What does "itching ears" mean in the Bible?

c. 386–397 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Timothy (In epistulam ii ad Timotheum homiliae 1-10) 9

Before they grow stiffnecked, preoccupy them all. For this reason he says, “in season, out of season”; do everything, so as to have willing disciples. “But after their own lusts,” he says, “shall they heap to themselves teachers.” Nothing can be more expressive than these words. For by saying “they shall heap to themselves,” he shows the indiscriminate multitude of the teachers, as also by their being elected by their disciples. “They shall heap to themselves teachers,” he says, “having itching ears.” Seeking for such as speak to gratify and delight their hearers.

1551 · John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, part 2 (chapters 17-32) 30.10

Speak to us smooth things. When he says that they desire “smooth things,” he points out the very source; for they were ready to receive flatterers with unbounded applause, and would willingly have allowed their ears to be tickled in the name of God. And this is the reason why the world is not only liable to be carried away by delusions, but earnestly desires them; for almost all wish to have their vices treated with forbearance and encouragement.

1646–1690 · John Owen, Sermons of John Owen p2.26

The first is that mentioned, 2 Tim. iv. 3, “The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” When men grow weary of sound doctrine, — when it is too plain, too heavy, too dull, too common, too high, too mysterious, one thing or other that displeases them, and they would hear something new, something that may please, — it is a sign that there are in such an age many who are prone to forsake sound doctrine: and many such we know.

1647–1657 · Thomas Manton, Works, vol. V England’s Spiritual Languishing; with the Causes and Cure, England’s Spiritual Languishing; with the Causes and Cure

Delight in and wait upon the powerful ministry of the word: ‘The prophets prophesy lies, and the people love to have it so,’ Jer. v. 31. A vain people do but encourage a vain ministry. Do not delight, then, in a glozing dispensation, it will be successless. Frothy speculations, moral strains, do no good; the people begin to grow weary of savoury and sound knowledge: the testimony of the witnesses was a torment to the dwellers on the earth, Rev. xi. 10; powerful preaching is their burden. The lazy world would fain lie upon the bed of ease, draw the curtains and rest, and therefore light is troublesome; men begin to thirst and pant for the old unsavoury moral strains, which remain in wary generals, and do not irritate. The Lord may give you your desire; but remember that is a carnal itch that must be clawed, and the times will be sad when men cannot endure sound doctrine, 2 Tim. iv. 3.

1660 · Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes 15

They are unmerciful to souls who, instead of breaking the bread of life, fill their people’s heads with airy speculations and notions; who rather tickle the fancy than touch the conscience and give precious souls rather music than food.

1712 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Isaiah 30.8-17

] The prophets told them of their faults, and warned them of their misery and danger by reason of sin, and they could not bear that. They must speak to them smooth things, must flatter them in their sins, and say that they did well, and there was no harm, no peril, in the course of life they lived in. Let a thing be ever so right and true, if it be not smooth, they will not hear it. But if it be agreeable to the good opinion they have of themselves, and will confirm them in that, though it be ever so false and ever so great a cheat upon them, they will have it prophesied to them. Those deserve to be deceived that desire to be so.

1712 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Jeremiah 29.8-14

God tells the people, They are your dreams, because they pleased them, were the dreams that they desired and wished for. They caused them to be dreamed; for they hearkened to them, and encouraged the prophets to put such deceits upon them, desiring them to prophesy nothing but smooth things, Isa. xxx. 10. They were dreams of their own bespeaking. False prophets would not flatter people in their sins, but that they love to be flattered, and speak smoothly to their prophets that their prophets may speak smoothly to them.

c. 1714 · Joshua Bayes, Commentary on Galatians 1.10-24

As he professed to act by a commission from God; so that which he chiefly aimed at was to promote his glory, by recovering sinners into a state of subjection to him. And as this was the great end he was pursuing, so, agreeably hereunto, he did not seek to please men. He did not, in his doctrine, accommodate himself to the humours of persons, either to gain their affection or to avoid their resentment; but his great care was to approve himself to God. The judaizing teachers, by whom these churches were corrupted, had discovered a very different temper; they mixed works with faith, and the law with the gospel, only to please the Jews, whom they were willing to court and keep in with, that they might escape persecution. But Paul was a man of another spirit; he was not so solicitous to please them, nor to mitigate their rage against him, as to alter the doctrine of Christ either to gain their favour or to avoid their fury.

c. 1714 · Benjamin Andrews Atkinson, Commentary on 2 Timothy 4.1-8

People must hear, and ministers must preach, for the time to come, and guard against the mischiefs that are likely to arise hereafter, though they do not yet arise. They will turn away their ears from the truth; they will grow weary of the old plain gospel of Christ, and then they will be greedy of fables, and take pleasure in them, and God will give them up to those strong delusions, because they received not the truth in the love of it, 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. Observe, (1.) These teachers were of their own heaping up, and not of God's sending; but they chose them, to gratify their lusts, and to please their itching ears. (2.) People do so when they will not endure sound doctrine, that preaching which is searching, plain, and to the purpose; then they will have teachers of their own. (3.) There is a wide difference between the word of God and the word of such teachers; the one is sound doctrine, the word of truth, the other is only fables. (4.) Those that are turned unto fables first turn away their ears from the truth, for they cannot hear and mind both, any more than they can serve two masters.

1754 · John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on 2 Timothy 4.3

According to their own desires - Smooth as they can wish. Having itching ears - Fond of novelty and variety, which the number of new teachers, as well as their empty, soft, or philosophical discourses, pleased. Such teachers, and such hearers, seldom are much concerned with what is strict or to the purpose.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: 2 Timothy 4.3

such persons would have teachers according to "their own lusts;" that is, their own tastes, or wishes. They would have those who would coincide with their whims; who would foster every vagary which might enter their imagination; who would countenance every wild project for doing good; who would be the advocates of the errors which they held; and who would be afraid to rebuke their faults. These are the principles on which many persons choose their religious teachers. The true principle should be, to select those who will faithfully declare the truth, and who will not shrink from exposing and denouncing sin, wherever it may be found.

1860–1870 · Edward Bouverie Pusey, Notes on the Bible: Micah 2.11

The natural man wishes to be well-rid of what sets him ill at ease, not to belong to God. And the horrible subtlety of false teaching, in each age or country, is to meet its own favorite requirements, without calling for self-sacrifice or self-oblation, to give it a god such as it would have, such as might content it. : "The people willeth to be deceived, be it deceived," is a true proverb. "Men turn away their ears from the truth" 2Ti 4:4 which they dislike; and so are turned unto fables which they like. They who "receive not the love of the truth, - believe a lie" 2Th 2:11-12. If men "will not retain God in their knowledge, God giveth them over to an undistinguishing mind" Rom 1:28. They who would not receive our Lord, coming in His Father's Name, have ever since, as He said, "received them who came in their own" Joh 5:43. Men teach their teachers how they wish to be mistaught, and receive the echo of their wishes as the Voice of God.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on 2 Timothy 4.3

itching—like to hear teachers who give them mere pleasure (Ac 17:19-21), and do not offend by truths grating to their ears. They, as it were, tickle with pleasure the levity of the multitude [Cicero], who come as to a theater to hear what will delight their ears, not to learn [Seneca, Epistles, 10.8] what will do them good.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Micah 2.11

"If a man professing to have the 'spirit' of inspiration (Eze 13:3; so 'man of the spirit,' that is, one claiming inspiration, Ho 9:7), but really walking in 'wind' (prophecy void of nutriment for the soul, and unsubstantial as the wind) and falsehood, do lie, saying (that which ye like to hear), I will prophesy," &c., even such a one, however false his prophecies, since he flatters your wishes, shall be your prophet (compare Mic 2:6; Jer 5:31).

1881 · Dwight Lyman Moody, Secret Power; or, The Secret of Success in Christian Life and Work 3

That is the kind of preaching which some dearly love, and there are preachers who tickle such itching ears. When you bring the Word of God to bear upon them, and when the Spirit drives it home, then men will say: “I don’t like that kind of preaching; I will never go to hear that man again;” and sometimes they will get up and stamp their way out of church before the speaker gets through; they don’t like it.

1898 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 44 (1898) 2594

People go to hear nice velvet-tongued preachers. They like the minister to prophesy smooth things to them! "I won't go to hear Mr. So-and-So," says one, "for he will be sure to offend me." Now what is the reason for this? It is because he preaches the whole Gospel, the pure Truth of God!

1930–1933 · A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: 2 Timothy 4.3

Clement of Alexandria tells of speakers tickling (κνηθοντες) the ears of those who want to be tickled. This is the temptation of the merely "popular" preacher, to furnish the latest tickle.

c. 396–397 · Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine 4.14.30

And so much labor has been spent by men on the beauty of expression here spoken of, that not only is it not our duty to do, but it is our duty to shun and abhor, many and heinous deeds of wickedness and baseness which wicked and base men have with great eloquence recommended, not with a view to gaining assent, but merely for the sake of being read with pleasure. But may God avert from His Church what the prophet Jeremiah says of the synagogue of the Jews: “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests applaud them with their hands; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” O eloquence, which is the more terrible from its purity, and the more crushing from its solidity! Assuredly it is “a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.” For to this God Himself has by the same prophet compared His own word spoken through His holy prophets. God forbid, then, God forbid that with us the priest should applaud the false prophet, and that God’s people should love to have it so. God forbid, I say, that with us there should be such terrible madness! For what shall we do in the end thereof?

1531 · Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (abridged) 1

Paul keeps an eye on the false apostles, those flatterers of men. They taught circumcision to avoid the hatred and persecution of men. To this day you will find many who seek to please men in order that they may live in peace and security. They teach whatever is agreeable to men, no matter whether it is contrary to God’s Word or their own conscience.

1563 · John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah, part 3 (chapters 20-29) 23.21

The Prophet again warns the Jews not to be perverted by the flatteries of false teachers, and not to disregard the threatenings of God. We have already said that the minds of the people were then lulled asleep by false teachers, who promised them impunity. And there is no evil worse than when false teachers, under the name of God, flatter us, and drive away every fear and concern for our souls. This evil prevailed among the ancient people, as it does also at this day. Indeed the greater part of the world have ever sought flatterers, and when God sees that men thus indulge themselves, and in a manner seek for themselves snares, he gives loose reins to Satan and his ministers, that they may deceive those miserable men who thus wilfully seek to be deceived. The object, then, of Jeremiah was to remind the people often, that all flatteries were nothing but the wiles of Satan, or some deadly poison which stupified all their senses. For when one gives a person poison, which extinguishes the senses of the body and the faculties of the mind, it is all over with the miserable being who has been thus drugged.

1647 · John Owen, Eshcol; A Cluster of the Fruit of Canaan b.10

To be always ready furnished with and to bear in mind the characters which the Holy Ghost hath given us in the word of seducers, which are indeed the very same, whereby poor unstable souls are seduced by them; as, — First, That they should come in “sheep’s clothing,” Matt. vii. 15, — goodly pretences of innocency and holiness. Secondly, With “good words and fair speeches,” Rom. xvi. 17, 18, smooth as butter and oil. Thirdly, Answering men’s lusts in their doctrine, 2 Tim. iv. 3, — bringing doctrines suitable to some beloved lusts of men, especially a broad and easy way of salvation.

1712 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Jeremiah 6.9-17

He condemns the false prophets who preached plausibly, for therein they flattered people and dealt unfaithfully (v. 13, 14): The priest and the prophet, who should be their watchmen and monitors, have dealt falsely, have not been true to their trust not told the people their faults and the danger they were in; they should have been their physicians, but they murdered their patients by letting them have their will, by giving them every thing that had a mind to, and flattering them into an opinion that they were in no danger (v. 14): They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, or according to the cure of some slight hurt, skinning over the wound and never searching it to the bottom, applying lenitives only, when there was need of corrosives, soothing people in their sins, and giving them opiates to make them easy for the present, while the disease was preying upon the vitals. They said, "Peace peace—all shall be well." (if there were some thinking people among them, who were awake, and apprehensive of danger, they soon stopped their mouths with their priestly and prophetical authority, boldly averring that neither church nor state was in any danger), when there is no peace, because they went on in their idolatries and daring impieties. Note, Those are to be reckoned our false friends (that is, our worst and most dangerous enemies) who flatter us in a sinful way.

1742 · Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England 3

To blame a minister for thus declaring the truth to those who are under awakenings, and not immediately administering comfort to them, is like blaming a surgeon, because when he has begun to thrust his lance, whereby he has already put his patient to great pain, and he shrinks and cries out with anguish, he is so cruel that he will not stay his hand, but goes on to thrust it in further, till he comes to the core of the wound. Such a compassionate physician, who as soon as his patient began to flinch, should withdraw his hand, and go about immediately to apply a plaster, to skin over the wound, and leave the core untouched, would heal the hurt slightly, crying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 2 21

Accordingly, in the thirtieth of Isaiah, we find some arrived to that pitch of sottishness, and so much in love with their own ruin, as to own plainly and roundly what they would be at; in the tenth verse, Prophesy not unto us, say they, right things, but prophesy to us smooth things. As if they had said, “Do but oil the razor for us, and let us alone “to cut our own throats.” Such an enchantment is there in words; and so fine a thing does it seem to some to be ruined plausibly, and to be ushered to their destruction with panegyric and acclamation: a shameful, though irrefragable argument, of the absurd empire and usurpation of words over things; and that the greatest affairs and most important interests of the world are carried on by things, not as they are, but as they are called.

1845–1861 · Charles G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes 10

I warn you, don’t look after some physician to give you an opiate, for you don’t need it. Shun, as you would death itself, all those who would speak to you smooth things and prophesy deceits. They would surely ruin your soul.

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 16.1-7

To count the cost is one of the first duties that ought to be pressed on Christians in every age. It is no kindness to young beginners to paint the service of Christ in false colors, and to keep back from them the old truth, "Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God." By prophesying smooth things, and crying "Peace," we may easily fill the ranks of Christ's army with professing soldiers.

1871 · A. R. Fausset, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Jeremiah 6.14

saying—namely, the prophets and priests (Jer 6:13). Whereas they ought to warn the people of impending judgments and the need of repentance, they say there is nothing to fear. peace—including soundness. All is sound in the nation's moral state, so all will be peace as to its political state (Jer 4:10; 8:11; 14:13; 23:17; Eze 13:5, 10; 22:28).

1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 136

A Third sort of those who corrupt the Word of God, though in a lower degree than either of the former, are those who do so, not by adding to it, but taking from it; who take either of the spirit or substance of it away, while they study to prophesy only smooth things, and therefore palliate and colour what they preach, to reconcile it to the taste of the hearers. And that they may do this the better, they commonly let those parts go that will admit of no colouring. They wash their hands of those stubborn texts that will not bend to their purpose, or that too plainly touch on the reigning vices of the place where they are. These they exchange for those more soft and tractable ones, that are not so apt to give offence. Not one word must be said of the tribulation and anguish denounced against sinners in general; much less of the unquenchable fire, which, if God be true, awaits several of those particular offences that have fallen within their own notice. These tender parts are not to be touched without danger by them who study to recommend themselves to men; or, if they are, it must be with the utmost caution, and a nice evasion in reserve. But they safely may thunder against those who are out of their reach, and against those sins which they suppose none that hear them are guilty of.

1890 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 36 (1890) 2157

I had rather be wounded in a thousand spiritual conflicts than be soothed into eternal destruction by a false peace! Let my hopes be slain by the sword of the Truth of God rather than nourished on the bread of lies. God forgive that we should prophesy smooth things for ourselves while the pen of justice is signing our death warrant!

1712 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Jeremiah 15.15-21

] He must closely adhere to his instructions, and not in the least vary from them: Let them return to thee, but return not thou to them, that is, he must do the utmost he can, in his preaching, to bring people up to the mind of God; he must tell them they must, at their peril, comply with that. Those that had flown off from him, that did not like the terms upon which God's favour was offered to them, "Let them return to thee, and, upon second thoughts, come up to the terms and strike the bargain; but do not thou return to them, do not compliment them, nor comply with them, nor think to make the matter easier to them than the word of God has made it." Men's hearts and lives must come up to God's law and comply with that, for God's law will never come down to them nor comply with them.

1771–1772 · George Whitefield, Selected Sermons 31

I wish you knew, and would consider, into what a strait, we that are ministers are sometime brought, when we are called to the dying beds of those who have spent their lives in the neglect of the one thing needful. On the one hand, we fear, lest if we palliate [sugarcoat] matters, and speak smooth things, we shall betray and ruin their souls; and on the other, that if we use a becoming plainness and seriousness, in warning them of their danger, we shall quite overwhelm them, and hasten the dying moments, which is advancing by such swift steps.

1872 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 18 (1872) 1031

When it is the soul that is concerned I would say to the preacher, 'Sir, do not flatter me, do not tell me that which will please but delude me; I do not want your flattery, I do not want your fine words. 'Sir, tell me what I am, and where I am in the sight of God, and how I can be saved; for it will little satisfy me to wake up in hell and remember that I used to hear a fine orator. I want to be saved in deed and of a truth.' 'Ah,' says one, 'but some preachers are not only bold, but rough in their expression.' Yes, but suppose you were nearly drowned, and a strong swimmer plunged into the stream and plucked you out just as you were sinking for the last time, if he dislocated your arm would you grumble? No, you would say, 'The bone can be set at another time, but my life could not have been restored.' And so with the preacher, though he be rough, if it be the truth which he speaks, only pray that it may save your soul, and be content to put up with the man's infirmity, if by any means you may attain to salvation by Jesus Christ.

1893 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 39 (1893) 2308

Ah, Sirs, you are bad hearers if you cannot hear that which rasps you, that which stings you, but which is honest Truth of God and is meant to make you repent of your sins! Give me not the man who makes me merry, but the man who makes me penitent! Not the man who sends me home filled with a fine conceit of myself, but the man who, whatever I think of him, makes me think badly of myself and brings me to my knees to seek mercy through Jesus Christ my Savior!