Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,
He explains in other words what we saw yesterday: but the repetition adds to the weight of the matter. The Prophet therefore shows that he had a just cause of complaint, because the women so deceived the people. He says now that they made the heart of the righteous sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked: the sentiment is the same, though the words are changed.
As God has promised that when he pours out his Spirit upon his people both their sons and their daughters shall prophesy, so the devil, when he acts as a spirit of lies and falsehood, is so in the mouth not only of false prophets, but of false prophetesses too, and those are the deceivers whom the prophet is here directed to prophesy against; for...
Commenting on Ezekiel 13:17-23
ye have made . . . the righteous sad--by lying predictions of calamities impending ever the godly. strengthened . . . wicked-- (Jer 23:14). heart of . . . righteous . . . hands of . . . wicked--Heart is applied to the righteous because the terrors foretold penetrated to their inmost feelings; hands, to the wicked because they were so hardened as not only...