Original Meaning

JEREMIAH’S ENCOUNTERS WITH HANANIAH comprise one of the best-known accounts in this prophetic book. The first verse of the chapter ties the encounter with the efforts in Zedekiah’s fourth year (594/593 B.C.) to foment a rebellion against Babylonian control. Although the date in the fourth year is explicit, the reference to “early in the reign of Zedekiah” seems out of place.1 As indicated in the commentary on chapter 27, a serious rebellion broke out against Babylon at this time in the eastern section of the empire, and other states subjected to Babylon were tempted to declare themselves independent. In chapter 27 one finds the account of a conference for state diplomats held in Jerusalem, where the discussion apparently included anti-Babylonian proposals. Jeremiah wore a yoke at that time to symbolize God’s intention to place Judah in servitude to Babylon.

28:1–11. Hananiah bears all the marks of a prophet of the Lord. His name means the “The LORD is [or has been] gracious.” The fact that he is from Gibeon is helpful to identify him, but that fact may have no other significance for understanding his actions. When he speaks, his words are prefaced by the announcement, “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says” (28:2). Hananiah prophesies that God will restore to Jerusalem the temple vessels taken by the Babylonians in 597 B.C. and the exiled Judean king. Concern about the temple vessels and the words of Jeremiah’s prophetic opponents have been mentioned in 27:16–22. Hananiah, therefore, represents one of the unnamed prophets, noted in chapter 27, who are leading the people astray.

Hananiah performs a prophetic symbolic act in breaking the wooden yoke that Jeremiah is wearing; this was Hananiah’s illustration of his prophecy that the Lord will break the yoke of Babylon, which is constraining and humiliating Judah. Hananiah believes in the power of the Lord to overcome Babylonian rule and to restore the exiled king Jehoiachin,2 the other exiles deported in 597 B.C., and even the temple vessels taken by the Babylonian army. Throughout the chapter Hananiah is described as “the prophet” (28:1, 5, 10, 12, 15, 17).3 In the Greek translation of Jeremiah, Hananiah is explicitly described as a “false prophet,” but the Hebrew text refrains from using an equivalent term. Both the terminology and the form of his public address indicate that he is a Yahwistic prophet, perhaps even one who has served God faithfully on previous occasions. Now, however, the content of his oracle is wrong. He will be shown wrong about God’s timing and about God’s intentions in using Babylonian might to chastise his people.

Hananiah makes his announcement that the Lord will soon overcome the Babylonians and restore the people and temple vessels in the courtyard of the temple complex (28:2–4). This setting is important to the context of the message and also to Jeremiah’s ministry. On several occasions Jeremiah publicly prophesied in the temple. At the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign he offered a scathing review of misplaced confidence in the temple and called for repentance from the evil course underway in Judah (26:1–6; cf. ch. 7; 19:14–15). After being forbidden to preach at the temple complex, Jeremiah sent his faithful secretary, Baruch, to read from a scroll of collected oracles (ch. 36). During Zedekiah’s reign Jeremiah was in the temple complex and received a vision with an oracle attached to it (24:1–10).

Jeremiah’s encounter with Hananiah in the temple symbolizes their differing viewpoints on what it means that God dwells in the midst of his people. Hananiah seems to think that God’s presence means that God’s defense of the house and the people is always near at hand.

Jeremiah’s first reaction to the oracle of Hananiah (“Amen!” 28:6) seems to indicate that the prophecy impresses him. This reaction is in spite of the fact that Hananiah’s proclamation goes against what he himself has prophesied. Jeremiah is open to hearing God speak through Hananiah. By way of first response, Jeremiah reminds Hananiah and their audience in the temple that prophets of the Lord have habitually announced disaster and judgment—the prophet who predicts peace will be vindicated only when that word comes to pass (28:8–9). This will indicate that it has come from God.

A prophecy of disaster or judgment, however, is evaluated differently. It is intended to evoke consternation and provoke people to action. The citation of Micah 3:12 in Jeremiah 26:18 is a good illustration of the point. Micah of Moresheth announced the coming destruction of Jerusalem. The proclamation was unconditional in form, yet what it provoked in Hezekiah and the people was enough for the Lord to relent and to keep from bringing the announced destruction to pass (26:19; see comments on ch. 26).

28:12–17. When Hananiah breaks the yoke worn by Jeremiah, Jeremiah does not reply immediately. This is another indication of the seriousness with which he takes Hananiah’s prophetic efforts. It may also indicate that Jeremiah is humiliated by his first encounter with Hananiah. Subsequently the word of the Lord comes to him, and he confronts Hananiah with the message that Babylon rules with God’s explicit assent and that Hananiah has made the people believe a “lie” (Heb. šeqer,4 used several times in chs. 27–29). Indeed, Hananiah’s words are a rebellion against the will of the Lord. In place of the wooden yoke broken by Hananiah, Jeremiah proclaims that God will now place the people in servitude to Babylon through an iron yoke.

In a somber word, Jeremiah announces that Hananiah will die within the year (28:12–17). That death is interpreted as judgment on him and his word. This is in accord with Deuteronomy 18:20–22, where the penalty for preaching falsely in the name of the Lord is death. The narrative about Hananiah is an illustration of the charges elsewhere in Jeremiah concerning prophets who prophesy “peace, when there is no peace.”

Bridging Contexts

THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN PROPHECY. The encounters between Hananiah and Jeremiah in chapter 28 are narrated as part of the immediate context (chs. 27–29) of Judean opposition to Babylon and the claims of many that the Lord is on the Judean side in that struggle. On the contrary, however, Jeremiah insists that God has temporarily granted sovereignty over Judah to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. Judah will serve Nebuchadnezzar because he serves the Lord as the historical agent of judgment. This entire book is an attempt to preserve the words of an unpopular prophet whose witness is recognized more clearly after the fall of Jerusalem. Even more broadly the encounters are a part of the larger scriptural witness that God does not leave his people without guidance, even if the majority are heedless of the message or oppose its tenor.

This chapter also underscores the human element in prophecy and in particular the humanness of Jeremiah. One gets no indication from the text that Hananiah has consciously deceived his audience. Presumably he truly believes his message; he cannot conceive of God as using the enemy of Judah as chastisement on Judah. Nor is Hananiah heterodox in prophetic practice—as if he depends on Baal for his inspiration. Everything about him suggests he is (and was) a prophet of Yahweh. Yet in his certainty and zeal for the Lord, he is wrong about the Lord’s intentions. Moreover, he falls under the judgment of Deuteronomy 18:20–22 and its strictures against false prophecy. His word will not come true in two years’ time, and he will die before that.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, has prophesied for years that God will bring judgment on Judah for its sinfulness. Is it possible that the burden he has carried for years is about to be lifted without the actual fall of Jerusalem and with the speedy return of exiled people and materials? Is the Lord telling him through Hananiah that indeed the time for judgment will soon end? From Jeremiah’s reaction, he takes this possibility seriously. Here is one prophet listening carefully to another, open to the possibility that God has initiated a new phase in his dealings with his people.

In his humanness and openness, Jeremiah offers a model of the prophetic office. He does not dictate infallibly; he remains open, yet is certain of two things: God will not leave himself without a witness to the people, and God can make abrupt changes in his dealings with his people. Jeremiah is open, therefore, to the idea that the tone and thrust of his past prophetic ministry (over thirty years in duration) will come to an end because God is about to initiate a new direction for his people.

Perhaps most surprising, Jeremiah is open to the possibility that Hananiah is God’s prophet to announce such changes. In this openness to God and to prophetic instruction himself, Jeremiah the prophet (28:5, 10, 11, 12, 15) helps subsequent readers to grasp the relational nature of true prophecy. It remains open to further guidance from God, listening carefully to the voices among God’s people, and it requires self-examination before speaking.

The nature of true prophecy. But Jeremiah indicates something else that is fundamental about the prophetic office: It is the nature of true prophecy to indicate where God’s people have failed and need instruction (28:8–9). This is basic to the larger collection of prophetic books in the Old Testament. The majority of their contents is critical toward the Israelite or Judean audience. Here is a job description that is always “open.” A criterion of true prophecy from the past is not whether what is announced comes true. True prophets focus on the failures of the people and the corresponding judgment to come (if the failures are not dealt with adequately).

Jeremiah 26 referred to the prophet Micah, whose words about the destruction of Jerusalem were efficacious in turning Hezekiah and the nation from their self-destructive ways. Micah fits the prophetic profile as defined by Jeremiah in 28:8–9. Here also is one (among several) criterion for interpreting prophecy that speaks volumes across the centuries. The voice that speaks for God takes seriously the failures of the people. It is the prophet who announces that “all will be well” whose word requires a literal fulfillment. Otherwise, God has not sent him or her, and the true prophet should be about the business of uncovering the failures of God’s people, holding them up to the light of day and thus demonstrating the possibility of judgment to come. Hananiah’s death confirms his “lie.”

Perhaps an instructive way to bridge the gap between the ancient setting and modern appropriation is to ask readers/hearers: With which of the prophets in the account do they identify? The question will not only require that they know something about the issues at stake for Jeremiah and Hananiah; it will also force them to account for why Hananiah is so adamant and sincere and why initially Jeremiah is open to considering his message.

Contemporary Significance

GOD’S WILL TO SAVE. Hananiah speaks forthrightly about God’s sovereignty in a time of flux and uncertainty. According to this prophet from Gibeon, not only is the Lord of history capable of delivering his people from the hand of persecutors; it is his gracious desire to save them. Who would wish to quarrel with this? Certainly not Jeremiah! According to Jeremiah, Babylon is but a tool in the hands of the sovereign Lord, and when Babylon’s appointed task is complete, its worldly hegemony will come to an end. Moreover, the Lord will redeem his people and bring them back from exile. Hananiah and Jeremiah could agree on these central tenets.

Furthermore, did not God later do what Hananiah predicted when he moved Cyrus to release the exiles and the temple vessels so that both could return to their rightful home? Who among God’s people today would dispute Hananiah’s basic affirmation that God would deliver Judah? In light of God’s subsequent radical reach into human history, his encounter with human sinfulness in Christ, his costly dealings with human failure at the cross, and his glorious triumph over death itself in raising Christ from the dead, God demonstrates his resolve to save. Yes, Hananiah was right about God’s will to save.

Who speaks the truth? One sees a strange paradox in the dispute between Hananiah and Jeremiah. Hananiah’s certainty about the Lord is ill-timed, while Jeremiah’s human hesitation in light of Hananiah’s initial prophecy is part of his care in listening for the Lord’s leading. Such leading can and does come from prophetic voices, but how can one know who speaks the truth? In Hananiah’s case, his certainty is ill-timed because he has failed to recognize the gravity of Judah’s failures. Yes, his sense of God as strong Deliverer is accurate, but his sense of God’s timing is wrong. Hananiah has an inadequate grasp of Judah’s predicament before the Lord, and because of this he has an inadequate grasp of what the Lord of history intends in adopting Babylon as his historical agent.

Is Judah’s predicament in 594/593 B.C. reflective of a mild miscalculation? Have the ongoing failures of Judah and the deportations of 597 been acknowledged by the people and dealt with adequately? Are the deportations of 597 the needed “slap on the wrist,” the “mid-course correction” to set Judah again on the path of righteousness in relationship to her Lord, so that all that remains is God’s liberation of the exiles and the temple vessels? No, unfortunately the true prophet sees that Judah has not comprehended adequately either its failures or the consequences of its failures, and the people as a whole have not been receptive to divine instruction. Hananiah is right to believe that God wants the return of his people, but his timing is wrong. In Christian terms, he wants to proclaim a resurrection without an acknowledgment of the necessity of the cross. Are there movements today within the church that “heal lightly the wound of the people”? The issue is not one of sincerity, but of truth.

An authentic prophet cannot overlook the barriers between what God has called his people to be and what they in their human fallibility actually represent. Wherever there is an automatic reliance on God’s will to save without an acceptance of his refining judgments as a process of sanctification, there is the real possibility of misrepresenting God to any generation.

One is driven to ask about the state of the church in the modern West. It is on the decline in several areas. Should one think and pray and proclaim that renewal is just around the corner—that God is waiting to pour out his Spirit and to bless the church? Or should one think and pray and proclaim that God will (continue to?) give the church over to its self-incurred failures until some disaster or another has prepared the church to hear again the good news? Perhaps it is not wise to choose strictly between the two options, since God may have both judgment and renewal working mysteriously hand in hand. Nevertheless, we should look carefully for the modern-day Hananiahs because they do exist.