Jeremiah 23
Jeremiah 23 opens with judgment on the worst kind of failure: leaders who betray the people in their care. In the prophets, a king or a priest is a shepherd, charged with feeding and guarding the flock; and Judah's shepherds have done neither. Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! (v. 1). But the LORD does not leave His scattered people to the wolves. He pledges to gather the remnant Himself and to set over them shepherds who will truly feed them - and then to raise up one King above all, of David's own line, in whom everything the false shepherds lacked will be made whole.3
That promise is the chapter's height: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth (v. 5). And He is given a name that no merely human king could carry: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (v. 6). Where the kings of Judah grasped at safety and lost it, this King will be safety itself; where they failed to do justice, justice will be His very name.
The second half of the chapter is the long shadow cast by that light. Judah is full of voices that claim to speak for God and do not - prophets who speak a vision of their own heart, who cry peace to people racing toward ruin, who steal each other's words and pass off their own dreams as the word of God. Jeremiah is broken by it: Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets (v. 9). Over the whole crowd of counterfeits the LORD sets the test of a true messenger - whether he has stood in the counsel of the LORD (v. 18) - and the unanswerable power of the real thing: Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? (v. 29).2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 23:1-8THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
1Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. 2Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD. 3And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them; and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. 4And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD. 5Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. 6In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 8But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
The chapter opens with a word as old as the prophets and as sharp as any in the book: Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD (v. 1). The word translated pastors is simply shepherds - and in the prophets a shepherd is a ruler: a king, a prince, a priest, anyone charged with the care of God's people. A shepherd has one calling, to feed and to guard, to keep the flock together and lead it to safety. Judah's shepherds have done the reverse. The LORD names the failure plainly: Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them (v. 2). They have not merely neglected the sheep; their misrule has driven them into exile and danger. Notice whose flock it is. Three times in two verses the LORD calls them my - the sheep of my pasture, my people, my flock. The shepherds were stewards, never owners; the sheep belonged to God all along. And that is exactly why the woe is so heavy. To scatter the flock is not a private failure of leadership; it is a wrong done to the One whose sheep they are. So the verdict comes back on the shepherds' own heads: I will visit upon you the evil of your doings.3
Judgment on the false shepherds is not the last word; it clears the ground for a promise. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them; and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them (vv. 3-4). Where the shepherds scattered, the LORD will gather; where they drove the sheep away, He will bring them again. And the work is His own: I will gather… I will set up. The flock that human leaders ruined, God Himself takes in hand. Two things stand out. First, He saves a remnant - not the whole proud nation as it was, but the ones brought low and scattered, the survivors He gathers back. Out of loss He grows something fruitful again. Second, He promises new shepherds which shall feed them, so that the flock shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking. The fear, the dismay, the lack - everything the bad shepherds caused - is undone, not by better luck, but by the LORD setting true shepherds over His people. The verses lean forward, and the next two will tell us toward whom: one Shepherd-King above all the rest.1
Now the promise rises to its summit, and the language turns royal and exact: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth (v. 5). The word Branch is a single Hebrew term for a fresh shoot springing from a stump or a root - a living, growing thing. It is the LORD's answer to a dynasty that looked cut down: from the felled tree of David's house a new shoot will spring, and it will be righteous. This King will not merely hold office; He will reign and prosper and will execute judgment and justice in the earth - the very thing the failed shepherds never did. Then comes the name, and it is staggering: this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (v. 6). The name set on this King is the divine name itself, joined to our righteousness. He does not simply rule justly; He is named after the righteousness of God, and that righteousness is ours - held out to the people He saves. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: the safety the shepherds could not give, this King will be. Verses 7 and 8 then promise a homecoming so great it will eclipse the Exodus itself - no longer the LORD liveth, which brought up… out of… Egypt, but the LORD who gathered His people out of the north country, and from all countries. A new and greater deliverance, under a new and greater King.
Jeremiah 23:9-22Who Hath Stood in the Counsel of the LORD?
9Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness. 10For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right. 11For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD. 12Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.
The prophet who has just announced a coming King now lets us see what the false prophets have done to him: Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness (v. 9). This is not detached commentary. Jeremiah is undone - heart broken, bones shaking, reeling like a man overcome with wine - and the cause is twofold. It is because of the prophets, the liars who claim God's name; and it is because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness, the crushing weight of the true word he carries against them. A real prophet does not denounce sin from a safe distance; he feels the holiness of God and the horror of the lie at the same time, and it nearly tears him apart. He looks out and sees the rot everywhere: the land is full of adulterers, the very land mourneth, and at the heart of it stand the men who should have been its light - both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness (v. 11). The corruption has reached the temple itself. And their end is sure: their way will be as slippery ways in the darkness (v. 12), a path with no footing, leading only down.
13And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. 14I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. 15Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.
The LORD now weighs the prophets of Jerusalem against an older scandal. I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err (v. 13). The northern kingdom's prophets had spoken in the name of a false god outright - bad enough. But what the LORD sees in Jerusalem is worse: an horrible thing. These men speak in the name of the true God, yet commit adultery, and walk in lies (v. 14). And the deadliest charge is this: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness. That is the real damage a false prophet does. By telling sinners they are fine, he confirms them in their sin; he strengthens the very hands that should be falling slack in repentance, so that none doth return. A lying word of comfort is not harmless - it locks people into the ruin they might otherwise have fled. The verdict is severe to match: such prophets are as Sodom in the LORD's sight, and He will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall (v. 15) - bitterness for the false sweetness they have poured out. From the very ones who should have been a fountain of truth, profaneness has flowed into all the land.
16Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. 17They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. 18For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?
Now the LORD gives His people the plainest possible warning about these voices: Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD (v. 16). Here is the root diagnosis of every false prophet, in a single line. The source of their message is their own heart. They are not relaying what God has said; they are voicing what they themselves have imagined and wishing it into His mouth. And the effect on the hearers is exact: they make you vain - they fill people with empty hopes, inflate them with confidence that has no ground under it. The content of the lie is named in verse 17, and it is chillingly tailored to its audience: They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. Mark who is being comforted - those who despise God and who walk after their own imagination. To these the false prophets promise peace and immunity: No evil shall come upon you. It is the oldest and most welcome lie there is - that a person can keep his sin and his safety both, that the road he has chosen will somehow not lead where roads like it always lead. People love that message; it asks nothing of them. And it is a lie.
Against the prophets who speak from their own hearts, the LORD raises the one question that exposes them all: For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? (v. 18). The image is of a royal council - the inner circle where the King reveals His mind and gives His commands. A true messenger is one who has stood there, who has actually heard the word from the LORD's own mouth and then carries it out faithfully. The false prophet has stood in no such council; he has only consulted himself. The LORD presses the point hard in verses 21-22, which follow: I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way. There is the test laid out twice over. First, commission: a true prophet is sent; the false one runs unsent, eager to speak where God has not spoken. Second, fruit: the genuine word, faithfully delivered, turns people from their evil way. That is what the word of God does - it produces repentance. A message that leaves its hearers comfortable in their sin, that never turns anyone from evil, has by that very fact shown its source. It did not come from the council of the LORD.
19Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. 20The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly. 21I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. 22But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
Jeremiah 23:23-32Is Not My Word Like as a Fire?
23Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? 24Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. 25I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 26How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; 27Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
Before exposing the dreamers, the LORD asserts something about Himself that pulls the ground out from under every lie told in His name: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? (vv. 23-24). The false prophets had evidently been acting as though God were small and local - a deity at hand who could be managed, kept at arm's length, perhaps even fooled. The LORD answers that He is both at hand and afar off: there is no secret place a man can slip into where God does not see, no corner of creation outside His presence, for He fills heaven and earth. This is the death of the lying prophet's whole enterprise. He invents his dreams imagining that God neither hears nor sees what he is up to - and the LORD says, I have heard what the prophets said… saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed (v. 25). The repetition - I have dreamed, I have dreamed - carries a note of mockery; we can almost hear the breathless, self-important claim. But the God who fills heaven and earth has heard every word. He names them for what they are: prophets of the deceit of their own heart (v. 26), men who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams (v. 27) - aiming, whether they know it or not, at the same ruin Baal once worked: making Israel forget the LORD.
28The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD. 29Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? 30Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour. 31Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. 32Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.
The LORD now draws the line between a dream and His word with a single, vivid image. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD (v. 28). There is no objection here to a man telling his dream as a dream - only to passing it off as the word of God. The two are as different as chaff and wheat. Chaff is the dry, weightless husk that the wind carries off at threshing; wheat is the grain itself, the thing that feeds. A human dream, however vivid, is chaff - light, empty, blown away. The word of the LORD is wheat - substantial, nourishing, the thing a life can actually live on. To mix them, to serve chaff as if it were grain, is to starve the very people you claim to feed. So the LORD sets Himself flatly against the counterfeiters, three times over: I am against the prophets… that steal my words (v. 30) - who pilfer the language of true revelation and recycle it as their own; I am against the prophets… that use their tongues, and say, He saith (v. 31) - who manufacture an oracle and stamp it with thus saith the LORD; I am against them that prophesy false dreams (v. 32). And the final indictment is quietly devastating: they shall not profit this people at all. For all their running and dreaming and borrowed thunder, they accomplish exactly nothing. Chaff feeds no one.3
Jeremiah 23:33-40The Burden of the LORD
33And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD. 34And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house. 35Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken? 36And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.
The chapter closes on a strange and pointed scene built around a single word. People keep coming to Jeremiah with a sneering question: What is the burden of the LORD? (v. 33). The Hebrew word for burden also means an oracle, a prophetic message; but it carries the plain sense of a heavy load, something hard to carry. So the question had become a mockery. Jeremiah's messages were almost all warnings of judgment, heavy words; and the scoffers turned his vocabulary into a joke - well, what's the LORD's burden today? - as if his solemn oracles were a tiresome weight they had to put up with. The LORD will not let the mockery stand. He tells Jeremiah to throw the word back at them: What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD. The double meaning snaps shut like a trap. They wanted to know the LORD's burden; the LORD answers that they have become His burden, and He will set them down - I will even forsake you. Anyone who keeps flinging the phrase around as a taunt, He says, will be punished, that man and his house (v. 34). The right way to seek God's word is given in its place: ask honestly, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken? (v. 35) - not what's the burden this time? The sin underneath the joke is named without flinching: ye have perverted the words of the living God (v. 36).
37Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the LORD answered thee? and, What hath the LORD spoken? 38But since ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus saith the LORD; Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD; 39Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence: 40And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.
The closing verses press the wordplay to its sober end. The people had been told plainly to drop the mocking catchphrase - I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD (v. 38) - and their refusal to stop is itself the final act of contempt. So the LORD makes the pun the very shape of the judgment: Behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence (v. 39). The Hebrew turns on a hair: the people had made God's word a burden to be cast off, and now God will cast them off - lift them up and set them down out of His presence. What they did to His word, He will do to them. The result is named in the last verse: an everlasting reproach… a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten (v. 40). It is a heavy door to close a chapter that opened with the promise of THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS - but the two belong together. The same God who raises a righteous Branch to save His remnant will not be mocked by those who twist His word into a joke. To treat the word of the living God lightly, to make a punchline of His warnings, is no small thing. The chapter that holds out the highest hope also draws the hardest line, and both come from the same holy mouth.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 23 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for tsemach (v. 5, the “Branch” or growing shoot), for the compound name YHWH tsidqenu (v. 6, “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”), and for the wordplay on massa (vv. 33-40), which means both “burden” and “oracle.”
- Jeremiah 23 ↔ Ezekiel 34 · John 10 · Romans 3 · 1 Corinthians 1Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 23 to the rest of Scripture - the scattering shepherds and the gathering LORD (vv. 1-4) read alongside Ezekiel 34 and the Good Shepherd of John 10, and the King named THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (v. 6) read beside Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us… righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30) and the righteousness of God revealed in Romans 3.
- Jeremiah 23 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 23 - the shepherd imagery of verses 1-4, the much-discussed “righteous Branch” and the construction of the royal name in verses 5-6, the marks of a false prophet across verses 9-32, and the double meaning of “burden” that drives verses 33-40.
Where this echoes in Scripture
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
- Ezekiel 34:23And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.The same promise as verses 3-4 - the LORD gathering His scattered flock and raising one true Shepherd over them.
- Jeremiah 33:15-16In those days... will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David... and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.Jeremiah repeats the promise of verses 5-6 almost word for word - the righteous Branch and the divine name.
- Zechariah 6:12-13Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH... he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne.The Branch of verse 5 taken up as a royal title - the King who builds and reigns.
- 1 Corinthians 1:30Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.The name of verse 6 named in person - the One who is made unto us righteousness.
- Luke 1:32-33the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever.The Branch raised to David’s throne (v. 5) - the King who reigns without end.
Who Hath Stood in the Counsel of the LORD?
- Ezekiel 13:10they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter.The same false comfort as verse 17 - prophets crying peace where there is none.
- John 10:11-13I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep... The hireling fleeth... and careth not for the sheep.The Good Shepherd set against the hireling shepherds of verse 1 and the lying prophets of verse 17.
- 2 Timothy 4:3the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.The audience of verse 17 in every age - people who seek out the voices that flatter them.
- Jeremiah 6:14They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.Jeremiah’s recurring charge, the same as verse 17 - a false peace that papers over a real wound.
- Matthew 9:36when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.The scattered flock of verses 1-2 met with the compassion of the true Shepherd.
Is Not My Word Like as a Fire?
- Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword... and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.The fire-and-hammer word of verse 29 - living, piercing, dividing, never inert.
- Psalm 139:7-10Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?... even there shall thy hand lead me.The God who fills heaven and earth (vv. 23-24) - no secret place lies outside His presence.
- Psalm 1:4The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.The chaff of verse 28 - the weightless thing the wind carries off, set against what endures.
- Isaiah 55:11So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.The word that does its work (v. 29) - never empty, always effective, unlike the dreamers’ chaff.
- Acts 2:37Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?The hammer breaking the rock (v. 29) - the word of God shattering hard hearts to repentance.
The Burden of the LORD
- Deuteronomy 18:20But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak... even that prophet shall die.The law behind the judgment of verses 33-40 - the deadly seriousness of misusing the name of the LORD.
- Malachi 1:13Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts.The same contempt as verse 33 - treating the things of God as a wearisome burden.
- Amos 8:11Behold, the days come... that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread... but of hearing the words of the LORD.The forsaking of verse 39 - what it is to be cut off from the word once despised.
- 2 Peter 3:3-4there shall come in the last days scoffers... saying, Where is the promise of his coming?The scoffers’ question of verse 33 in another age - mocking the word of God they do not want to hear.
- Isaiah 66:2but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.The opposite of the scoffers in verses 33-40 - the one who receives God’s word with reverence rather than contempt.