Jeremiah 23:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

JEREMIAH CHAPTER 23 Woe against wicked pastors; the scattered flock shall be gathered; Christ shall rule and save them, Jeremiah 23:1-8: against false prophets, Jeremiah 23:9-32, and mockers of the true, Jeremiah 23:33-40. There is the like woe against the pastors denounced Ezekiel 34:2. Interpreters judge that by the pastors are to be understood the civil magistrates, for Jeremiah 23:9 he denounceth the judgments of God against their ecclesiastical officers. The civil magistrates at this time in Judah were great tyrants; and whereas God had committed his people (whom he calls the sheep of his pasture) to them in trust, that they should protect and govern them, and that they might live under them godly and peaceable lives, in all prosperity, they had acted quite contrary to their trust, and worried the people like wolves, instead of feeding them like shepherds. God took notice of their oppressions, and by the prophet denounceth this woe against them, to verify that of Solomon, Ecclesiastes 5:8.