Jeremiah 28:1-17. \u00a0In yesterday\u2019s reading Jeremiah acted out or used a prop to get his message across; he placed a wooden yoke on his neck.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The yoke was a symbol of control and his message was that God had put the region under the control of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzer and that the people should not rebel against it.\u00a0 Jeremiah warned all the kingdoms or nations under Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s control, he warned Judah specifically, and he warned the priests and people of Judah also.\u00a0 In the warning to the priests and people he got very specific about not listening to the false prophets and even challenged the prophet about their false messages.\u00a0 He told them to pray about the stuff left in the Temple after the recent raid by Nebuchadnezzar.\u00a0 He told them that if they were true prophets of Yahweh (the God of Israel, the one true God) that they should pray to him to preserve the stuff that was left.\u00a0 He said if they were true prophets maybe it would not be take in another raid.\u00a0 But then he assured the people there would be another raid and all the stuff would be taken.<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s reading one of the false prophets sort of takes Jeremiah up on the challenge.\u00a0 In verse 1 we learn that the (false) prophet\u2019s name is Hananiah.\u00a0 He is from the town of Gibeon.\u00a0 Gibeon was in the region of Benjamin the same region of the kingdom that Jeremiah was from.\u00a0 Hananiah approached Jeremiah in the Temple (house of the LORD (Yahweh)).\u00a0 There, in front of the priests and people, Hanaiah claimed to be speaking for \u201cthe LORD of hosts, the God of Israel\u201d.\u00a0 That was the exact same language Jeremiah had used.\u00a0 In his message Hananiah twice tells the audience that he is going to \u201cbreak the yoke of the king of Babylon\u201d (vv. 2,4).\u00a0 He also says that all of the stuff that was taken will be returned, as well as the captives tht were recently taken, and the young king (Jehoiachin).\u00a0 He even gave a time table, \u201cwithin two years\u201d.\u00a0 In Jeremiah 22:26-27 Jeremiah predicted that Jehoiachin would die in exile.\u00a0 In Jeremiah 27:21-22 Jeremiah predicted that the rest of the stuff in the temple would be removed and would be there for some time.\u00a0 That would seem to indicate that the stuff already take would not come back soon.\u00a0 Hananiah\u2019s predictions were in complete contrast to those of Jeremiah; it was a full on challenge.<\/p>\n
In verses 4-9 Jeremiah answers Hananiah\u2019s challenge.\u00a0 I would been Hananiah\u2019s face if I had been Jeremiah, but instead Jeremiah answers by saying, \u201cAmen, May Yahweh do so!\u201d\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 If Hananiah\u2019s predictions came true that would make Jeremiah\u2019s predictions false, I\u2019m sure the leaders and the people would lose no time retrying and executing Jeremiah.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure I would be hoping for an event that would surely lead to my execution.\u00a0 But Jeremiah was confident that he had honored God; had spoken \u201call that Yahweh had commanded him\u201d, and he was also devoted to God, His city, His Temple, and to honoring God.\u00a0 If he was wrong then all of that would come back and he deserved to die anyway.\u00a0 Wow, that is dedication.<\/p>\n
In verses 7-9 though, Jeremiah is very careful to set the ground rules.\u00a0 Throughout the history of Israel there had been a lot of trouble, lots of times when they had been invaded.\u00a0 Often these invasions were used by God to make the people see that they were not being faithful to Him.\u00a0 True prophets would warn and warn and warn the people that if they did not turn back to God an invasion would happen.\u00a0 At the same time there would be false prophets talking about peace.\u00a0 Hananiah is like these false prophets, predicting that the current trouble will just go away.\u00a0 In the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 18:20-22) we find that the test of a prophet is whether or not what they have predicted actually happens.\u00a0 Anything less than 100% accuracy means you are a false prophet and you are to be executed for making false claims about Yahweh.\u00a0 Jeremiah reminds them about the ground rules.\u00a0 It is interesting that he uses situations a lot like the one he is in to lay out the rules, in the past it was usually the \u201cprophets\u201d who were saying \u201cpeace\u201d who were false, just like Hananiah.<\/p>\n
In verses 10-11 Hananiah responds to Jeremiah\u2019s answer.\u00a0 He takes the yoke off of Jeremiah\u2019s neck and breaks it.\u00a0 He then basically accepts the \u201crules\u201d by repeating his prediction.<\/p>\n
At the end of verse 11 Jeremiah simply walks away.\u00a0 But that is not the end of his communication with Hananiah.\u00a0 God spoke to Jeremiah again after this event.\u00a0 There are two parts to the message that God gave to Jeremiah.\u00a0 The first part is about the control of Nebuchadnezzar over the region.\u00a0 The yoke that Hananiah broke was the wooden one that Jeremiah had made for himself, it was a symbol of Babylonian control.\u00a0 Yahweh (LORD) told Jeremiah to tell Hananiah that he had broken a wooden yoke and that now it would be replaced by an iron one.\u00a0 The idea here is one of strength, wood is strong, iron is stronger.\u00a0 It seems that God is saying that the control will now become stronger.<\/p>\n
Historically we see that is true.\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar passed through the area in 605 BC and took some of the top citizens as captives, to use as advisors, that is how Daniel and his friends wound up in Babylon.\u00a0 In 598-597 he came back to the area in response to rebellion by Jehoiakim.\u00a0 At that time he took some stuff from the Temple (probably to show that he had power over \u201cYahweh of hosts, the God of Israel\u201d (of course he was mistaken about that)), and he also took 10,000 of the \u201cleading\u201d citizens as captive.\u00a0 He also took the new king, Jehoiachin, captive and set us his Jehoiachin\u2019s uncle as king.\u00a0 In 586 Nebuchadnezzar will be back because of more rebellion, at that time he will destroy the Temple, get rid of kings all together, set us a governor, and take everyone else captive.\u00a0 So the control will increase or get stronger.<\/p>\n
The second part of the message to Hananiah is much more serious (at least for Hananiah) and has a much quicker fulfillment.\u00a0 Remember that the test of a prophet was accuracy, in the history of Israel many predictions took a long time to be fulfilled, Daniel had one that would take 483 years to be partially fulfilled, some predictions are still waiting.\u00a0 It would be important for the true prophets of God to have at least some that could be checked out in their own time.\u00a0 In Jeremiah\u2019s case he needed a \u201chit\u201d at this at bat.\u00a0 God told Jeremiah that Hananiah was going to die because he was a lying false prophet who was misleading the people, and it would happen\u00a0 that year.\u00a0 Hananiah would not even get to see if his two year prediction came true (which it would not).\u00a0 God does not need to wait to see the outcome he already know what is going to happen and so he passed sentence on this false prophet.\u00a0 In the seventh month of that year Hananiah died.<\/p>\n