(22) If they had stood in my counsel.—Better, as before, council. The test of the true mission is seen in results. Are the people better or worse for the prophet’s work? What are the fruits of his teaching? (Comp. Matthew 7:20.) The question meets us, Is this always a test? Was Jeremiah’s own work successful in this sense? Must not the true teacher speak “whether they [men] will hear, or whether they will forbear?” (Ezekiel 2:5.) The answer is found (1) in the fact that true teaching seldom fails altogether of its work; (2) that where it seems to fail it satisfies the other test, and at least stirs and rouses men from lethargy, even if it stirs them to antagonism. It is never satisfied with speaking smooth things and acquiescing in the evil that surrounds it.

23:9-22 The false prophets of Samaria had deluded the Israelites into idolatries; yet the Lord considered the false prophets of Jerusalem as guilty of more horrible wickedness, by which the people were made bold in sin. These false teachers would be compelled to suffer the most bitter part of the Lord's indignation. They made themselves believe that there was no harm in sin, and practised accordingly; then they made others believe so. Those who are resolved to go on in evil ways, will justly be given up to believe strong delusions. But which of them had received any revelation of God, or understood any thing of his word? There was a time coming when they would reflect on their folly and unbelief with remorse. The teaching and example of the true prophets led men to repentance, faith, and righteousness. The false prophets led men to rest in forms and notions, and to be quiet in their sins. Let us take heed that we do not follow unrighteousness.They should have turned them ... - The work of the true prophet, which is to turn men from evil unto good. 22. stood in … counsel—(Jer 23:18).

they should have turned them from their evil way—They would have given such counsels to the people as would have turned them from their sins (Jer 25:5; Isa 55:11), and so would have averted punishment. Their not teaching the law in which God's counsel is set forth proves they are not His prophets, though they boast of being so (Mt 7:15-20).

These false prophets did not prophesy without the approbation of the rulers of the ecclesiastical state amongst the Jews in their corrupt state, but so they might, and yet not be sent of God. The judgment of a Divine mission for the revelation of God’s mind unto people must not be merely from their external mission, (which yet they ought to have in a church that is in order,) but from the faithful discharge of their ministry. Those whom God sends, and who are truly acquainted with his counsels, will cause his people to hear, not their own conceits and inventions, but the word of the Lord. God sendeth none upon any other errand but to reveal his will and tell his mind unto people.

Then, saith the prophet,

they should have turned them from their evil way; that is, they would have made this their scope, business, and end, to turn sinners from their sinful ways; and though possibly their labours would not have had so good an effect upon all, yet they would have had an effect upon some to turn them from their evil doings.

But if they had stood in my counsel,.... As they boasted they did; or, as they reproached the true prophets, and charged them with vanity and arrogance, in talking as if they had; had this been truly their case, as it was that of the prophets of the Lord:

and had caused my people to hear my words; or, "then they would have caused my people to hear my words"; had it been so, they would have heard first the words of the Lord themselves in secret and privately, and then they would have caused the people to have heard them; they would not have gone to them with their own lies; they would not have dared to have done that; they would have delivered nothing but what they had heard from the Lord:

then they should, or, "and they would",

have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings; and not have strengthened their hands, and hardened them in their wickedness, and so kept them from repentance and reformation, Jeremiah 23:14. The Lord argues from the efficacy and success of the ministry of the word to the truth of it, and their miss:, on from him; for though a good ministry is not always successful, at least so successful as could be wished for, and as it might reasonably be expected it would; yet it is more or less so; and at least it has a tendency to bring men off from their evil practices; and it attempts to do it, though it may fail in the execution; whereas a wicked ministry, such as this of the false prophets, had no tendency hereunto; nor was it the design of it; nor did they attempt it; but, on the contrary, encouraged and hardened men in sin.

But if they had stood in my counsel, and {r} had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

(r) He shows the difference between the true prophets and the false, between the hireling and the true minister.