NOTES for Eze 13:1-23
In chapter thirteen, through the prophet Ezekiel, God denounces one of the most dangerous phenomena in humanity’s religious life: false prophecy. He says that among God’s people there are those who speak in God’s name what they themselves think. The reason is that false prophets are led by their own spirit, not by the Holy Spirit, and at best pass off their opinions as the word of God. More often, false prophets say what their fellow countrymen will be pleased to hear.
The Lord draws particular attention to such ‘optimistic forecasts’, when false prophets predict peace, yet there is no peace. This is, in essence, not a religious phenomenon but political propaganda, highly significant in the context of the time. Among Israel’s leaders there were then several rival parties proposing reliance on various outside powers in the struggle against Babylon. The promises of peace poured out so abundantly by the false prophets are also mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah, who was active during the same period. They served the interests of certain political forces, but God denounces them as a sinful refusal to obey Him.
The essence of these false prophecies of peace is the assertion that ‘God is with us because we are very good; we are the God-bearing people, regardless of our moral character.’ The smearing of Jerusalem’s walls with mud here is a parody of a prophetic action, intended to represent the miraculous indestructibility of those walls. The prophet Ezekiel probably has a specific event in contemporary history in mind, when something like a solemn ceremony took place in Jerusalem during the building of the walls: it was most likely in this that the false prophets participated. It is possible that this concerns an attempt by the ‘jingoists’ to rebel against Babylon after the murder of the governor Gedaliah; the building of Jerusalem’s walls should be understood in the context of this revolt. Through the prophet, the Lord not only refutes the false prophecies but also uses this example as an image of the prophets’ true ministry. They are called to ‘go up into the breaches and build a wall’—not for Jerusalem, but for the house of Israel: this means exposing sin and calling for amendment.
We should note that in the history of the prophetic era we repeatedly encounter false prophets, beginning with Amos, the first of the writing prophets, and continuing for several centuries. In essence, false prophecy will reach its culmination in the cries of the chief priests and Pharisees: ‘Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!’ It is important to understand that this phenomenon is deeply rooted in the psychology of fallen humanity and that Christians, too, are not immune to the danger of encountering it. Not only during the exile but much later as well, we see ‘prophecies’ shaped by political allegiance. That is precisely why, in one of his letters, the apostle John urges us ‘not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits to see whether they are from God’ (1 Jn 4:1).
The second half of chapter 13 is devoted to a phenomenon related to, but not identical with, ‘political’ false prophecy. To distinguish between them, the prophet speaks here of false prophetesses, in contrast to the false prophets of the first half of the chapter. Apparently this second form of deception really was practised more by women. It concerns sorcery, various spells and magical rites intended to discover the future and even influence it. This form of false prophecy is much more primitive than the first, and it is driven not by a misconceived but still elevated patriotism, but by a thirst for gain. ‘For a handful of barley and a piece of bread’, false prophetesses surrounded by an aura of mystery predict fortunes, ward off misfortunes with spells, and so forth. Our advertising papers today teem with notices such as ‘Love spells guaranteed’, so there is no need to explain what this is. Just as today’s sorcerers and magicians use icons, holy water and other attributes of Christianity, so in the prophet Ezekiel’s time they used the attributes of faith in the One God. Their self-appointed prophecy claims to bring divine approval upon the client, while God’s true will is of no interest to them. Verse 22 speaks particularly vividly of this: ‘With lies you grieve the heart of the righteous, whom I did not wish to grieve, and strengthen the hands of the lawless, so that he does not turn from his wicked way and preserve his life.’
Finally, we cannot fail to notice another idea in this important verse: the idea of God’s will for the lawless person’s conversion and salvation. Here it is expressed almost in passing, but later the prophet will return to it more than once, and it will become one of the central ideas of his book.