Ezekiel 13:21

They were women of Israel who claimed to speak for the LORD while their words came out of their own hearts. The first part of the chapter deals with men who did the same thing (Ezekiel 13:1–16). God likens those men to foxes among ruins (Ezekiel 13:4), and to builders who put up a flimsy wall of false hope and daub it with untempered mortar, a wall he promises to bring down (Ezekiel 13:10). With the word “Likewise” he now sends Ezekiel against the women, whose fault was the same and whose methods were their own.

“Daughters” is bath, the ordinary word for a daughter. Strong’s derives it from bânâh, “to build”, as the feminine of bên, “son”. “The daughters of thy people” could mean any women of the nation, and here it means those among them who were claiming to prophesy. Because they are “thy people”, Ezekiel is being sent against members of his own community.

Ezekiel himself is called “son of man”, bên ʼâdâm, the name God uses for him throughout the book. Bên is “son” and ʼâdâm is “human being”, so the title marks him as a mortal man standing before the majesty of God and sent to his fellow men. He is told to “set thy face against” the women, a phrase for firm and open opposition, the same posture he takes when he sets his face toward the siege of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:7). Then he is to “prophesy thou against them”. The verb nâbâʼ stands behind “prophesy” for the women and for Ezekiel alike, so their false word is answered by a true one.

“Out of their own heart” names the source of their messages. The heart, lêb, is the whole inner life in Hebrew: the feelings, the will and the mind. Their prophecies came from their own thoughts, wishes and imaginings, and they spoke them as words from God. The men were charged the same way (Ezekiel 13:2) and called foolish prophets “that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing” (Ezekiel 13:3). True prophecy begins with God and comes from his Spirit.

They were objects the women made and used in their practice, and the LORD calls them tools for hunting souls. “Pillows” translates keçeth, which Strong’s defines as a cushion or pillow covering a seat or bed. These were sewn “to all armholes”, where the Hebrew names the joints of the hands, ʼatstsîyl together with yâd, “hand”. Many modern translations call them “magic bands”. “Kerchiefs” is miçpâchâh, a veil spread out, and the women made them “upon the head of every stature”. The word for stature, qôwmâh, means height, so these veils were made for heads tall and short, for anyone at all who came to them.

What exactly these things were is unknown. They were most likely charms, amulets or bands used in divination. They may have been meant to give a false sense of protection to the people who wore them, or to lend the women an air of mystical power, and they may have been used in rituals meant to bring on trances. The veils may also have pictured a covering over those who came, and so the hold the women claimed over them. Practices of this kind belonged to the nations around Israel, and God’s law forbade divination and enchantment among his people (Deuteronomy 18:10–12). Whatever their form, verse 18 says plainly what they were for: “to hunt souls”. God answers by tearing both away, the bands from the women’s arms in verse 20 and the veils in verse 21.

To hunt souls is to catch and hold people for one’s own gain, the way a hunter takes an animal. The verb tsûwd means to lie in wait, and so to catch an animal, and it is used of men as well. “Souls” is nephesh, which means a breathing creature, life, soul, self or person. The women lay in wait for people themselves, for their lives and their standing with God, and the picture of a predator shows how dangerous they were.

Verse 18 begins with “Woe”, hôwy, an exclamation of grief, “ah” or “alas”, over the suffering that is coming. Then God asks, “Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?” The question is asked for its force, and it carries God’s indignation. The prey are “my people”, his own flock, and the hunters will answer to him. The second half exposes the women’s claim. They promised life to those who came to them, using the verb châyâh, “to live” or “to keep alive”, while they were taking those same people as prey.

Verse 20 adds that they hunted the souls “to make them fly”. The verb is pârach, which means to break out as a bud, to spread, and to fly as a bird spreads its wings. Its sense here is debated. It may mean that the women made people flee from God’s true word, or that they made hope and life take flight into despair, or that they made people flourish for a while in a false security that would end in ruin. On any of these readings the phrase shows the hold the women sought over people’s souls.

In verse 21, “to be hunted” is mâtsûwd, a net or a capture. God promises that his people’s time as catch in the women’s net is over.

They put God’s holy name on their own lies, and they did it for almost nothing. “Pollute” is châlal, to profane. Its root meaning is to bore or wound, and it is used for treating something holy as common. By claiming that their words came from him, the women profaned God himself, and they did it “among my people”, in the very place where his name should have been honoured.

The price was “handfuls of barley” and “pieces of bread”, a few scoops of grain and scraps of food. The women sold the sacred trust of prophecy for the cheapest of wages. The faithful prophets spoke God’s word at great cost to themselves, welcome or unwelcome, and these women spoke whatever paid.

The verse ends, “by your lying to my people that hear your lies”. The verb kâzab means to lie or deceive, to fail or be found a liar, and the noun kâzâb means falsehood, an untruth, and figuratively an idol. A lie needs a hearer, and God’s people were listening, which shows how open they were to deception and how grave a thing it is to speak for God.

They cast down people God meant to keep, and they reassured people God was warning. Verse 19 puts it in the starkest terms: they acted “to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live”. The first phrase means disheartening the righteous, people who were seeking God or turning back to him, by burdening them with false guilt or despair and misrepresenting his grace. The second means giving false hope and assurance to the wicked and unrepentant, telling them they were safe from judgment and their sins were of little weight, so that they stayed in their danger unaware of it.

Verse 22 states the same two harms plainly. “Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad.” “Lies” here is sheqer, which means falsehood, a lie, deception or a sham, and it can also mean something vain that ends in disappointment. “Righteous” is tsaddîyq, the just man, and “made sad” is kâʼâh, to lose heart, or in this form to deject. The word for heart is lêb again. In verse 17 the lies came out of the women’s own hearts, and here they fall on the hearts of the righteous.

“Whom I have not made sad” uses a second verb, kâʼab, which means to feel pain or to grieve. The English repeats “sad”, and the Hebrew uses two verbs. God disowns this grief and lays it at the women’s door. He is the one who speaks comfort to his people (Isaiah 40:1), and the sorrow these women laid on the faithful went against his will and his character.

“And strengthened the hands of the wicked” is the second harm. Châzaq means to make strong, encourage, make firm or harden, and the hands, yâd, stand for a person’s power and resolve. The women’s assurances made the wicked bolder and steadier in sin. “Wicked” here is raʻ, bad or evil, and in “his wicked way” it is râshâʻ, morally wrong or guilty. Isaiah uses the same picture for good when he calls for weak hands to be strengthened (Isaiah 35:3).

The last words give the result: “that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life”. Shûwb means to turn back or return, and it is the word for a sinner turning from his course. Derek is a road, and figuratively a course of life. The promise of life, châyâh, meant peace, safety and well-being offered to the unrepentant, and it took away their reason to turn. God’s desire is the opposite. He would have the wicked turn from his ways and live (Ezekiel 18:23, Ezekiel 33:11), and he wants all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Proverbs puts it this way: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

He sets himself against the deceivers, tears away their tools, and takes his people out of their hand. Verse 20 begins with “Wherefore”, turning from the charge to the sentence, and the sentence opens with God himself: “Behold, I am against your pillows.” The bands the women sewed now have the LORD for their enemy.

“I will tear them from your arms” uses qâraʻ, to tear or rend, a word usually used of tearing something away by force. “Arms” is zᵉrôwaʻ, the arm as it is stretched out, and the women’s arms stand for the strength and influence they held over others. Then God “will let the souls go”. The verb shâlach means to send, to send away or to let go, and the people the women hunted “to make them fly” God himself releases. Verse 21 gives the veils the same end: “Your kerchiefs also will I tear.”

The rescue is described with nâtsal, to snatch away: “and deliver my people out of your hand”. The one delivered is God’s people, and the danger they are taken from is the women’s hand. Yâd means the hand, and with it power, means and control, so the phrase pictures the people pulled from the grip that held them. Verse 21 promises that “they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted”, and verse 23 repeats, “for I will deliver my people out of your hand”. God has delivered Israel out of oppression before (Exodus 6), he promises to open blind eyes and bring prisoners out (Isaiah 42:7), and later in Ezekiel he promises to be the shepherd of his flock himself (Ezekiel 34). Jeremiah pronounces a like woe on false shepherds (Jeremiah 23:1–4).

Verse 23 brings the women’s work to an end: “Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations.” “See” is châzâh, the verb for having a vision, and “vanity” is shâvᵉʼ, a word for ruin, deceit, idolatry and uselessness, so their visions were empty and false and led to destruction. The word is often joined to idolatry and to lies spoken in God’s name. “Divine” is qâçam, to decide by lot or magical scroll, and so to divine, and “divinations” is its noun qeçem, a lot, an oracle or a divination, a word that can include the fee paid for one. That fee fits the barley and bread of verse 19. The men of the chapter’s first half were charged with “a lying divination” as well (Ezekiel 13:6–7).

God delivers his people from false teaching in several ways. He exposes the falsehood through his own acts and judgments, so that its emptiness is plain. He raises up faithful messengers who speak his true word, as he set Ezekiel to be a watchman over Israel (Ezekiel 33). And he gives his people discernment through his Spirit and his written word, so that they can test what they are taught.

This passage gives three marks of a false prophet: the word comes from the speaker’s own heart, it is spoken for gain, and it grieves the righteous while it comforts the wicked. The rest of Scripture adds its own tests. A prophet whose message contradicts what God has revealed is false (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). So is the prophet who presumes to speak a word in God’s name that he has not commanded, and a word that fails to come to pass shows itself false (Deuteronomy 18:20–22). God said through Jeremiah that the prophets of his day were prophesying lies in his name (Jeremiah 14:14–15), and that they spoke as men he had never sent (Jeremiah 23:21–22).

Jesus warned of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing and are ravening wolves within, and said that they are known by their fruits, by their character, their way of life and what their ministry produces (Matthew 7:15–20). Peter warned that false teachers would arise among God’s people as false prophets did in Israel, and that in their greed they would exploit their hearers (2 Peter 2:1–3), the same motive as the barley and bread. John tells believers to try the spirits whether they are of God (1 John 4:1). The Bereans searched the Scriptures daily to see whether what Paul told them was so (Acts 17:11), and Paul writes that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for reproof and correction (2 Timothy 3:16). The measure of every word claiming to be from God is the word God has already given.

These women spoke out of their own hearts, and Jesus spoke what the Father gave him to say (John 12:49). He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), the Son through whom God has spoken in these last days, after speaking through the prophets in times past (Hebrews 1:1–2). He knows the Father and makes him known (Matthew 11:27), so it is through him above all that people come to “know that I am the LORD”.

The women hunted souls, and Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). He sets the thief, who comes to steal, kill and destroy, beside himself, the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:10–11). The women offered life as bait for a trap, and he gives life abundantly. The women sold their words for pieces of bread, and Jesus calls himself the bread of life (John 6:35). The righteous whom the women’s lies made sad find in him the rest he promises to all who labour and are heavy laden (Matthew 11:28–30).

He also refused the women’s false comfort to the wicked. He began his preaching with “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15), said that he came to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32), and exposed religious hypocrisy, calling the scribes and Pharisees whited sepulchres (Matthew 23:27). The life the women promised was an illusion, and Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), who gives eternal life as God’s gift where sin earns death (Romans 6:23). He is the good shepherd who protects his sheep from the wolf (John 10:11–12).

What God promises in verses 20 and 21, Christ accomplishes. On the cross he “spoiled principalities and powers” (Colossians 2:15), breaking the hold of sin and death that held people captive, and God has delivered his people from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14). God told the women that his people would be taken “out of your hand”, and Jesus says of his sheep, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). The Spirit he sends guides his people into all truth (John 16:13), and Ezekiel himself later carries God’s promise of a new heart and a new spirit within his people (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

This passage shows us a God who watches over the people others hunt. He calls them “my people” in the middle of a charge against their deceivers, and he sets himself against everyone who makes prey of them. He cares what is said in his name, and he counts a lie told for a handful of barley as profaning him. He grieves over the righteous who have been made sad by false words spoken in his name, and he wants the wicked to turn from his way and live.

His answer to the hunters is to tear their tools away and let the souls go, and he does it so that everyone involved will know that he is the LORD. If a false word has ever weighed on you, verse 22 shows where that sorrow came from, and the God who said “whom I have not made sad” is the one who keeps his own. His true word leads to life, and Christ, the good shepherd, holds his sheep in his own hand, where they are safe from every hunter.