Ezekiel - Lesson 15

Lesson number 15, Fake Visions, Fraudulent Divination, Hijacking the Prophetic Office, Ezekiel 13, 1 to 16. The chapter division in our Bibles after Ezekiel 12, 18 is unfortunate, obscuring the fact that in 12, 17 to 14, 11, the editor of Ezekiel's oracles has brought together six oracles on the nature of true prophecy and the problems created when people become cynical of the words uttered by true prophets or seek their guidance for life from false prophets. Ezekiel had introduced the theme of the reliability of true prophets and prophecies in 12, 17 to 20 with what we might call a test case. Ezekiel was to enact another message and then offer an interpretation. The pantomime of horror reads as follows, the following message of Yahweh came to me, human, eat your food with quaking and drink your water with fearful trembling, then say to the people of the land, thus says the Lord Yahweh declared concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon the land of Israel, they will eat their food with anxiety and drink their water with trepidation so her land will be stripped of its contents because of the violence of all its inhabitants. The inhabited cities will lie in ruins and the land will be a desolation, then you will know that I am Yahweh. What follows that pantomime are two short disputation addresses like 11, 1 to 25 responding to public cynicism, first concerning the relevance of prophetic pronouncements for Ezekiel's present audience verses 21 to 25 and then concerning the urgency of the prophetic utterances verses 26 to 28. This is how the prophet recalled the divine communication to him. The following message of Yahweh came to me, human, what is this proverb that you have circulating in the land of Israel, time passes and every vision fails, therefore say to them, thus says the Lord Yahweh declared, I will put an end to this proverb, they will never quote it again in Israel, on the contrary, say to them, and now he's rebutting the thesis, the time is near for every vision to be fulfilled, indeed there will never be any vain vision or misleading divination within the house of Israel again, for I am Yahweh, I declare whatever I declare and it is fulfilled, it will not be delayed any longer, indeed in your own lifetime, oh rebellious household, I will make a pronouncement and I will fulfill it, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. In the third little oracle, 26 to 28, he reinforced the notion of the reliability of the Lord's prophetic words with another disputation. The following message of Yahweh came to me, human, son of man, notice what the house of Israel is saying, quote, the vision that he sees pertains to many years ahead, it is of the distant future that he prophesies, therefore say to them, thus says the Lord Yahweh declared, there will be no more delay, every pronouncement I shall make will surely be fulfilled, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. Well, in chapter 13, the nature of prophecy remains the subject, but the attention shifts from the true prophets like Ezekiel to false prophets who oppose him or who present alternative assessments of current crises. The words fake and fraudulent have become light verter, key words in our newspapers and cable news shows today. Every day we hear of fake news, fake reporting, fake crimes, fake investigations, fake conspiracies, fake dollar bills, even fake men and fake women. Chapter 13 contains two oracles against counterfeit, that is, fake prophets. Well, the notion of fraudulence unites verses 1 to 16 and 17 to 23. These two oracles in chapter 13 are distinguished by the gender of the prophets. The first panel, which is the one we'll focus on, verses 2 to 16, deals with false male prophets engaged in deceitful visionary activity. The second, verses 17 to 23, with abusive witchcraft, that is, exploitative, sorcerous women prophets. But both groups claim the office of prophet. This series of oracles on false prophets ends by shifting attention from the prophets to those who would look to them for their support in crisis moments. That's chapter 14, verses 1 to 11. All of this, from 12, about verse 17, all the way to 14 to 11, this is all one package about false and true prophecies. These pronouncements address two sides of a single issue that Ezekiel faced. How to counteract the influence of charlatans, that is chapter 13. False claimants to the prophetic office. The male prophets contradicted Ezekiel's message of inevitable national judgment with false prophet messages of hope. The female counterparts undermined his mission of announcing life to the righteous and death to the wicked, unless they turned from their wickedness. But they did this by killing those who should not die and keeping alive those who should not live, verse 19. I suppose Ezekiel could have found some consolation in knowing that he was not the only prophet engaged in intense rivalry with purveyors of fake prophecy. Back in Jerusalem, Jeremiah was dealing with the same problem, people who claimed to speak for God when he had never spoken to them, Jeremiah 6, 14, 8, 11, 23, 9 to 40, and then 27 to 28, as well as 29 scattered throughout that chapter as well. Our passage gives no clues about the circumstances of this oracle, but Jeremiah 29, 1 and 15 note that among the exiles that Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon with Jehoiakim in 598 were members of a professional prophetic class, presumably upon whom King Jehoiakim had leaned for support. Apparently, they continued to pursue their craft in Babylon among the exiles. The spread of Ezekiel's reputation as a prophetic figure among the community may have intensified the other so-called prophets' activities. They probably feared that he might steal the trust of the people from them. Ezekiel seems to have engaged these fraudulent professionals repeatedly. Now, concerning the structure of Ezekiel's first oracle against false prophets, verses 1 to 16, we notice that it opens with his typical first-person narrative preamble announcing a new prophetic moment, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, the oracle proper, verses 2 to 16, divides into four parts, with the third subdividing into two separate segments. So here's what it looks like. Introduction, verses 2 to 3a, the charges against the prophets, verses 3b to 7, the announcements of judgment against the prophets, verses 8 to 14, and you actually have two announcements, the first announcement, verses 8 to 9, and the second announcement, 10 to 14, and then in 15 to 16, we have a brief addendum to this oracle. So let's walk through this passage together. In verses 2 to 3a, we have the introduction to Ezekiel's prophecy against fake male prophets. The following message of Yahweh came to me, human, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are prophesying. Declare to the self-inspired prophets, hear the message of Yahweh, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared. Well, following the announcement of the arrival of another word from Yahweh, Ezekiel began by identifying the targets of this address, the self-inspired prophets of Israel. What can we say about them? First, the expression, prophets of Israel who are prophesying is tautologically sarcastic, highlighting the activity in which they are engaged. In 1900, a commentator, A.B. Davidson, observed that they prophesied without limit. Their mouths were always full of, thus saith the Lord. Well, Ezekiel reinforced this interpretation in verse 6. Those who say the declaration of Yahweh have envisioned emptiness and deceptive division. Did you notice that this is the signatory formula, the declaration of Yahweh? The Lord had authorized Ezekiel to use that formula, the declaration of the Lord, to stamp his messages with that, but these people had never been given that authority. With this signatory formula, they are declaring themselves true, but they are, in fact, fake. This is one of several that the Lord had authorized Ezekiel to use at the time of his ordination, chapter 2, verse 4. As we will see, when the false prophets used the formula, it was like the preacher who has in his notes, weak point, shout loud. Second, with the expression, prophets of Israel, Ezekiel intentionally distinguished his target from Babylonian prophets. Many people are surprised to hear that the institution of prophecy was widespread in the ancient world. In the Bible, we hear of Balaam, the prophet, who was from this very part of the world whom Balak, king of Moab, hired for pay to curse Israel, Numbers 22 to 24, and Deuteronomy 23, 4 to 5. In 1 Kings 18, we learn of the prophets of Baal who were part of Jezebel, the Phoenician queen of Israel's entourage. In the book of Daniel, at this very time, prophets appear in the king of Babylon's court as diviners who are supposed to be able to interpret dreams. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses gave a whole list of prophetic means that pagans used that were absolutely taboo in Israel, fortune-telling, sorcery, omens, witchcraft, consulting mediums, or psychics, or the spirits of the dead. Ezekiel did not describe how these fake prophets were operating, but later he will speak of their flattering divination, fake divination, and empty divination. Whatever means they used, according to Moses, anyone who does these things is abhorrent, abominable to Yahweh. It is because the other nations have done these abhorrent things. Moses had said that Yahweh, your God, will drive them out ahead of you, Deuteronomy 18, 12. Yahweh would treat anyone who acts like a Canaanite like he treated the Canaanites, and that included Israelites who were far from the promised land. Just because they moved to another country did not mean their practices were acceptable, excusable, or tolerable to God. Now, the expression for self-inspired is translated literally as prophets from their own heart or mind, which is an abbreviation for prophets who speak from their own mind or heart. In verse 3, he spoke about them as following their own impulse, literally walking after their own spirit or disposition, when they had not seen anything at all. Ezekiel's point was that their claim to inspiration was phony, fake. Their utterances were no more authoritative than normal human wisdom. Their pronouncements were their own fraudulent concoctions based on their own assessment of the situation and driven by their own interests. These were private opinions that were being spouted off as divine pronouncements. Tragically, their hearers were too gullible to make the distinction, but they were branding them with the signatory formula, thus says the Lord, or the word of the Lord says. Well, in verses 3b to 7, we hear the Lord's charges against the prophets. So far, it's only about the nature of these guys. They're fake. Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, woe, oy vey, to the foolish prophets who follow their own impulse, even though they have not seen a thing. Your prophets, O Israel, have lived like jackals among the ruins. You have not gone up into the breaches, nor repaired the wall around the house of Israel that it might stand in the battle on the day of Yahweh. Those who say the declaration of the Lord of Yahweh have envisioned emptiness and deceptive divination. Even though Yahweh has not commissioned them, they expect him to fulfill the pronouncement. Surely, you have envisioned an empty vision and declared a deceptive divination. You who say the declaration of Yahweh when I have not even spoken. The opening to Ezekiel's presentation of the charges against these fake prophets reminds us of Jesus' reaction to the scribes and Pharisees. In Matthew 23, we hear him say seven times, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. This is all in chapter 23. In Jesus' mind, these Jewish leaders were of the same ilk as the false prophets in Ezekiel's world. Ezekiel's word hoy, oy vey, or woe, which occurs elsewhere in this book, only in verse 18, and then later in 34 too, has an ominous ring. Fundamentally, it comes from laments from the dead. But from the lips of prophets, it expressed intense grief and commiseration at the prospect of inevitable doom. Here Ezekiel undoubtedly had in mind Moses' words in Deuteronomy 18.20, Any prophet who presumptuously, tzid is the word, declares an oracle in my name, that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. That's hoy. Elsewhere, woe oracles could hold out some expectation of escape, especially if people heeded the appeal for repentance. However, Ezekiel held out no such hope here for these fake prophets. Indeed, the ratio of space devoted to the announcement of judgment, verses 8 to 16, in comparison with a formal presentation of the charges, verses 3b to 7, intensifies the attention to the fate of the offenders. It is indeed woe to them. Having signaled the tone of his forthcoming utterance, Ezekiel began his denunciation of the fake prophets with three or four ad hominem against the person attacks. First, no matter how smart the counterfeit prophets thought they were, they were fools. The word naval is used in the wisdom literature of a person who is arrogant, Proverbs 30.32, crude of speech, 17.7, spiritually and morally obtuse, Job 2.10, and scoundrels, Job 30.8. Isaiah 32.5-6 provides the fullest description of such a person. A fool, naval, will no longer be called noble, nor a villain said to be honorable, for fools, naval, speak folly, navala, and their minds plot iniquity to practice ungodliness to utter error concerning Yahweh. Those are fools. The guys in Ezekiel's crosshairs were arrogant and perverse idiots. Second, they functioned autonomously. They followed their own impulse, walked after their own spirit or thinking, disposition, far from taking their cues from Yahweh. These prophets were merely spouting off what was in their own deluded imaginations. Third, they were fake. They hadn't seen a thing, which means they had received no revelation from God and were totally lacking in divine insight. Elsewhere, prophets were identified as seers, ro'im. 1 Samuel 9.9 and 9.11 and 19 and Isaiah 30.10. What they saw was called a vision, an apparition, a sight. They had the ability to see what is unseeable to natural eyes. But these guys, when he says they have not seen a thing, means that Yahweh hadn't revealed anything to them. He hadn't opened their eyes to higher realities. They may stand before the people as spokesmen for God, but they were fake. Fourth, they were jackals among the ruins. The imagery is perfect. Jackals are scavengers looking for carrion, roadkill, any hint of flesh. But jackals are also gregarious nocturnal creatures associated with the night and who take cover in groupthink. Ezekiel did not interpret the simile, but the figure invited hearers to imagine Israel as a society in ruins. Instead of helping to rebuild the nation, these false prophets capitalized on the devastation and were looking for meat for themselves everywhere. Fifth, they were traitors. Verse 5. The second figure of speech presented a different picture of decay. The metaphor of breaches in the wall compared Israel with a vineyard or a field that would have been protected from human and animal marauders by a wall, a fence. Whether constructed of loose stone or with mortar, if neglected, these walls quickly deteriorated. When breaches occurred, those responsible for the security of the estate would either go up and physically stand in the breach to shoo off intruders or repair the wall. However, as was often the case with Ezekiel, this true prophet, in the last half of verse 5, he changed the metaphor. No longer was Israel a vineyard protected by a stone fence, she was a city under siege. To hear this was actually the good news. It was advanced warning meant that the people had time to prepare their defenses to take cover. But the bad news was that the enemy was not merely the army of some earthly ruler, the enemy was Yahweh himself. The day of Yahweh has arrived. Compare this with what we saw in chapter 7 verses 1 to 27. Ezekiel will return to this metaphor in 2230 where he spoke of someone standing in the breach to defend the city against Yahweh. God himself was the enemy for whom he had prepared Ezekiel the watchman in 317 and to whom he would refer to again in 337. These images played on the common understanding that in Israel the prophet's role was to maintain the spiritual defenses of the covenant community. According to 20, 29 to 30, they should have done this by calling for moral and spiritual renewal. But these self-serving prophets had not only neglected their responsibilities and perverted their roles, instead of standing in the breach by denouncing evil and reconstructing the wall by calling for repentance and renewal of covenant relationship, they had been rummaging around in the ruins trying to salvage what they could find for themselves. In the absence of faithful prophets, Yahweh, the patron God of Israel, had become the most fearful enemy and these fake prophets would not be able to stop God from invading. In verses 6 to 7, Ezekiel abandoned his metaphors and he addressed the point directly. He pulled no punches in denouncing them as charlatans. What the prophets had envisioned was emptiness and deceitful omens. By stamping their pronouncements with Yahweh's imprimatur, the signatory formula, the Declaration of Yahweh, they publicly claimed divine authorization on the one hand, while seeking to obligate God to fulfill their proclamations on the other. If this is what God has said, his reputation is at stake. But this only compounded their offense. These guys could not manipulate Yahweh by simply attaching his signature to a pronouncement, as if the imprimatur itself possessed some quasi-magical power. In verse 7, Ezekiel reiterated the basic themes of verse 6, but he changed the construction to drive his message home. By transforming a descriptive statement into a rhetorical question and by shifting from the third to the second person of direct address, he forced his readers, his hearers, to sit up and respond to his charges. This oracle was all about them, you are the you, in my statement. It was their pronouncements that he had characterized as empty and deceptive, their pronouncements. They may forge Yahweh's stamp on their utterances, but this would not mask their futility nor their personal lack of authority. Yahweh had neither commissioned them, verse 6, nor even spoken to them, verse 7. Ezekiel's problem with the false prophets was not simply that they offered hope by prophesying peace, which he would eventually do himself, but that because Yahweh had never sent them, they wrongly preached the wrong message at the wrong time. Everything about them was counterfeit. Well, let's move then to Ezekiel's announcements of judgment. The first announcement comes in verses 8 to 9. Therefore, when you hear this, watch out. Therefore, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, because you have made empty pronouncements and have envisioned lies, therefore I am challenging you. The declaration of the Lord Yahweh, now Ezekiel uses it. My hand will come upon those prophets who envision emptiness and who divine lies. In the company of my people they will not be found, and in the register of the house of Israel they will not be recorded, and to the land of Israel they will not come back. Then you will know that I am Adonai Yahweh, the Lord Yahweh. Well, in texts like this, when you hear, therefore, then watch out. This was a signal that he was about to shift from the accusation to the consequences, really the divine sentence for the crimes committed. And Yahweh wasted no time in declaring his disposition toward these fake prophets. Far from having engaged them in his service by means of the challenge formula which he now uses, he declared his fundamental opposition to them. I am against you, literally, hinani aleichem, look at me against you. And to reinforce the authority and seriousness of the declaration, Ezekiel stamped his words with Yahweh's authentic signature, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. Let these fake prophets now prepare for a real and a direct encounter with God. It will not be pleasant. Yahweh opened the actual sentence in verse 9 with a declaration of his determination to strike out personally with his hand against the charlatans. The image recalls the oft-repeated refrain in Isaiah, for all this his anger has not turned away and his hand is stretched out still, Isaiah 5, 25, 9, 11, 9, 16, 9, 20, and 10, 4. However, by substituting the verb hayah, to be, to happen, become, for natah, to extend, stretch, which was customary for this idiom, the statement involved an ironic twist. Elsewhere Ezekiel had used the expression, the hand of Yahweh came upon me, that was a sign of his own prophetic empowerment. But now Yahweh announced that the false prophets would finally experience that which they had been claiming all along, the hand of Yahweh. However, the effects of his hand on them would be quite different from anything a prophet might ordinarily expect these phony prophets to claim. Yahweh described the effects of his hand in three perfectly parallel lines, in the company of my people they will not be found, in the register of the house of Israel they will not be recorded, and to the land of Israel they will not come back. These three punishments struck at the heart of what it meant to be an Israelite. Remember at the beginning, prophets of Israel, that's whom he's addressing, but these guys are not even Israelites. What does it mean to be an Israelite? First, Israel consists of a circle of friends united by their special relationship with Yahweh. Elsewhere, the word sowed refers to a band of intimate friends, Jeremiah 6, 11 and 15, 17, and as a synonym for Ada, a congregation. This one speaks of the company of the upright, you have that in Psalm 111 verse 1, or simply an assembly, Genesis 49, 6. Ezekiel's usage here was probably inspired by Jeremiah 23, 18 and 22, where Yahweh identified the guild of genuine prophets as the sowed of Yahweh, the confidence of Yahweh, his advisors. Second, the names of true Israelites are recorded in the official registry of the nation. Although the word k'tav, to write, could apply to any written document, the closest analogs to what he's talking about here is the register of returnees from exile in Ezra 2, 62 and Nehemiah 7, 64. There's a whole list recorded of the people who came back from exile. Ezekiel's statement means that the names of the false prophets would be expunged from the census list of the house of Israel, erased, blotted out from the register, also known elsewhere as the register of life. Third, true Israelites, even the exiles, considered themselves heirs of the promise to the patriarchs and their ancestors who had occupied the land for centuries. Now, if Ezekiel's professional opponents took the true prophets' words seriously at all, this statement would have been especially disturbing. Like their Jerusalemite colleagues, they appear to have anticipated an early return to the homeland. We hear about this in Jeremiah 8, 11, 14, 13 to 18, and 29, 1 to 9. Those are the people in Jerusalem. The false prophets there are all saying to the exiles, they say, don't even unpack your bags, you're coming home soon. But here Ezekiel announced that even if their predictions came true for the exilic community as a whole, the false prophets would never participate in the return. With this threefold sentence, Ezekiel extended the verdict that Jeremiah had pronounced specifically on Shemaiah, the Nephilimite, Jeremiah 29 to 32, and to the entire prophetic guild. Jeremiah had said Yahweh would excommunicate them from the covenant community itself, not just from the guild of the prophets. According to Deuteronomy 18, 18, this sentence alone should have been sufficient to reject this band of prophets as true prophets of Yahweh. And with fitting irony, Ezekiel closed this pronouncement by declaring that when this prophecy was fulfilled, and it surely would be, they would finally acknowledge Yahweh, not as the source of their false prophecies, but as the one who fulfilled Ezekiel's word, Ezekiel's word, which according to Deuteronomy 18, 21 to 22, was the proof of a true prophet. Well, that's the first announcement of judgment. The second announcement comes in verses 10 to 14. It's much longer and more complex than the first. Structurally, this announcement divides into three parts. First, there's a reiteration of the charges against the false prophets, verse 10. Then there's an announcement of the sentence on the deluded people and the prophets, which concludes with a recognition formula, they'll know that I am Yahweh. And third, there is a reiteration of the sentence focusing on the fate of the prophets and ending with a signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord, Yahweh, verse 14. Well, let's hear Ezekiel's words. For the very reason that they have misled my people by saying all is well, shalom to you, when nothing is well, as if a person would build a crude wall, but others would smear it with hogwash. Yahweh's determination to deal with the false prophets is reflected in the emphatic introduction to the charges in verse 10. For the very reason that they have misled my people saying all is well. But thereafter, the accusations became specific. Previously, Yahweh had indicted the fake prophets for making empty and deceitful pronouncements, but here he charged them with a social crime. They had led the people astray. The expression evokes images of a shepherd who, instead of leading his sheep to pasture and security or in paths of righteousness, Psalm 23, he caused them to go lost. By using a metaphor commonly associated with political leadership, Yahweh and his prophet placed responsibility for the welfare of Yahweh's people, whom he calls my people here. He placed that responsibility squarely on the false prophets' shoulders. But instead of leading them to authentic pasture and rest, they fed them empty platitudes of peace. With their pronouncements of shalom, which means well-being, salvation, all is as it should be, they had deluded them into a false sense of security. Ezekiel did not elaborate on what the false prophets had actually said, but these exilic imposters had undoubtedly parroted the messages proclaimed by their counterparts in Jerusalem, as we've said before, including Shemiah. Jeremiah specifically denounced Hananiah for predicting the imminent collapse of Babylon in Jeremiah 28, 1 to 11, which would mean deliverance and salvation for the nation, the return of the exiles, and the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity. That's Hananiah. Such messages produced an illusory complacency among the nation. When the nation was on the brink of collapse, spiritually, morally, and politically, they pretended that all is well and wouldn't change the reality. To illustrate the deluding effects of the fraudulent prophets' activity, Ezekiel introduced a new metaphor. He compared what was happening in the house of Israel to the way some construction companies build houses. In the first place, their walls were poorly constructed, perhaps because the mud used in the bricks was of poor quality, or they lacked sufficient fiber to hold the mud together, or the mortar was deficient. We don't know. Use your imagination. Alternatively, they may simply have been careless in the way they placed the bricks, so that the wall may have been leaning or the bricks were not properly aligned. However, instead of correcting the defects in workmanship, in the workmanship of the brick makers and brick layers, as soon as the walls were up, other workmen came along, covered all the evidence of poor-quality bricks with poor-quality plaster. Tafel. Job 6.6 uses this word for insipid, tasteless food that lacks salt. Although most translations render tafel as whitewash, at the literal level, something more substantial would be required to cover up fundamental defects in construction. But once more, Ezekiel seems to have taken his cue from Jeremiah, who condemned counterfeit prophets of Samaria for teflon, which means vanity, futility, because they led my people astray by prophesying by bail.

Here, Lamentations 2.14 is especially instructive, speaking of prophets envisioning emptiness and futility. In 22.28, Ezekiel would offer his own explanation of the term. They have smeared tafel for them envisioning emptiness and divining falsehood. They're plastering stuff, but their plaster is actually not even there. It's fake plaster. In verses 10 to 14, Ezekiel was not describing a vision he had of men plastering the walls of a house, but developing a common metaphor for hypocrisy. That which is smeared on the walls, tafel, is a negative abstraction. Nothing, emptiness, vanity, and you're pretending like these soap bubbles actually have substance. It's not literally plaster. Ezekiel's audience will not have missed the pun on tafel to plaster, but tafel fits well with emptiness and deceit. In contemporary English, the equivalent rhetorical effect is achieved by rendering tafel as hogwash, which is slang for nonsense, which plays on the traditional rendering of whitewash, but is more nuanced. Technically, hogwash is the proper word for slop, food waste, and dishwater that we use to feed our pigs on the farm. Well, in our text, Ezekiel didn't identify the actors in this figurative construction project. However, in keeping with 2228, which expressly recognizes the daubers, D-A-U-B-E-R, as the prophets, the builders of the walls must be the people themselves, especially the community leaders. Instead of exposing the weaknesses of the wall that the community leaders had built, the false prophets have played into the builders' hands. With their self-inspired predictions of peace, they have covered up the fundamental deficiencies in Israelite society and encouraged an illusory sense of well-being. In verses 11 to 13, we have Yahweh's reiteration of the judgment. Tell those who are smearing on the hogwash that it will collapse. Should a driving rainstorm come and great hailstones fall and a tempestuous wind burst forth, then look, the wall would fall. Will you not then be asked, where's the hogwash that you applied? Therefore thus has the Lord declared, I will release a tempestuous wind in my fury and a driving rainstorm will come in my wrath along with hailstones in wrath to destroy. I will demolish the wall that you have smeared with hogwash. I will raise it to the ground so that its foundation is exposed. When it falls and you perish in its midst, then you will know that I am Yahweh. Yahweh's reiteration of the sentence upon the false prophets continued the wall simile. But he began obliquely by commanding the prophet to inform the plasterers, the prophets, that this house whose walls looked so fine on the outside was about to collapse under the onslaught of a violent storm. A tornado was coming. He highlighted the storm's force by listing three destructive elements, deluging rain, pounding hailstones, and hurricane-force winds. When this occurred, people would ask the plasterers, what has happened to your handiwork? Where is it now? The message is clear. When I was growing up, in German, my mother tongue, we had a saying, On top, what you see, it's wow! But underneath, the magnificence on the outside, underneath it is smelly rot and garbage. An attractive external appearance is no substitute for intrinsic soundness. The fake prophets had been daubing plaster over a society that was fundamentally rotten, corrupt. Instead of exposing its decadence with their reassurances of peace, they had created a false sense of optimism and well-being. No amount of plaster could defend the house against the coming storm. And when the test came, neither society nor prophecy would survive. Verses 13 to 14 transform a hypothetical figure into a frightening reality by personalizing the tempest. The storm about to strike was no ordinary meteorological phenomenon. The hurricane winds, the driving rain, the pounding hail would be impelled by the exploding fury of Yahweh, who was determined to finish off the house. Verse 14 describes the process in three stages. Yahweh will demolish the wall that the charlatans have plastered, reduce it to rubble, and expose the foundation. The language of the last statement shows that Ezekiel envisaged more than the collapse of an ordinary mud-rig house. To expose its foundation derives from the military practice of wholesale demolition of conquered cities. As we have them described in Micah 1.6, therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations. Nothing is left. Ezekiel reinforced his shift in attention from symbol to referent, house to city, by switching the gender from masculine wall to a feminine verb, she will fall, which is appropriate for the fall of a city. Cities in Hebrew grammar, the forms of the language, is always feminine. Obviously, the prophet now had in mind the fall of Jerusalem, and with this disaster would come the elimination of all false prophecies in Israel. The demise of the nation would not only expose the counterfeits, it would force them finally to acknowledge Yahweh in truth. This prophecy ends with an addendum, verses 15 to 16. I will satisfy my wrath against the wall and against those who smear it with hogwash. Then I will say to you, gone is the wall and gone are those who smeared it, the prophets of Israel who prophesy about Jerusalem and who see visions of well-being for her, though nothing is well, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. Ezekiel concluded this prophecy against false prophets with a summary of his message, emphasizing Yahweh's role and clarifying his intention. In the judgment, the Lord's wrath toward the wall built by the people, Israel, and its plasterers, the prophets, will be fully vented, his wrath will be vented. The oracle reached its climax with Yahweh the Judge and Executioner announcing in direct speech the total achievement of his objectives, no more wall and no more plasterers. Those who had pacified the people with empty utterances of well-being would themselves meet a devastating end. Unlike the fake prophets with their fraudulent messages, Ezekiel sealed his oracle with the authentic and authorized signature of Yahweh. Well, what can we say about this as we reflect on its theological and practical implications? What's its meaning for us? Well, throughout history, God's people have been plagued by charlatans of many sorts. Ezekiel 13, 1 to 16 serves as a warning to all who would claim to be spokespersons for the living God by identifying the marks of a fake, a counterfeit, a phony. First, counterfeits characteristically claim divine authority even when they speak only from their own inspiration. The Spirit told me, or this is what the Spirit showed me as I was reading this, the frauds of Ezekiel's day claimed to have had visions even though they had seen nothing. Their perspective toward, their analysis of, and their solutions for the crisis facing the nation was simply private opinion, politically motivated to gain the approval of the audiences. Expert training, oratorical gifts, a charismatic personality, and a wealth of experience may qualify one to stand behind a university lectern or a political podium or to perform on the theatrical stage. But these aptitudes alone do not authorize anyone to stand behind the pulpit. The message of those who claim to speak for God must have his signature, not the prophet's own, nor their forgery of the Lord's signature. This will be true of our proclamation only to the extent that we declare the message of God as revealed in the scriptures, sola scriptura. Second, counterfeits characteristically proclaim messages that people want to hear, especially when the truth is painful. For the exiles and the people back in Jerusalem, no word would have been more welcome, but at the same time more deadly than to hear that all is well. Neither the community nor individuals in moral and spiritual decline are served by assurances of well-being as represented by that book by Thomas Harris, I'm okay, you're okay. For many, the illusion becomes the reality, and they live in the never, never land of all is well, even when underneath all is decayed and all is rotten. Such an audience will applaud a messenger for the palatability of his utterance, but not for its truthfulness. Third, counterfeits characteristically are more interested in their own status than in the welfare of the community. Ezekiel compared false prophets to jackals, scavenging among the ruins for personal advantage, capitalizing on the calamity of others. Frauds assume no responsibility for the fate of the people, they look out only for themselves. Fourth, the utterances of counterfeits characteristically die with them. Being deficient in authority and integrity, their words also lack effective power. The rapidity with which humanly devised panaceas for the ills of society today succeed one another is embarrassing witness to their impotence. Only the word of the Lord endures, Isaiah 47 to 8, and achieves its life-giving objectives, Isaiah 55, 10 to 11. Fifth, counterfeits characteristically stand under the judgment of God. For one who is self-inspired to claim to speak for God is the height of arrogance, and to seduce gullible people with flattering words is utter folly. But God is not mocked. What leaders in particular saw, that they will reap.