The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, And the man who is inspired to be insane, Because of the abundance of your sins, And because your hostility is great.
The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad - The true prophet gives to the false the title which they claimed for themselves, “the prophet” and “the man of the spirit.” Only the event showed what spirit was in them, not the spirit of God but a lying spirit. The people of the world called the true prophets, “mad,” literally, maddened, “driven mad,” , as Festus thought of Paul; “Thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad” Acts 26:24. Jehu’s captains called by the same name the young prophet whom Elisha sent to anoint him. “Wherefore came this mad fellow unto thee?” 2 Kings 9:11. Shemaiah, the false prophet, who deposed God’s priest, set false priests to “be officers in the house of the Lord,” to have an oversight as to “every man who is mad and maketh himself a prophet,” calling Jeremiah both a false prophet and a “madman” (Jeremiah 29:25-26. The word is the same).