Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 23:17

"They say continually unto them that despise me, Jehovah hath said, Ye shall have peace; and unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come upon you." — Jeremiah 23:17 (ASV)

Imagination. —As before (Jeremiah 3:17 and elsewhere), stubbornness. The tendency of all that the false prophets uttered was to confirm the people in their sins, not to lead them to repentance.

It is noticeable that the Hebrew verb for “has said” is not the same as the received formula of the true prophets, “The Lord has spoken.” The prophet seems to indicate in this way that those whom he condemns placed the Divine message on a level with a man’s everyday utterance. They were self-convicted by the very phrase they used.