The Pulpit Commentary
Another interval follows, and then a fresh and fuller burst of inspiration, manifestly in close connection with Eze_12:21-28, and to be read in combination with Jer_23:1-40; which, as Jeremiah was in communication with the exiles (Jer_29:1), Ezekiel may probably have seen. There were false prophets and prophetesses among the exiles as well as in Jerusalem, and an utterance is now found for his long pent up indignation.

Eze_13:2, Eze_13:3

Son of man, prophesy, etc. The sin of the men whom Ezekiel denounced was that they prophesied out of their own hearts (Jer_14:14; Jer_23:16, Jer_23:26), and followed their own spirit instead of the Spirit of Jehovah. All was human and of the earth. Not a single fact in the future, not a single eternal law governing both the future and the past, was brought to light by it. To one who was conscious that he had a message which he had not devised himself, and which he had not been taught by men (Gal_1:12); that he had no selfish by-ends in what he said and did; that he was risking peace, reputation, life itself, for the truth revealed to him,—nothing could be more repulsive than this claim to have seen a vision of Jehovah, by men who bad in reality seen nothing. For foolish prophets, read, with the stronger Hebrew, the prophets, the fools, the words deriving their force from a kind of paronomasia of alliteration. The nabiim are also the n'balim.

The Pulpit Commentary
Like the foxes in the deserts, etc. The points of comparison are manifold. The fox is cunning (Luk_13:32, where the term is applied to Herod Antipas). It spoils the vine and its fruits (So 2:15); it burrows among ruins (Neh_4:3; Lam_5:18). So the false prophets were crafty, laid waste the vineyard of the Lord of hosts (Isa_5:7), made their profit out of the ruin of Israel, and made that ruin worse. The 'Reineke Fuchs,' in satirizing the monks and priests of the sixteenth century under the same comparison, presents a curious, though probably unconscious, analogue. In Mat_7:15 and Act_20:29 wolves appear as the types of the false prophet.

The Pulpit Commentary
The verse contains two distinct images. There were breaches in the walls of Jerusalem, literally and spiritually, and the false prophets had not been as "repairers of the breach" (Isa_58:12; Psa_106:23). The hedge of the vineyard of Israel had been broken through (Isa_5:5), and they had done nothing to restore it (Eze_22:30). The day of battle, the day of the Lord, had come, and they were betraying the people instead of helping.

The Pulpit Commentary
The Lord saith. The verb is that specially used for the utterance of prophets, and the deceivers used it without the authority of a true mission. For they have made others (or, men) to hope, etc; as in the Authorized Version and Revised Version, read, with the margin of Revised Version, they hope to confirm their word, taking the verb as in Psa_119:43, Psa_119:49; Job_6:11, et al.). So the Vulgate, persereraverunt confirmare. Through deceiving others, they came to deceive themselves, and were really expecting a fulfilment.

The Pulpit Commentary
Mine hand shall be, etc. After Ezekiel's manner, the thought of verse 6 is repeated in an altered form in verses 7, 8. What had been a statement appears as a question to which there could be but one answer. The prophet, as it were, cross examines his rivals. Could they deny the charge? Was not every word of it true? Then, after the statement of the sin of the false prophets, comes the proclamation of the punishment. The hand of Jehovah would be upon them for evil and not for good. In the assembly of my people. The Hebrew word indicates not a large popular gathering, but a secret council of those who deliberate together to carry out their plans (Psa_89:7; Psa_111:1; Jer_6:11). The prophets who had acted together, and been looked up to by the people as forming such a council, should lose that position of authority. The words that follow point to a yet lower degradation. They should be in the strictest sense of the word excommunicated. The city of Jerusalem, perhaps every city of Judah, had its register of citizens. In such a register were inscribed also the names of proselytes of other races (Psa_87:6), and so men came to think of a like register as kept by the King of kings, containing the names of those who were heirs of the "life" of the true Israel (Exo_32:32; Isa_4:3; Dan_12:1). In neither of those registers, the earthly and the heavenly (but stress is probably laid upon the former), shall the false prophets find a place. Ezr_2:62 gives an example of the use made of such registers on the return from the Captivity. One notes the contrast between the "my people" which recognizes Israel as still the heritage of Jehovah, and the "thy people" used in Eze_3:11 of the rebellious house of the Captivity. For the false prophets there should be no return to the land of Israel such as that which the prophet anticipated for the faithful and the penitent (Eze_37:21; comp. Isa_57:13). Here there is no specific mention of the name being struck out. The prophet contemplates a new register, in which their names will never even have appeared.

The Pulpit Commentary
Peace, when there was no peace. This, as in Mic_3:5; Jer_6:14; Jer_23:17; Zec_10:2, was the root evil of the false prophet's work. He lulled men into a false security, and so narcotized their consciences. One built up a wall. The imagery starts from the picture of a ruined city already implied in Zec_10:4 and Zec_10:5, and expands into a parable in which we note a parallelism

(1) to Isaiah's picture of dishonest and unsafe building (Eze_30:13);

(2) to our Lord's parable at the end of the sermon on the mount (Mat_7:24, Mat_7:25 : Luk_6:47-49).

With an incisive sarcasm, Ezekiel describes what we should call the "scamp-work" of their spiritual building. They profess to be "repairers of the breach" (Isa_58:12) in the walls of the spiritual Zion, and this is how they set about it. One built up a wall. This may point to a false prophet, but the "one" (Hebrew, "he") is probably indefinite, like the French on, equivalent to "some one." Some scheme is devised, an Egyptian alliance or the like, to which the people look for safety. It is, as in the margin of the Authorized Version, a "slight wall," such as was used for partition walls inside houses. They make it do duty as an outside wall (kir in verse 12). It has no sure "footings," and materials and workmanship are alike defective. The false prophets would smear it over with untempered mortar (the Hebrew word is found only here and in Eze_22:28, and is probably an example of Ezekiel's acquaintance with the technical vocabulary of his time)—with a stucco or plaster, which is hardly better than whitewash, used to hide its detects and give it a semblance of solidity. They come, that is, with smooth words and promises of peace.

The Pulpit Commentary
In words which would almost seem to have been in our Lord's thoughts in Mat_7:25, we have the picture of an Eastern storm, torrents of rain passing into hail (LXX; λίθοι πετρόβολοι), accompanied by a tornado of irresistible violence (compare like pictures in Exo_9:22; Jos_10:11; Isa_30:30; Isa_28:2, Isa_28:17). And when the disaster comes men will turn to those who professed to be master builders and repairers of the breach, with derision, and ask, "Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed?" And then men shall see that through all this it is Jehovah's hand that has been working. It is he who "rends" the wall; he who "brings it down to the ground;" he who "accomplishes his wrath" (Mat_7:13-15). That shall be the end of the false "visions of peace."

The Pulpit Commentary
Set thy face against the daughters of thy people. Here we note that the formula, "thy people," of Eze_3:11 reappears. The section which follows (Eze_3:17-23) throws an interesting side light on the position of women in the religious life of Israel. For good as for evil, their influence was stronger there than in most other nations. Miriam had led the way (Exo_15:21), and had been followed by Deborah (Jdg_5:4). Huldah had been almost as prominent in Josiah's reformation as Hilkiah the high priest (2Ki_22:14-20; 2Ch_34:22). It was but natural that there should be women on the other side also, guiding their own sex; and it is probable that Ezekiel had in his thoughts some special leaders who headed the women of Jerusalem in their opposition to Jeremiah, as afterwards at Pathros (Jer_44:15). So, later on, we have the prophetess Noadiah heading the opposition to Nehemiah (Neh_6:14); and in the New Testament, on the one hand, Anns (Luk_2:36) and the daughters of Philip (Act_21:9), and on the other, the ill-regulated prophetesses of Corinth (1Co_11:5) and the woman Jezebel, who called herself a prophetess (Rev_2:20).

The Pulpit Commentary
Woe to the women who sew pillows, etc. Ezekiel's minute description, though it is from a different standpoint, reminds us of that in Isa_3:18-26. In both cases there are the difficulties inseparable from the fact that he had seen what he describes, and that we have not; and that he uses words which were familiar enough then, but are now found nowhere else. so that (as in the case of the ἐξουσία of 1Co_11:10) we have to guess their meaning. The picture which he draws of a false prophetess is obviously taken from the life, and the dress, we can scarcely doubt, was one that belonged to her calling. The word for "sew" meets us in Gen_3:7; Job_16:15; Ecc_3:7; and the English is an adequate rendering. For the word rendered "pillows," the LXX. gives προσκεφάλαια, the Vulgate pulvilli (equivalent to "cushions"). The word here obviously denotes an article of dress, something fastened to the arms. For arm-holes read joints of the two hoods, which may mean either knuckles, wrists, or (as in the Revised Version) elbows. Possibly these may have been, like the phylacteries of Mat_23:5, eases containing charms or incantations, and used as amulets. Something analogous to, if not identical with, these ornaments, is found in the "seeress wreaths," and "divining garments" of Cassandra, and in the "garlands" or "fillets" of the Pythian priestess in AEsch; 'Eumeu.,' 39. By some writers (Havernick) the word has been taken, as, perhaps, in the Authorized Version, for "pillows" in the larger sense, either literally as used in wanton luxury, like the "tapestry" of Pro_7:16, or figuratively, like the "wall" of the preceding section, for counsels that lulled the conscience into the slumber of a false security. Strangely enough, the Hebrew noun rendered "arm-holes" has the pronominal suffix "my arms," or "my hands." Keil accepts this rendering, and explains it as meaning that the prophetesses sought to "bind the arms," i.e. to restrain the power of Jehovah. On the whole, it is safer to follow Ewald and Hitzig, as I have done above. Make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature. The word for "kerchiefs" is again unique, but is, perhaps, a variant of the word in Isa_3:22, and rendered "wimples" in the Authorized Version. There is a fair consensus of interpretations that it means, as "kerchief" means, some covering for the head, a veil that hangs down over it, like the Spanish mantilla. Its use is, perhaps, explained by the words that follow, which suggest that the veils were not worn by the prophetesses themselves, but by those who came to consult them. The former had, as it were, a whole wardrobe of such veils adapted to persons of various heights, so that in all cases it shrouded their whole form. We may, perhaps, read between the lines the thought that their utterances, like their veils, were adapted to suit every age and every taste. Analogous usages present themselves in the tallith of later Judaism, and the veil worn by the Roman augurs. Ezekiel paints, we may believe, what he had seen. And in those veils he had seen a net cast over the victims of the false prophetesses, a snare from which they could not escape. Will ye hunt, etc.? The question is one of burning indignation. Omitting the words, "that come" (which have nothing in the Hebrew corresponding to them), the second clause will run, "Will ye make your own souls live?" and the question is explained by what follows. The prophetesses were living upon the credulity of the victims over whom they cast their nets.

The Pulpit Commentary
Will ye pollute me, etc.? rather, with the Revised Version, ye have profaned, the interrogative form not being continued in the Hebrew. The prophet dwells with scorn on the miserable pay for which the prophetesses were guilty of so great a sin. Not for rewards of divination, like those of Balsam (Num_22:7), but for gifts like those bestowed on the harlot or the beggar (l Samuel 2:36; Hos_3:2)—for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread—they plied their wretched trade. For examples of the lower gifts in kind offered to prophets, compare those of Saul (1Sa_9:8), of Jeroboam's wife (1Ki_14:3), the false prophets in Mic_3:5. And they did this in direct opposition to the will of Jehovah. They "slew," i.e. drew on to destruction, the souls that were meant for life. They "saved the souls alive," i.e. "their own, which were worthy of death." That was the outcome of their "lying" divinations.

The Pulpit Commentary
To make them fly, etc.; rather, with the Revised Version and Ewald, as if they were birds, carrying out the thought that the amulets on the arms of the prophetesses, and the veil cast over the heads of the votaries, were like the snare of the fowler. So the threat that follows, that the amulets should be torn off and the veil rent, is practically equivalent to the promise that the victims should be "delivered out of the snare of the fowler" (Psa_91:3; Psa_124:7). They should no longer he in the power of those who traded on their credulity. They too shall know that he who speaks is indeed Jehovah.

The Pulpit Commentary
Because with lies, etc. What specially stirred Ezekiel's indignation was taut the false prophetesses saddened the hearts of the righteous (of those who looked to him and Jeremiah for guidance) with prophecies of evil and deluded the evil door by false hopes, so that he should not turn from his evil way and live. For by promising him life, read, with the LXX; Vulgate, and Luther and the Revised Version, that he should live, as he would do, if he turned from his wickedness (Eze_3:21; Eze_18:9, Eze_18:17).