1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, prophesy to the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to these prophets out of their own heart, Listen to the word of the LORD. 3Thus said the Master, the LORD: Woe to the scoundrel prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. 4Like foxes among the ruins, O Israel, your prophets have become. 5You did not go up in the breaches and build a barrier around the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the LORD. 6They saw empty visions and false divinations, saying, ‘the LORD said,’ when the LORD did not send them, and they expected to fulfill their word. 7Why, you have seen an empty vision and a false divination you have spoken, saying, ‘the LORD said,’ when I did not speak. 8Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: Inasmuch as you have spoken emptiness and have seen false visions, therefore, here I am against you, said the Master, the LORD. 9And My hand shall be against the prophets who see empty visions and perform false divinations. They shall not take part in the council of My people and shall not be written in the writ of the house of Israel and shall not come to the soil of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD. 10Surely because they misled My people, saying, It is well, when it was not well. The people was building a mere partition, and they daubed it with plaster. 11Say to the daubers of plaster that it will fall. When pounding rain comes—and you—hailstones fall and a storm wind that splits things apart, 12and, look the wall shall fall. Why, it shall be said to you, Where is the plaster that you daubed? 13Therefore, Thus said the Master, the LORD: I will split things apart with a storm wind in My wrath, and pounding rain in My anger shall there be and hailstones in wrath for utter destruction. 14And I will wreck the wall on which you daubed plaster and bring it down to the ground, and its foundation shall be laid bare. And it shall fall and you shall be utterly destroyed within it, and you shall know that I am the LORD. 15And I will exhaust My wrath upon the wall and upon those who daubed it with plaster, and I will say to you: the wall is gone and those who plastered it are gone, 16O prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Jerusalem and see a vision of well-being for her when there is no well-being, said the Master, the LORD. 17And you, man, set your face toward the daughters of your people who babble prophecy out of their own heart, and prophesy about them. 18And you shall say, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Woe, you who sew cushions for all the joints of the arms and make padding for the head of every stature to entrap lives. Would you entrap the lives of My people and your own lives preserve? 19And you profane Me to My people with handfuls of barley and morsels of bread to proclaim death for people who will not die and to proclaim life for people who will not live, as you lie to My people, who listen to lies. 20Therefore thus said the LORD: Here I am against your cushions with which you entrap lives like birds. And I will tear them from your arms and set free the people whom you entrapped like birds. 21And I will tear off your cushions and save My people from your hands, and they shall no longer be in the toils in your hand. And you shall know that I am the LORD. 22Inasmuch as you have struck the heart of the innocent man with lies, when I did not cause him grief, and strengthened the hands of the wicked man to preserve him that he turn not back from his evil way to preserve his life. 23Therefore, no longer shall you see empty visions and no longer perform divinations, and I will save My people from your hands, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 13 NOTES
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2. prophets out of their own heart. The idiom “out of their own heart,” which occurs elsewhere, indicates things that are purely a person’s invention.
3. follow their own spirit. Greenberg renders “spirit” here as “whims.” It is obviously a parallel to “their own heart” in verse 1.
5. the breaches. This image picks up the simile of the foxes among the ruins from the previous verse: foxes could make their way through the breach in the stone walls protecting vineyards and planted fields to wreak havoc within. Thus, the prophets, who should have protected the people, are themselves predators.
to stand in battle on the day of the LORD. As elsewhere in the Prophets, “the day of the LORD” is the day when God comes to exact retribution from Israel for its offenses. The prophets, then, in this battle metaphor, should have defended Israel and warded off punishment from God by warning the people about its waywardness.
9. shall not come to the soil of Israel. This phrase is an indication that Ezekiel is excoriating a group of false prophets in the Babylonian exile.
10. The people was building a mere partition. The subject of the verb in the Hebrew is simply “it,” but its antecedent has been introduced in the translation in order to avoid confusion. The Hebrew word ḥayits, represented in this translation as “mere partition,” occurs only here; however, it patently derives from a root that suggests demarcating inside from outside. Both the etymology and the context indicate that it is a rather flimsy barrier, hence the addition of “mere” in the translation.
they daubed it with plaster. Many interpreters conclude that the word for “plaster,” tafel (elsewhere a term for “insipid”), designates an inferior form of plaster, mixed with straw. But smearing plaster over a wall—especially if it is a shaky wall—would scarcely strengthen it against breaches, no matter what kind of plaster was used.
11. When pounding rain comes—and you. The “and you” definitely looks out of syntactic place and may reflect a scribal error.
13. Thus said the Master, the LORD. Rimon Kasher proposes that Ezekiel’s constant use of this introductory formula could be polemic: Ezekiel has been sent by God and is faithfully quoting God’s actual words, in contrast to the false prophets.
split things apart. The splitting verb is chosen in reference to the wall.
hailstones. The Hebrew ʾelgavish is not the usual word for “hail” and may reflect poetic diction.
15. I will exhaust My wrath. The Hebrew employs the same verbal stem that appears in “utter destruction” and “utterly destroyed.”
17. daughters of your people who babble prophecy out of their own heart. Having dealt with the male prophets, Ezekiel now is commanded to turn to the women. They are not so much prophets as soothsayers or fortune-tellers, and consequently the verb for prophesying is used here in the reflexive conjugation, which has the connotation of going into ecstatic fits, a nuance represented in this translation by the addition of “babble.”
18. cushions . . . padding. We have only an approximate sense of the meaning of both these nouns, and the same is true of their function. They appear to be the trappings of rites of divination performed by these women, but the specifics remain elusive.
all the joints of the arms. This same phrase in Jeremiah means “armpits,” but here the whole arm seems to be involved, as verse 21 indicates.
19. with handfuls of barley and morsels of bread. These are used in the superstitious ritual, either as instruments of divination—in Mesopotamia, flour was cast on water for this purpose—or as offerings to the gods.
22. to preserve his life. This is the same verb that is used in verse 19 in the sense of “proclaim life.” These soothsaying women, instead of making baseless proclamations about who is destined to live, should have been warning the wicked man to turn back from his path of evil in order to save his life.