False Prophets
Jeremiah moves his message from condemnation of unjust leaders to lying prophets.
It’s easy to want to listen to someone who speaks what you want to hear. “Everything is fine! Nothing bad will happen!” Such false statements can easily make a bad situation become worse. God was not pleased when such so-called prophets claimed to be speaking for him.
33 “When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, ‘What is the message from the Lord?’ say to them, ‘What message? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’ 34 If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is a message from the Lord,’ I will punish them and their household.
Jeremiah 23:33-34
The word “message” above is the Hebrew word masa (מַשָּׂ֣א, also translated “oracle” or “burden”), which comes from the verb nasa, which means “to lift/carry”. In other words, it’s something that’s carried: a load or a burden. It can be a literal burden like in Exodus 23:5 where it talks about a donkey fallen under its load. It can also be a metaphorical load like in Numbers 11:11 where Moses describes the burden of leading the people.
What does it mean to call God’s prophetic message a burden? I think it’s because it needs to be carried. These words had weight. We use similar phrases like the (metaphorical) burdens we bear or “this is my burden”. In this passage, God criticizes people claiming they were interested in God’s message when in fact they were not. The passage ends “I will surely lift you up and cast you away” (Jeremiah 23:39), using nasa. The people claimed they were lifting up God’s message so he would lift them up and toss them away.
To Ponder…
- What voices are you listening to? Are they true? Do you only listen to what makes you feel comfortable?
- Are you faithfully carrying God’s message?