Ezekiel 13:6 condemns prophets who claim to speak for the LORD when God has not sent them. The verse says their false claims produce hope in people that has no real foundation, which means a message that sounds divine can still be a lie. God speaks through the prophet Ezekiel, a priest exiled to Babylon, and his words are aimed at the prophets of Israel who were giving the people comfort that God had not authorized.
They have seen falsehood and lying divination, who say, ‘The LORD says;’ but the LORD has not sent them. They have made men to hope that the word would be confirmed.
Ezekiel 13:6 (WEB)
What Ezekiel 13:6 Means
The verse begins by naming the problem: these prophets have seen “falsehood and lying divination.” Divination here refers to attempts to read hidden meaning or future events through means other than genuine revelation. Their visions were empty and their pronouncements were invented. The phrase “who say, ‘The LORD says'” is the heart of the charge. They used the most authoritative words a prophet could speak, the formula of divine authority, while God had given them no such message.
The verse then names the damage. These false prophets “have made men to hope that the word would be confirmed.” People were encouraged to believe that what the prophets promised would come true, and so they settled into a false security. The verse does not promise that God will bless every hopeful message, nor does it say all hope is misplaced. It condemns hope built on words God did not speak.
The Context of Ezekiel 13:6
The book of Ezekiel was written by the prophet himself, who was among the first group of Judeans taken into exile in Babylon around 597 BC. His audience was both the exiles and, through their reports, the community back in Jerusalem, where the city was still standing for a few more years before its fall in 586 BC. Many people in both places wanted to hear that exile would be short and Jerusalem safe, and some prophets were eager to say so.
Just before the verse, God calls the prophets “foolish” and compares them to foxes in the ruins, creatures that feed among broken walls and do nothing to repair them. Right after it, God declares that he himself is “against” these prophets and will remove them from the people’s council and the national record. Read this way, verse 6 is the reason for God’s judgment: it is not a small error of wording but a betrayal of the people who trusted them.
Key Phrases in Ezekiel 13:6
Jeremiah 23:16
The LORD of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.
(WEB)
Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s contemporary, warns the people not to listen to prophets who speak visions from their own minds rather than from the LORD’s mouth. The two prophets address the same crisis and reach the same conclusion about false hope.
1 John 4:1
Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
(WEB)
John urges believers to test the spirits and not accept every spiritual voice at face value. This carries Ezekiel’s concern for discernment into the life of the early church and remains a practical guide today.
A Short Prayer From Ezekiel 13:6
Lord, you are the one who speaks truth, and I want my hope to rest on what you have actually said. Protect me from voices that sound confident but carry no word from you. Help me to weigh every counsel against your Scripture and your character, and give me the courage to set aside comfort that is not grounded in your truth. Let my hope be built on you alone, in your name. Amen.
