What Does Jeremiah 27:16 Mean?
Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus says the LORD. Do not hear and respond to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD's house will now soon return from Babylon, for they prophesy a lie 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
Also I spake to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD’s house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you.THE KEY
A promise can wear the LORD’s name and still be a lie.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the reader where a promise of restoration feels certain because it is spoken in God’s name. The promise is still false; the name attached to it does not make its claim true. Longing for what was taken to return does not itself certify the prediction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A speaker’s claim to speak for the LORD does not prove that the promise came from the LORD.
THE ROOT
שֶׁקֶר
sheqer
GROWS FROM
שקר
sh-q-r
To lie, deceive, or deal falsely.
“lie” in this verse is sheqer. Here the root names the prophets’ message as falsehood. Its verb branch also carries the act of dealing falsely, connecting what is said with the deception behind it.
ALSO GROWS
shāqar: The verb for lying or acting falsely.
שָׁקַר
It shows the falsehood as an act of misleading, not merely an incorrect forecast.
sheqer: A lie, deception, or false claim.
שֶׁקֶר
This is the word Jeremiah uses for what the prophets speak.
THE PATTERN
Claims spoken in God’s name remain answerable to truth and discernment.
Thus says the LORD of hosts, Do not hear and respond to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they make you vapor. They speak a sight of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
Then the LORD said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my nature. I did not send them, nor have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them. They prophesy to you a false seeing and a divining, and a hollow thing, and the daubing of their heart.The word translated “lies” uses the same Hebrew root, שקר (sh-q-r), sheqer: falsehood or deception. The verse places that lie beside “in my name”, shem (שֵׁם), name as nature, showing the contradiction between invoking the LORD’s name and carrying the nature of what he says.
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