(13) The word.--Literally, He who speaketh, i.e., Jehovah, as the speaker.

Thus shall it be done unto them.--Better, as a wish, may it so happen to them; may the evils the prophets foretell fall on their own heads. The speech comes from the lips of the unbelieving mockers.

Verse 13. - And the prophets, etc. A continuation of the speech of the unbelieving Jews. The word is not in them. The Authorized Version gives a good meaning, but it involves an interference with the points. The pointed text must be rendered, he who speaketh (through the prophets, viz. Jehovah) is not in them. Thus the Jews hurl against prophets like Jeremiah the very charge which Jeremiah himself brings against the "false prophets" in Jeremiah 23:25-32. Thus shall it be done; rather, so be it done; i.e. may the sword and famine, with which they threaten us, fall upon them.

5:10-18 Multitudes are ruined by believing that God will not be so strict as his word says he will; by this artifice Satan undid mankind. Sinners are not willing to own any thing to be God's word, that tends to part them from, or to disquiet them in, their sins. Mocking and misusing the Lord's messengers, filled the measure of their iniquity. God can bring trouble upon us from places and causes very remote. He has mercy in store for his people, therefore will set bounds to this desolating judgment. Let us not overlook the nevertheless, ver. 18. This is the Lord's covenant with Israel. He thereby proclaims his holiness, and his utter displeasure against sin while sparing the sinner, Ps 89:30-35.And the prophets shall become wind,.... Their prophecies shall vanish into air; they shall become of no effect; they shall never be accomplished:

and the word is not in them; not the word of the Lord; he never spoke by them; they speak of themselves; they never were inspired or commissioned by him to say what they do: thus shall it be done unto them; the same evils they say shall befall us shall come upon them; they shall perish by the sword or famine; we have reason to believe that our predictions are as good as theirs, and will be fulfilled: or, "thus let it be done to them" (y); as they have prophesied shall be done to us; and so are an imprecation. The Targum interprets the whole of the false prophets, as if they were the words of the Lord concerning them, which is,

"but the false prophets shall be for nothing, and their false prophecy shall not be confirmed; this revenge shall be taken of them;''

and so Kimchi interprets it of the prophets that prophesied peace to them, and said that the above mentioned should not come upon them; and Jarchi takes the last clause to be the words of the prophet to them that say the above words; namely, that thus it shall be done to them, what the Lord has said.

(y) "sic fiat illis"; so some in Vatablus; "sic eveniat ipsis", Cocceius.