Verse 2

(2) I have broken the yoke . . .—The word is obviously used with special reference to the symbol which Jeremiah had made so conspicuous (Jeremiah 27:2). With something, it may be, of ironical repetition, he reproduces the very formula with which the true prophet had begun his message. He, too, can speak in the name of “the Lord of Sabaoth, the God of Israel.”

Verse 3

(3) Within two full years.—Literally, two years of days. Hananiah, not deterred by the previous warnings of Jeremiah, becomes bolder in the definiteness of his prediction. The conspiracy of Judah and the neighbouring states against Nebuchadnezzar was clearly ripening, and he looked on its success as certain. Prediction stood against prediction, and, as there were no signs or wonders wrought, men had to judge from what they knew of the lives of the men who uttered them which of them was most worthy of credit. The contest between the two prophets reminds us of Deuteronomy 18:20-22.

Verse 4

(4) And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim . . .—We get here a new glimpse into the nature of the anti-Chaldæan confederacy. Zedekiah was to be deposed as too submissive to Nebuchadnezzar, and the young Jeconiah was to be brought back from his prison at Babylon, and re-established in the kingdom as the representative of the policy of resistance, resting on the support of Pharaoh-Hophra.

Verse 6

(6) Amen, the Lord do so.—It is impossible to mistake the tone of keen, incisive irony with which the words were spoken. The speaker could, without falsehood, echo the wish as far as it was a wish, but he knew that it was a wish for the impossible. The whole condition of things would have to be altered before there could be the slightest prospect of its fulfilment. It was not wise to pray for that which was obviously out of the lines of God’s normal methods of working in history, and against His purpose, as uttered by His prophets.

Verse 8

(8) The prophets that have been before me and before thee . . .—The appeal to the past is of the nature of an inductive argument. The older prophets whose names were held in honour had not spoken smooth things. They had not prophesied of peace; war, pestilence, and famine had been the burden of their predictions. And there was, therefore, an antecedent probability in favour of one who spoke in the same tone now, rather than of those who held out flattering hopes of peace and victory. The onus probandi in such a conflict of claims lay with the latter, not the former. Prophecies like those of Elijah (1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 21:21-24), Micaiah (1 Kings 22:17), Elisha (2 Kings 8:1), Joel (Joel 1:1-20), Hosea (Hosea 2:11-12), Amos (Amos 1-4), Micah (Micah 3:12), Isaiah (Isaiah 2-6), were probably in Jeremiah’s thoughts.

Verse 9

(9) The prophet which prophesieth of peace.—“Peace,” with its Hebrew associations, includes all forms of national prosperity, and is therefore contrasted with famine and pestilence, not less than with war. The obvious reference to the test of a prophet’s work, as described in Deuteronomy 18:22, shows, as other like references, the impression which that book had made on the prophet’s mind.

Verse 10-11

(10, 11) Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke . . .—We are reminded of the conduct of Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, in 1 Kings 22:24. Personal violence, as has been the case in some Christian controversies, takes the place of further debate. The hateful symbols of servitude should not be allowed to outrage the feelings of the people any longer. His success in breaking that was to be the pledge of the destruction of the power which it represented. Jeremiah, it will be noted, does not resist or retaliate, but commits himself to Him that judgeth righteously. “He went his way.”

Verse 12

(12) Then the word of the Lord . . .—The narrative suggests the thought of a time of silent suffering and of prayer, to which the “word of the Lord” came as an answer. And that word declared, keeping to the same symbolism as before, that all attempts at resistance to the power which was for the time the scourge, and therefore the servant, of Jehovah, would only end in a more bitter and aggravated bondage. In the “iron yoke” we have an echo of Deuteronomy 28:48.

Verse 14

(14) I have given him the beasts of the field also.—On the significance of this addition see Note on Jeremiah 27:6.

Verse 15

(15) Hear now, Hananiah . . .—The narrative leaves the time and place of the interview uncertain, but suggests an interval of some days between it and the scene in the Temple court just narrated. In the strength of the “word of the Lord” which had come to him, the prophet can now tell his rival that he is a pretender, claiming the gift of prophecy for his own purposes and that of his party. There is a strange significance in the fact that the same official title is applied to both the true and the false prophets.

Verse 16

(16) I will cast thee . . .—Literally, I send thee. The verb is the same as in the preceding verse, and is repeated with an emphatic irony.

This year thou shalt die . . .—The punishment is announced, with time given for repentance. In part, perhaps, the threat may have tended to work out its own fulfilment through the gnawing consciousness of shame and confusion in the detection of the false prophet’s assumptions. He knew that the Lord had not sent him. Seven months passed, and then the stroke fell. It is one of the instances of the prophet’s work, as “rooting out” and “pulling down” (Jeremiah 1:10), and has its parallels in the punishment of Ananias, in Acts 5:4-5, and of Elymas, in Acts 13:11.