They have spoken falsehood and divined a lie: In this verse the Hebrew text reverts to the third person (They) to refer to the false prophets. Revised Standard Version has changed the Hebrew text a little to achieve its rendering; New Revised Standard Version is closer to the Hebrew with “They have envisioned falsehood and lying divination.” The Hebrew expression for They have spoken falsehood means the false prophets claimed to have seen visions, but they were not true visions from God. They had seen what was empty and useless. Falsehood renders the same Hebrew word translated “false” in 12.24 (see the comments there). For They have spoken falsehood, Good News Translation has “Their visions are false,” but Parole de Vie is even better with “They invent [or, make up] their visions.” Instead of divined a lie, the Hebrew has “divination of falsehood,” which refers to misleading and deceptive predictions of the future. The Hebrew word for “divination” has a bad sense that involves foretelling the future with the help of magic or false gods (see 12.24, where a Hebrew word from the same root is used). For divined a lie, Good News Translation has a good model, saying “their predictions are lies.”
They say, ‘Says the LORD’: As well as claiming to have had visions from God, the false prophets also claimed to speak on God’s behalf. They used the terminology of a formal declaration of God: Says the LORD (see the comments on 5.11). Translators may use direct or indirect speech for the false prophets’ words, depending on which is more natural in their language. A model that uses direct speech is “They say, ‘This is what Yahweh says.’ ” A model with indirect speech is “They say they are giving a message from Yahweh.”
When the LORD has not sent them: The false prophets claimed to be speaking God’s message, even though God had not spoken to them or sent them with authority to speak on his behalf. Since the LORD is speaking here, some translators may prefer to say “I, the LORD.” Sent here clearly means “sent on God’s behalf.” Translators may need to make this explicit by rendering this clause as “even though I, Yahweh, did not send them to deliver my message.” Further, some languages may have to specify where they were sent or who they were sent to. If so, translators may add “to the people of Israel.”
And yet they expect him to fulfil their word: This clause shows the arrogance of the false prophets. They prophesied, even though they had not seen a true vision and had not received a message from God, but they still expected God to make their predictions come true. The Hebrew here is literally “and they have waited to fulfil a word.” Although the subject for the verb fulfil is not explicit in the Hebrew, some translations rightly make God the subject (so Revised Standard Version, New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). But many others obscure the subject by rendering this clause more generally; for example, Good News Translation has “Yet they expect their words to come true!” (similarly New Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Century Version, New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). The Revised Standard Version rendering is preferable.
A model for this verse is:
• They have seen empty visions and lying predictions. They say, ‘This is a declaration of Yahweh,’ even though Yahweh did not send them to speak his message. In spite of this, they wait for God to make their words come true.
Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .