Jeremiah 23 Study Notes

23:1-2 The shepherds were not only Zedekiah and the three godless Judean kings mentioned in chap. 22, but all leaders of Judah, including spiritual and civil leaders. The phrases the sheep of my pasture . . . my people, and my flock are used by Jeremiah more than forty times to designate the close relationship between God and the people of Judah. There is a play on words for not attended to (“my flock”) and I am about to attend to (“shepherds”). The Hebrew word is paqad, meaning “to care for” or “to chastise.” God will discipline the shepherds for not taking care of his flock.

23:3-4 The upcoming exile was a sure thing, but so too was the future regathering. The good shepherds that God would raise up were not only Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, but leaders far into the future. God would bring Judah and Israel back from all the lands where he had banished them.

23:5 The expression the days are coming points to messianic times. It is used fifteen times in the book of Jeremiah. Branch for David refers to the Messiah. It appears five times in the Prophets (v. 5; 33:15; Is 4:2; Zch 3:8; 6:12). Four pictures of Jesus the Messiah, often compared to the emphasis given in each of the four Gospels, are the “Branch for David” (Jr 23:5), compared to Matthew’s presentation (Mt 1:1) of Jesus the King; “my servant, the Branch” (Zch 3:8), compared to Mark’s depiction (Mk 10:45) of Jesus as the Servant; “a man whose name is Branch” (Zch 6:12), compared to Luke’s presentation (Lk 23:47) of Jesus in his human aspects; and “the Branch of the Lord” (Is 4:2), compared to John’s presentation (Jn 20:31) of Jesus as being from God. He will reign wisely speaks of the manner of the Messiah’s reign (see also Is 52:13).

23:6 In contrast to the name Zedekiah, meaning “The Lord is righteousness” (a name given to Mattaniah by Nebuchadnezzar in 2Kg 24:17), the coming Messiah will be named The Lord Is Our Righteousness. Zedekiah was nothing like the Messiah in character or actions.

23:7-8 God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt will be surpassed in a future worldwide regathering of Israel, exceeding even the return orchestrated by King Cyrus of Persia.

23:9 Jeremiah’s words refer back to his laments and “confessions” in chaps. 11-20.

23:10 The physical and spiritual immorality of a land . . . full of adulterers has yielded a godless society.

23:11-31 Both prophet and priest were accomplices in corrupting and misleading the people. Jeremiah had more to say against false prophets than any other OT writer (vv. 9-40; 2:8; 5:30-31; 6:13-14; 8:10-11; 14:13-15; 18:18-23; 26:8,11,16; 27:1-28:16). His four charges against them were: (1) low morals and character (23:14), (2) they invented their own messages (v. 16), (3) they did not have a call from God (vv. 21-22), and (4) they were plagiarists (v. 30).

23:13 The something disgusting (“offensive thing”) that Jeremiah saw was Israel being led . . . astray as prophets prophesied in Baal’s name. Their polluted lives were hindrances to legitimate proclamation of God’s message.

23:14 To God the false prophets had become as bad as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. They encouraged moral laxity and sin rather than repentance.

23:15 What the false prophets were about to experience would be like eating wormwood—a shrub with a bitter taste—and drinking poisoned water (9:15).

23:16-17 These peace prophets created messages as figments of their own minds. They deceived the people by promising peace, prosperity, and success. The false prophets were deluding the people, a word reflecting the Hebrew noun hevel (“vapor,” “futility,” “transitoriness”), as used in the book of Ecclesiastes.

23:18 Some understand the council of the Lord to be a gathering of divine beings over whom God presided or consulted, as was believed in Near Eastern polytheism. But the biblical concept is different. The “council of the Lord” referred to God’s desire to share his teaching with his prophets, as Amos declared (Am 3:7).

23:19-20 This announcement of judgment is repeated almost identically in 30:23-24. The storm (4:11-12; 13:24; 18:17; 25:32) unleashes the purposes of God’s heart for judgment.

23:21-22 Even though God did not send out these prophets, yet they ran (cp. 2Sm 18:19). They had no authority as God’s couriers and no understanding of God’s purposes.

23:23-24 God is not a pagan local god confined to his shrine or temple. He is both immanent (near) and transcendent (far).

23:25-29 Jeremiah did not deny that God sometimes uses dreams. He used them with Joseph (Gn 37; 41) and with authentic prophets (Nm 12:6). But the dreams to which the prophet referred here were fabricated and preyed on the gullible. The dreams of the false prophets were like straw, not grain. God’s word, by contrast, was like a hammer that pulverizes rock.

23:30 Since they did not truly speak from God, God said the false prophets could only plagiarize my words from each other as they made up false messages in God’s name.

23:32 False dreams presupposes v. 25. For it was not I who sent or commanded them, see 14:14.

23:33-38 The word burden comes from the Hebrew verbal root nasa’, meaning “to lift up.” All instances of the Hebrew noun massa’ imply a “burden,” for all are judgment passages. So when the people or the false prophets asked, What is the burden of the Lord? (v. 33), the answer was the short retort given in the Latin Vulgate and the Greek Septuagint (LXX): “You are the burden.” The pun of the two senses of “burden” (prophetic burden of judgment and the burden of trying to speak to stubborn people) recurs throughout this section.

23:39-40 Because of the deceptive words of the false prophets, God would surely forget them and throw them away from his presence—a drastic measure for a serious offense.