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<p>As God has promised that when he pours out his Spirit upon his people both <i>their sons and their daughters shall prophesy</i>, so the devil, when he acts as a spirit of lies and falsehood, is so in the mouth not only of false prophets, but of false prophetesses too, and those are the deceivers whom the prophet is here directed to prophesy against; for they are not such despicable enemies to God’s truths as deserve not to be taken notice of, nor yet will either the weakness of their sex excuse their sin or the tenderness and respect that are owing to it exempt them from the reproaches and threatenings of the word of God. No: <i>Son of man, set they face against the daughters of thy people</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.17" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.17">Ezek. 13:17</a>. God takes no pleasure in owning them for his people. They are <i>thy people</i>, as <a class="bibleref" title="Exod.32.7" href="/passage/?search=Exod.32.7">Exod. 32:7</a>. The women pretend to a spirit of prophecy, and are in the same song with the men, as Ahab’s prophets were: <i>Go on, and prosper</i>. They <i>prophesy out of their own heart</i> too; they say what comes uppermost and what they know nothing of. Therefore <i>prophesy against them</i> from God’s own mouth. The prophet must <i>set his face against them</i>, and try if they can look him in the face and stand to what they say. Note, When sinners grow very impudent it is time for reprovers to be very bold. Now observe,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. How the sin of these false prophetesses is described, and what are the particulars of it. 1. They told deliberate lies to those who consulted them, and came to them to be advised, and to be told their fortune: “You do mischief <i>by your lying to my people that hear your lies</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.19" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.19">Ezek. 13:19</a>); they come to be told the truth, but you tell them lies; and, because you humour them in their sins, they are willing to hear you.” Note, It is ill with those people who can better hear pleasing lies than unpleasing truths; and it is a temptation to those who lie in wait to deceive to tell lies when they find people willing to hear them and to excuse themselves with this, <i>Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur—If the people will be deceived, let them</i>. 2. They profaned the name of God by pretending to have received those lies from him (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.19" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.19">Ezek. 13:19</a>): “<i>You pollute my name among my people</i>, and make use of that for the patronising of your lies and the gaining of credit to them.” Note, Those greatly pollute God’s holy name that make use of it to give countenance to falsehood and wickedness. Yet this they did <i>for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread</i>. They did it for gain; they cared not what dishonour they did to God’s name by their lying, so they could but make a hand of it for themselves. There is nothing so sacred which men of mercenary spirits, in whom the love of this world reigns, will not profane and prostitute, if they can but get money by the bargain. But they did it for poor gain; if they could get no more for it, rather than break they would sell you a false prophecy that should please you to a nicety for the beggar’s dole, a <i>piece of bread</i> or <i>a handful of barley</i>; and yet that was more than it was worth. Had they asked it as an alms, for God’s sake, surely they might have had it, and God would have been honoured; but, taking it as a fee for a false prophecy, God’s name if polluted, and the smallness of the reward heightens the offence. <i>For a piece of bread that man will transgress</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Prov.28.21" href="/passage/?search=Prov.28.21">Prov. 28:21</a>. Had their poverty been their temptation to <i>steal, and so to take the name of the Lord in vain</i>, it would not have been nearly so bad as when it tempted them to <i>prophesy lies in his name</i> and so to profane it. 3. They kept people in awe, and terrified them with their pretensions: “<i>You hunt the souls of my people</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.18" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.18">Ezek. 13:18</a>), <i>hunt them to make them flee</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.20" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.20">Ezek. 13:20</a>), <i>hunt them into gardens</i> (so the margin reads it); you use all the arts you have to court or compel them into those places where you deliver your pretended predictions, or you have got such an influence upon them that you make them do just as you would have them to do, and tyrannise over them.” It was indeed the people’s fault that they did regard them, but it was their fault by lies and falsehoods to command that regard; they pretended to <i>save the souls alive that came to them</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.18" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.18">Ezek. 13:18</a>. If they would but be hearers of them, and contributors to them, they might be sure of salvation; thus they beguiled unstable souls that had a concern about salvation as their end but did not rightly understand the way, and therefore hearkened to those who were most confident in promising it to them. “But will you pretend to save souls, or secure salvation to your party?” Those are justly suspected that make such pretensions. 4. They discouraged those that were honest and good, and encouraged those that were wicked and profane: <i>You slay the souls that should not die, and save those alive that should
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<p class="tab-1">II. How the wrath of God against them is expressed. Here is a woe to them (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.18" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.18">Ezek. 13:18</a>), and God declares himself against the methods they took to delude and deceive, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.20" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.20">Ezek. 13:20</a>. But what course will God take with them? 1. They shall be confounded in their attempts, and shall proceed no further; for (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.13.23" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.13.23">Ezek. 13:23</a>) you shall <i>see no more vanity nor divine revelations</i>; not that they shall themselves lay down their pretensions in a way of repentance, but when the event gives them the lie they shall be silent for shame; or their fancies and imaginations shall not be disposed to receive impressions which assist them in their divinations as they have been; or they themselves shall be cut off. 2. God’s people shall be delivered out of their hands. When they see themselves deluded by them into a false peace and a fool’s paradise, and that though they would not leave their sin their sin has left them, and they <i>see no more vanity nor divine divinations</i>, they shall turn their back upon them, shall slight their predictions. The righteous shall be no more saddened by them, no, nor the wicked strengthened: The <i>pillows shall be torn from their arms</i>, and the <i>kerchiefs from their heads</i>; the fallacies shall be discovered, their frauds detected, and the people of God shall no more be in their hand, to be hunted as they had been. Note, It is a great mercy to be delivered from a servile regard to, and fear of, those who, under colour of a divine authority, impose upon and tyrannise over the consciences of men, and say to their souls, <i>Bow down, that we may go over</i>. But it is a sore grief to those who delight in such usurpations to have their power broken and the prey delivered; such was the reformation to the church of Rome. And, when God does this, he makes it to appear that he is the Lord, that it is his prerogative to give law to souls.</p>
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