And her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash …: The fourth group that God criticizes are Israel’s prophets (compare Zeph 3.4). The charges in this verse are much more appropriate to prophets than those in verse 25, and recall God’s attack on the male false prophets in chapter 13. The first charge is that they have daubed for them with whitewash. In chapter 13 God accused the false prophets of painting a wall of loose stones with whitewash to make it look good, even though the wall was very weak and fell down in the first shower of rain (see 13.10-11, 14-15). This was a metaphor for the way the false prophets were misleading the people (see 13.10). Here translators may say “Israel’s prophets have covered things over with whitewash for the leaders.” The pronoun them refers to the leaders. Translators may omit the metaphor if that would be more natural in their language; for example, Contemporary English Version says “And then the prophets in Israel cover up these sins [of the officials].”

God’s second charge is that the prophets were seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD has not spoken. The terminology here is the almost same as in 13.6-7 (see the comments there). This second charge also tells how the prophets “whitewashed” the leaders. The pronoun them refers again to the leaders whose wicked actions the prophets were hiding and excusing, but it could also refer to the prophets themselves. For Thus says the Lord GOD, see Ezek 22.3.

A model for this verse is:

• The prophets of Israel have tried to cover up the sins of those leaders by seeing false visions and making lying predictions. They have said, ‘This is what the Lord Yahweh says,’ even though I, Yahweh, did not speak at all. They have acted like workmen who paint a bad wall to make it look good on the outside.

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 .