

The first thing Ezekiel was to do was uncover their sin and, if possible, convince them of it. At the very least, he would expose their folly before everyone (2 Timothy 3:9). They are called foolish prophets (Ezekiel 13:3), because they did not understand the work they claimed to do. In trying to fool the people, they fooled themselves and did great harm to their own souls.

Their first sin was this, they claimed God had sent them, when he had not. They forced their way into the prophetic office without any call from the Lord, who alone has the right to send his prophets. They were prophets from their own hearts, as the margin says, prophets of their own making (Ezekiel 13:2, 6). They said, “The Lord says,” and acted like his messengers, but the Lord had not sent them or given them any orders. That kind of lie insults everyone, because it weakens trust in God’s word. When such pretenders are exposed, unbelievers may wrongly conclude that all prophets are deceivers.

The Lord had not sent them, and they were foolish to think otherwise. Those whom God sends, he fits for the work, or he makes them fit. Where he gives a call, he also gives wisdom. These men were clever in worldly matters, crafty like foxes, but they were still foolish prophets because they had no true knowledge of God.

Their second sin was that they claimed God had shown them things, when he had not. They followed their own spirit (Ezekiel 13:3), meaning they spoke from their own ideas, tricks, or imagination. They said their message came from the Lord, but God denied it plainly, “I have not spoken it.” What they gave was not something they had truly seen or heard from God, as true ministers of Christ do (1 John 1:1). It was either something they dreamed up, or something they thought would win people over.

That is why their message is called “vain vision” and “lying divination” (Ezekiel 13:6). They claimed to have seen what they never saw, and they passed off falsehood as divine truth. Ezekiel says the same thing another way, “You have spoken vanity and seen lies” (Ezekiel 13:8). What they saw and what they said were both empty, a sham that could not be trusted.

Again, Ezekiel says they “see vanity and divine lies” (Ezekiel 13:9). They acted as if they had true visions, like God’s faithful prophets, but they had none. Sometimes they only imagined they had received a vision, like confused people in a fever. At other times they knew it was false and invented it on purpose. In either case, they saw lies and told lies. Since the devil is the father of lies, it is a grave insult to God to claim his name for falsehood. Those who had already given God’s honor to Satan in idol worship had fallen so low that they now gave Satan’s character to God.

Their third sin was that they did nothing to stop the judgments of God that were already beginning to fall on the kingdom. They were like foxes in the ruins, running about as if in a hurry, but only to save themselves. They were like hirelings who flee and leave the sheep. They were greedy and crafty, but only for their own safety and gain.

The Lord says, “You have not gone up into the gaps, nor made up the hedge of the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 13:5). The nation’s defenses had broken down, and judgment was ready to rush in through the breach. That was the very time when they should have helped. They should have stood in the gap by prayer, turning back God’s wrath. But they were not praying prophets. They had no true access to heaven, unlike faithful prophets who once interceded for others (Genesis 20:7).

They also should have preached and counseled the people to repent and change their ways. That is how they could have “made up the hedge” and slowed the coming judgment. But they did not care for that. Their aim was to please people, not to help them.

They saw a flood of wickedness and ungodliness sweeping through the land, fighting against virtue and holiness, and threatening to crush them. At such a time, they should have come to the Lord’s aid by speaking against the evil of the day, as if they were helping defend a city under attack. Instead, they thought that kind of work was too dangerous, so they did nothing to stop the evil. They did not stand in the fight against vice and immorality, but shamefully abandoned the cause of religion and reform when the Lord’s call was heard: “Who is on the Lord’s side? Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?” (Psalm 94:16).

Such men were not worthy of the name prophets. They could think too kindly of sin and had too little zeal for God or for the good of the people. They also led people into a false hope that God’s threatened judgments would never come, and in doing so they hardened those they should have turned away from sin (Ezekiel 13:6). They told others that all would be well and that peace would come, even while people kept walking in their sins. They acted as if their own promises could make false prophecies true, even against God himself.

The Lord then sends Ezekiel to pronounce judgment on them for these sins, and their claim to be prophets would not protect them. First, a woe is pronounced against them (Ezekiel 13:3), and the meaning of that woe is made plain in Ezekiel 13:8: “I am against you, declares the Lord God.” It is a miserable thing to have God against you. Woe, and many woes besides, come on those who have made him their enemy.

Second, they are sentenced to lose every right and privilege of the covenant community of Israel, because they have forfeited them all (Ezekiel 13:9). God’s hand will be against them to seize them and bring them before his judgment. He will shut them out from his presence, and it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands. They claimed to be prophets, special favorites of heaven, and leaders in God’s church on earth. But by claiming honors they did not deserve, they lost the honors they might have had otherwise (Matthew 5:19).

They will be expelled from the fellowship of God’s people and no longer counted among them. “They shall not be in the secret of my people” means their folly will be so clear that no one will seek their counsel or ask for their advice. They will not even be present in the gatherings of God’s people for worship, because they will be too ashamed to show their faces after being proved false by events. Like Cain, they will go out from the presence of the Lord. Those they deceived will abandon them and decide to have nothing more to do with them. Those who tried to sit in Moses’ seat will not even be given a doorkeeper’s place. In the great day, they will not stand in the congregation of the righteous (Psalm 1:5), when God gathers his saints to himself (Psalm 50:5, Psalm 50:16), to be with him forever.

They will also be blotted out of the book of the living. They will die in exile and die childless, leaving no descendants to carry on their name. So their names will not be found among those who returned from Babylon, whose records were kept in a public register called the writing of the house of Israel, like the list in Ezra 2. They will not be found among the living in Jerusalem (Isaiah 4:3). Or, in a deeper sense, they will not be found written among those whom God chose from eternity to be vessels of his mercy forever. We read of people who prophesied in Christ’s name, yet he will say to them, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22, Matthew 7:23), because they were not among those given to him. The Chaldee paraphrase says this means they will not be written in the record of eternal life, which is kept for the righteous of the house of Israel. See Psalm 69:28.

They will also be shut out forever from the land of Israel. God has sworn in his anger that they will never enter the land of Canaan with the returning captives, though that land is again a place of rest for God’s people. Those who fight against the purpose of God’s warnings, and will not be moved by them, lose the benefit of his promises and cannot expect comfort from them.