Jeremiah 23
Condemnation of Bad Shepherds (Leaders) 1–4
The Promise of the Righteous Branch 5–8
Judgment Against False Prophets 9–15
True Prophecy vs. False Dreams 16–22
God’s Omnipresence and Power of the Word 23–32
The Misuse of 'The Burden of the LORD' 33–40
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Jeremiah 23
Verse 1
the pastors — Ra’ah, to shepherd, the verb of Ps 23:1, ‘The LORD is my shepherd’. Kings and leaders were to feed ‘the sheep of my pasture’, and Ezek 34:2 repeats the woe: ‘Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?’ Christ names himself ‘the good shepherd’ (John 10:11).
Verse 2
have not visited them — One verb, paqad, to attend to, stands on both sides of the verse: the shepherds ‘have not visited’ the flock, so the LORD says ‘I will visit upon you the evil of your doings’. The care they withheld becomes the reckoning they receive. The same verb, rendered ‘punish’ in v.34, falls on the one who says ‘The burden of the LORD’.
Verse 3
the remnant of my flock — The LORD does what the shepherds did not: ‘He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock’ (31:10). ‘Driven’ is the verb of v.2, now with the LORD as the one who drove. ‘Fruitful and increase’ (parah, rabah) are the words of Gen 1:28, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply’.
Verse 5
a righteous Branch — Tsemach, a sprout, which becomes a title: ‘my servant the BRANCH’ (Zech 3:8), ‘the man whose name is The BRANCH’ (Zech 6:12). ‘Prosper’ is sakal, the verb of Isa 52:13, ‘my servant shall deal prudently’. He does what David did, ‘judgment and justice’ (2 Sam 8:15), and Gabriel gives him ‘the throne of his father David’ (Luke 1:32).
Verse 6
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS — The name is one word in Hebrew, Tsidqenu, ‘our righteousness’. The same name is given to Jerusalem in 33:16, in the days when Judah is saved. King Zedekiah (21:1) bore a name meaning ‘right of Jah’. Paul says Christ ‘is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness’ (1 Cor 1:30).
Verse 7
The LORD liveth — The common oath, ‘And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth’ (4:2), is here tied to the Exodus. v.8 gives what will replace the wording: ‘The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country’. Jer 16:14–15 makes the same promise.
Verse 9
all my bones shake — Rachaph occurs only three times: of the Spirit who ‘moved upon the face of the waters’ (Gen 1:2), of the eagle that ‘fluttereth over her young’ (Deut 32:11), and here, of bones. The prophet is ‘like a drunken man’, overcome ‘because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness’; compare the word ‘shut up in my bones’ (20:9).
Verse 11
profane — Chaneph, to be polluted or godless. It is said of the men who handled holy things, ‘both prophet and priest’, and the wickedness is found ‘in my house’. The people ‘set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name’ (7:30; 32:34). Zeph 3:4 says the same: ‘her priests have polluted the sanctuary’.
Verse 14
an horrible thing — Sha’arurah, a shuddering thing, the word of 5:30, ‘A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land’. Adultery and lies are named together; 29:23 names prophets who ‘committed adultery’ with the wives of their neighbours. Sodom and Gomorrah mark a city that would not turn: ‘none doth return from his wickedness’.
Verse 17
Ye shall have peace — Shalom, the false prophets’ word, said ‘still’ to ‘them that despise me’. It had been quoted before: ‘Peace, peace; when there is no peace’ (8:11); Ezek 13:10 says they ‘seduced my people, saying, Peace’. ‘Imagination’ (sheririth) is stubbornness, so the message tells the stubborn that ‘No evil shall come upon you’.
Verse 18
stood in the counsel of the LORD — Sod, a confidence shared among those who sit close, also rendered ‘secret’. ‘Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets’ (Amos 3:7); ‘The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him’ (Ps 25:14). v.22 gives the test: such men would have ‘caused my people to hear my words’.
Verse 21
yet they ran — They ran as messengers with no sender. Shalach, to send, is the verb of true commission: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me’ (Isa 6:8). Jer 14:14 says the same of these prophets: ‘I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them’.
Verse 23
a God at hand… and not a God afar off — Qarov and rachoq, near and far. The prophets’ hidden dealings are not hidden from a God who is both. The same truth is sung in Ps 139:8, ‘If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there’; v.24 draws out the claim that he fills heaven and earth.
Verse 24
Do not I fill heaven and earth? — Male, to fill. Solomon said it from the other side: ‘the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee’ (1 Kgs 8:27). The ‘secret places’ (mistar) offer no cover, and the question ‘Can any hide himself… that I shall not see him?’ is answered in Ps 139:7–12, where neither height nor depth hides anyone from him.
Verse 28
What is the chaff to the wheat? — Teben is the chopped straw left when the grain (bar) is taken out, fodder with no bread in it. The prophet may ‘tell a dream’, but only the one who has the LORD’s word speaks it ‘faithfully’ (emeth, truth). John the Baptist uses the same pair of the harvest: ‘gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff’ (Matt 3:12).
Verse 29
like a hammer — Patish, the sledge, found only three times: here, of the smith’s hammer (Isa 41:7), and of Babylon as ‘the hammer of the whole earth’ (Jer 50:23). The word is also fire: ‘I will make my words in thy mouth fire’ (5:14), ‘a burning fire shut up in my bones’ (20:9). It breaks ‘the rock in pieces’.
Verse 33
What burden? — Massa, from the verb ‘to lift’, means a load carried and also a pronouncement, and it heads prophecies: ‘The burden of Babylon’ (Isa 13:1), ‘The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi’ (Mal 1:1). Asked by people, prophet or priest, it receives the answer ‘What burden? I will even forsake you’.
Verse 36
the words of the living God — Hapak, to turn over or upside down: the prophets turned the word around by calling their own sayings ‘the burden of the LORD’, so the LORD says ‘every man’s word shall be his burden’. ‘The living God’ is the title of 10:10: ‘the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king’.
Verse 39
cast you out of my presence — ‘I, even I’ sets the LORD himself as the one who acts. ‘Forget’ is nashah, to put out of mind. The city ‘that I gave you and your fathers’ is lost as 2 Kgs 24:20 records: ‘through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence’.