For I have not sent them, saith the Lord
See ( Jeremiah 23:21 ) ; yet they prophesy a lie in my name; to deliver out a lie was a very wicked thing, sinful in them, and fatal to others; but to make use of the name of the Lord, and cover it with that, and back it with his authority, was much more wicked and abominable: that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish;
being driven out of their own land, perish in another; which, though the false prophets did not intend by their prophesying, yet such would be, and was, the issue of it: ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you;
for it would end in the ruin and destruction of them both; both of the false prophets, as the Targum here again calls them, and those that listened to their prophecies; both would fall into the same ditch.