Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord,.... Made use of his name in declaring a falsehood, as they would have it; this was the crime: had he said what he thought fit to say in his own name, they suggest it would not have been so bad; but to vent his own imaginations in the name of the Lord, this they judged wicked and blasphemous, and deserving of death; especially since what he said was against their city and temple:saying, this house shall be like Shiloh; forsaken and destroyed; that is, the temple:and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant?
so they wrested his words; for this he did not say, only that it should be a curse to all the nations of the earth:and all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord; besides those that were in the temple that heard him, others, upon a rumour that he was apprehended by the priests, and prophets, and people in the temple, got together in a mob about him: or, they were "gathered to" him; to hear what he had to say in his own defence; and it appears afterwards that they were on his side, Jer 26:16.