Jeremiah 23:28 - Exposition

Let him tell a dream ; rather, let him tell it as a dream ; let him tell his dreams, if he will, but not intermix them with Divine revelations. Jeremiah, then, does not deny that there is a measure of truth in what these prophets say; he only demands a distinct declaration that their dreams are but dreams, and not equal in authority to the Divine word. For, as he continues, What is the chaff to the wheat ? What right have you to mix the worthless chaff with the pure, winnowed grain? How, he implies, can such an adulterated message produce the designed effect of a prophetic revelation? (St. Paul has a somewhat similar figure, 1 Corinthians 3:10-13 .) So Naegelsbach. Keil, however, denies that there is any thought of an adulteration of the Divine word by the "false prophets." According to him, the question in this verse is simply meant to emphasize the contrast between the false, dream-born prophecy of Jeremiah's opponents and the true revelations. How can the false prophecy pretend to be the true? They are as different as chaff and wheat. Both views are admissible. Naegelsbach introduces a new element by suggesting the intermixture of false and true in the utterances of the "false prophets;" but his view is not inconsistent with what the prophet has stated before, and it is favored by verse 30 and by the command, Let him speak my word faithfully ; i.e. in its genuine form; comp. Jeremiah 2:21 , "A faithful or trustworthy [i.e. a genuine] seed;" also, for the general sense, 2 Corinthians 2:17 .