The “name” of the Lord refers to his character and his nature. This is not merely referring to forgetting the name used to identify God. Instead, they are forgetting who he is. The false prophets with their false messages, false doctrine, and false philosophies cause the people to forget the true character of the Lord. Once the Lord’s “name”, “character”, “word” or “nature” are forgotten then the floodgates have been opened for lies, deception and false worldviews to replace the Truth.

The example of Baal worship is used. In the past when Israel forgot the truth of the Lord they could no longer tell the difference between the character of Baal and the character of the Lord. In fact, Baal worship was much more understandable to the unrenewed mind of Israel. It was easier to accept Baal doctrine than to be transformed by the Truth. Here in Jeremiah 23 the Lord says the lies, the prophesies, the dreams and the teaching of the false prophets are doing the same thing.

Jeremiah calls the dreams “straw” or “chaff” (Hb. teben). “Chaff” has nothing in common with the useful, nutritious “grain” of God’s Word. In this case the Word of God will consume the straw.

Jeremiah says, “If the dreamer wants to tell everybody what he dreamt last night, go ahead. But, realize it was only an empty, meaningless dream someone had. No harm in sharing last night’s dreams, but realize they have no meaning.” On the other hand, Jeremiah adds, “If a man has the Word of God he should be as excited to share the Word of God as the man who wakes up and wants to tell about his dream. The man with the Word of God should present it accurately with no addition of his own thoughts and opinions. The Word of God should be taught faithfully.”

The power of the Word of God will burn away any interest someone may have in a weird dream.
Like a hammer, the Word of the Lord will pulverize all the idle notions that popular culture wants to present as helpful and encouraging words.

It is interesting to notice that even in Jeremiah’s day when a false prophet’s words of encouragement (think of seminars presenting easy self-help steps) became popular among the people, the other false prophets would steal their teaching. As always, the market will be saturated with whatever the people are buying. The false prophets posing as “pastors” will teach from their pulpit whatever is filling the pews.

“I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me...
They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies…
They do not benefit these people in the least.”  - Jeremiah 23:32

Strong's Concordance
and Key Numbers

James Strong made a concordance that shows every English word in the text of the King James Version. Each Greek word in the New Testament (and also, each Hebrew and Aramaic word of the Old Testament) is numbered. In this way a student can look up the English word in Strong’s Concordance, find the verse they are referring to, and then look at the number listed beside the verse. This number can be referenced in the back of Strong’s concordance in the simple Hebrew dictionary (numbers are in regular straight font) or in the simple Greek dictionary (numbers are in italic font). In the dictionaries in the back
by Strong’s number
you will find the:

• Greek word in Greek letters,
• Greek word transliterated into English letters,
• Pronunciation of the Greek word,
• Reference to the base word or related word,
• A brief definition and
• Some English words used to translate the
Greek word.

The only skill the student needs is to know the Bible verse and numbers up to 5624. The same system is used for the Old Testament and Hebrew, but the numbers go up to 8674. Strong’s work is based on the best scholarship from the 1800’s, before the huge influx of ancient papyri were discovered and analyzed.