NOTES for Jer 23:1-40
The rebukes continue, but once again amid severe warnings we see a ray of hope. The people still have only to go into exile and a new slavery, yet words of prophecy are already sounding about the coming return from captivity - about the fact that the same Lord who once led His people out of Egyptian captivity will free them also from the rule of new conquerors. But more than that, He gives a prophetic promise of the righteous Branch of David. Even if this part of the prophecy was not fully understood by Jeremiah's contemporaries, here the seed of readiness to receive the Savior was planted in their hearts, a seed that would have to sprout over the following centuries.
It must not be accidental that precisely after the prophecy about the One who will become the Good Shepherd, the Lord again returns to denouncing false shepherds and false prophets.
This problem, however, is relevant today as well. And the issue is not only that in every age there have been enough frauds who fooled a trusting public. Perhaps far more dangerous is sincere and selfless self-deception, when a person mistakes his own conclusions, or a projection of the subconscious, the deception of his own heart, for a voice from above. But here prophecy warns of the danger: if former prophets turned away from the Lord, exchanging Him for Baal, then new ones risk exchanging the Lord for their own illusions and dreams.