What Is the Straw to the Wheat
25 “I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ 26 How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart? 27 They intend to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they each tell his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. 28 The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?” says Yahweh. 29 “Isn’t my word like fire?” says Yahweh; “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? 30 “Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says Yahweh, “who each steal my words from his neighbor. 31 Behold, I am against the prophets,” says Yahweh, “who use their tongues, and say, ‘He says.’ 32 Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams,” says Yahweh, “who tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting; yet I didn’t send them or command them. They don’t profit this people at all,” says Yahweh. 33 “When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, asks you, saying, ‘What is the message from Yahweh?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘“What message? I will cast you off,” says Yahweh.’ 34 As for the prophet, the priest, and the people, who say, ‘The message from Yahweh,’ I will even punish that man and his household. 35 You will say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, ‘What has Yahweh answered?’ and, ‘What has Yahweh said?’ 36 You will mention the message from Yahweh no more, for every man’s own word has become his message; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of Yahweh of Armies, our God. 37 You will say to the prophet, ‘What has Yahweh answered you?’ and, ‘What has Yahweh spoken?’ 38 Although you say, ‘The message from Yahweh,’ therefore Yahweh says: ‘Because you say this word, “The message from Yahweh,” and I have sent to you, telling you not to say, “The message from Yahweh,” 39 therefore behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off with the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence. 40 I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which will not be forgotten.’”
Dreams and the word of God are separated the way chaff is separated from grain, and a phrase people had turned into a joke is taken away from them.
The complaint is quoted with its repetition intact — I had a dream! I had a dream! — and the repetition is the tell, as the temple slogan's was. What the dreams are said to accomplish is not a mistake but an intention. They cause the people to forget God's name, exactly as their fathers forgot it because of Baal. A steady supply of religious experience is doing the work idolatry used to do, and doing it under the right name.
The separation offered is not a ban on dreams. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. Both may be spoken; what may not happen is the confusion of the two. Then the question that settles it: what is the straw to the wheat? Straw and wheat come off the same field in the same harvest and are not distinguished by origin. They are distinguished by whether anyone can live on them.
What the genuine word does is then described in two images that agree on one thing. It is like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Both destroy before they do anything else, and neither is comfortable to be near. Set against a message that strengthens the hands of evildoers, the contrast is exact. A word from God is recognizable partly because it breaks something. Three declarations of hostility follow, and they catalog how the counterfeit is produced. Men steal words from one another. Men use their own tongues and attach He says to the result. Men tell lying dreams.
The last section turns on a single word. The people, the priests and the prophets keep asking about the burden of Yahweh — a term meaning an oracle, which also means a load, and the English translations divide over which sense to bring across. The phrase had evidently become a piece of mockery in the streets, since the answer given plays on it: what burden? I will cast you off. They are then forbidden the expression altogether, and the reason is stated flatly: every man's own word has become his message. When everyone's opinion is announced as revelation, the vocabulary of revelation has stopped meaning anything, and it is confiscated. The penalty attached is an everlasting reproach that will not be forgotten. It falls on the misuse of the words rather than on the doctrine, which says something about how seriously the book takes speech about God.
settled What this mark means