What Does Jeremiah 27:15 Mean?
For I have not sent them, says the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my nature, so that I might drive you out, and that you might lose the way, you and the prophets who prophesy to you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.THE KEY
The prophets invoke the LORD’s name as if they carry his nature, but the verse exposes the gap: they were never sent, and their words end in shared loss.
THE MEANING
Calling a message God’s word does not make it so; this voice claims the LORD’s nature while lacking his sending. The consequence named is severe: being driven out and perishing. The sentence includes both the hearers and the prophets who speak to them in that loss.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A message that uses God’s name must come from God and therefore keep its hearers safe. The verse shows that the name alone does not authenticate the source or shield its hearers from loss.
THE ROOT
שְׁלַחְתִּים
shelaḥtîm
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth; release, let go.
The verse first denies a sending, then exposes a claim made “in my name.” Here, shem (שֵׁם, shem: name as nature) carries a claim to the LORD’s character and authority, while shalach identifies whether the speakers were actually sent.
ALSO GROWS
shallach: Send away; release.
שַׁלַּח
The same root appears in “Let my people go,” joining sending with release.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters associated with Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters that restore sight give the root a concrete image of something dispatched and arriving.
הַדִּיחִי
haddîḥî
GROWS FROM
נדח
nadach
Drive away, cast out, cause to stray.
“drive you out” in this verse is haddîḥî. This root frames the consequence as expulsion, not merely correction. Elsewhere it names a false prophet thrusting someone from the way; here the LORD names being driven out as the consequence of the lie.
ALSO GROWS
hiddiach: Cause to stray; thrust away.
הִדִּיחַ
Deuteronomy 13:5 uses this form for a prophet who thrusts a hearer away from the commanded way.
nidhei: Outcasts; people driven away.
נִדְחֵי
Isaiah 11:12 uses this form for Israel’s outcasts, showing the people left behind by the act of expulsion.
וַאֲבַדְתֶּם
va'avadtem
GROWS FROM
אבד
abad
Be lost, perish, come to ruin.
“lose the way” in this verse is va'avadtem. The outcome gathers hearers and prophets under the same loss. Abad can describe being lost as well as perishing, so the verse’s final word holds ruin and lostness together.
ALSO GROWS
oved: Lost; perishing.
אֹבֵד
Psalm 119:176 uses this form for the lost sheep, making lostness part of the root’s range.
avedah: A lost thing; loss.
אֲבֵדָה
The root also names what is lost, not only a person who perishes.
THE PATTERN
Speech that borrows divine authority can lead hearers away from the way and into deception or loss.
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be made to die; because he has spoken to turn you aside from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and ransomed you from the house of bondage, to push you off the way the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall burn out the evil from your midst.I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.For false anointed ones will rise, and false prophets, and they will give great signs and wonders, so that, if it were possible, even the picked-out ones are led off the path.THE THREAD
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be made to die; because he has spoken to turn you aside from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and ransomed you from the house of bondage, to push you off the way the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall burn out the evil from your midst.Jeremiah’s “drive you out” and Deuteronomy’s “thrust thee out of the way” use the same root, נדח (nadach: drive away, cause to stray). In Deuteronomy it names the false prophet’s act; here it names the expulsion the LORD says will follow.
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