Context for Jeremiah 23
God declares His judgment against those who help lead Judah astray, the false prophets who claim to prophesy in His name. He declares this judgment in a strange way, however, not just promising the destruction of those who preach falsely against Him but also promising to redeem His people who those prophets misled.
Jeremiah 23
Like with Elijah of centuries before, God turns Jeremiah’s attention to the false prophets that hold the people’s attention with their promises of peace and prosperity even in the face of the evidence that Judah and Jerusalem are about to fall to their enemies.
God’s judgment against those prophets is severe: they will be completely destroyed and their defiance of God along with them. In their place, God Himself will lead His people, making prophets no longer needed because His Word will come directly to them.
God fulfilled this promise not just in Jerusalem’s destruction and in the exile of the Jews, but in the coming of His son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh to fulfill God’s promise of salvation. Through Jesus and the Scripture, we now have direct access to God.
