Ah, Lord God! — Literally, as in Jeremiah 1:6, Alas, my Lord (Adonaï) Jehovah! We have had in Jeremiah 5:31 a glimpse of the evil influence of the great body of the prophetic order; and now the true prophet feels more bitterly than ever the misery of having to contend against it. The colleges or schools of the prophets had rapidly degenerated from their first ideal, and had become (as the Mendicant Orders did in the history of mediæval Christendom) corrupt, ambitious, seekers after popularity. So Micah (Micah 3:8-11), whose words were yet fresh in the memories of men (see Jeremiah 26:18), had spoken sharp words of the growing evil. So Ezekiel through one whole chapter (Jeremiah 13) inveighs against the guilt of the prophets, male or female, who followed their own spirit, and had seen no true vision.
Ye shall not see... — To the eye of Jeremiah the future was clear. The sins of the people must lead to shame, defeat, and exile. Out of that discipline, but only through that, they might return with a better mind to better days. The false prophets took the easier and more popular line of predicting victory and “assured peace” (literally, peace of truth, i.e., true peace) for the people and their city.