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Of the Hananiah who appears as the most prominent of the prophet’s adversaries, we know nothing beyond what is here recorded. He was clearly one of the leaders of the party of resistance whom we have seen at work trying to form an alliance with the neighbouring rations in Jeremiah 27, and whose hopes had been revived by the accession of Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) to the throne of Egypt in B.C. 595. The mention of Gibeon suggests two or three thoughts not without interest :—(1) It was, like Anathoth, within the tribe of Benjamin, about six or seven miles from Jerusalem, and so the antagonism between the true prophet and the false in Jerusalem may have been the revival of older local conflicts. (2) Gibeon, like Anathoth, was one of the cities of priests (<a href="/joshua/21-17.htm" title="And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with her suburbs, Geba with her suburbs,">Joshua 21:17</a>), and Hananiah was probably, therefore, a priest as well as prophet. (3) As still retaining the venerable relics of a worship that had passed away; it had also once been the sanctuary of Jehovah (<a href="/1_chronicles/16-39.htm" title="And Zadok the priest, and his brothers the priests, before the tabernacle of the LORD in the high place that was at Gibeon,">1Chronicles 16:39</a>). There the old tabernacle stood which had been with the people in the wilderness—which had been removed from Shiloh when the sacred ark was taken (<a href="/2_chronicles/1-3.htm" title="So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness.">2Chronicles 1:3</a>). There Solomon, at the beginning of his reign, offered a stately sacrifice (<a href="/1_kings/3-4.htm" title="And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer on that altar.">1Kings 3:4</a>). Ought not the prophet who had grown up in the midst of those surroundings to have learnt that no place, however sacred, could count on being safe from the changes and chances of time, all fulfilling the righteous purposes of God? The occasion on which he now appears was probably one of the new moon, Sabbath, or other feast-days on which the courts of the Temple were crowded.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-2.htm">Jeremiah 28:2</a></div><div class="verse">Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">I have broken the yoke . . .</span>—The word is obviously used with special reference to the symbol which Jeremiah had made so conspicuous (<a href="/jeremiah/27-2.htm" title="Thus said the LORD to me; Make you bonds and yokes, and put them on your neck,">Jeremiah 27:2</a>). 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.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-3.htm">Jeremiah 28:3</a></div><div class="verse">Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the LORD'S house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon:</div>(3) <span class= "bld">Within two full years.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">two years of days. </span>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 <a href="/context/deuteronomy/18-20.htm" title="But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.">Deuteronomy 18:20-22</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-4.htm">Jeremiah 28:4</a></div><div class="verse">And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim . . .</span>—We get here <span class= "bld">a </span>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.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-6.htm">Jeremiah 28:6</a></div><div class="verse">Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD'S house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Amen, the Lord do so.</span>—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.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-8.htm">Jeremiah 28:8</a></div><div class="verse">The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">The prophets that have been before me and before thee . . .</span>—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 <span class= "ital">onus probandi </span>in such a conflict of claims lay with the latter, not the former. Prophecies like those of Elijah (<a href="/1_kings/17-1.htm" title="And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.">1Kings 17:1</a>; <a href="/context/1_kings/21-21.htm" title="Behold, I will bring evil on you, and will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that urinates against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,">1Kings 21:21-24</a>), Micaiah (<a href="/1_kings/22-17.htm" title="And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.">1Kings 22:17</a>), Elisha (<a href="/2_kings/8-1.htm" title="Then spoke Elisha to the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise, and go you and your household, and sojourn wherever you can sojourn: for the LORD has called for a famine; and it shall also come on the land seven years.">2Kings 8:1</a>), Joel (<a href="/context/joel/1-1.htm" title="The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.">Joel 1:1-20</a>), Hosea (<a href="/context/hosea/2-11.htm" title="I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.">Hosea 2:11-12</a>), Amos (Amos 1-4), Micah (<a href="/micah/3-12.htm" title="Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.">Micah 3:12</a>), Isaiah (Isaiah 2-6), were probably in Jeremiah’s thoughts.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-9.htm">Jeremiah 28:9</a></div><div class="verse">The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, <i>then</i> shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">The prophet which prophesieth of peace.—“</span>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 <a href="/deuteronomy/18-22.htm" title="When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: you shall not be afraid of him.">Deuteronomy 18:22</a>, shows, as other like references, the impression which that book had made on the prophet’s mind.<span class= "bld"><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-10.htm">Jeremiah 28:10</a></div><div class="verse">Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it.</div>(10, 11) <span class= "bld">Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke . . .</span>—We are reminded of the conduct of Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, in <a href="/1_kings/22-24.htm" title="But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak to you?">1Kings 22:24</a>. 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.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-12.htm">Jeremiah 28:12</a></div><div class="verse">Then the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah <i>the prophet</i>, after that Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Then the word of the Lord . . .</span>—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 <span class= "bld">a </span>more bitter and aggravated bondage. In the “iron yoke” we have an echo of <a href="/deuteronomy/28-48.htm" title="Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he have destroyed you.">Deuteronomy 28:48</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-14.htm">Jeremiah 28:14</a></div><div class="verse">For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they shall serve him: and I have given him the beasts of the field also.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">I have given him the beasts of the field also.</span>—On the significance of this addition see Note on <a href="/jeremiah/27-6.htm" title="And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.">Jeremiah 27:6</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-15.htm">Jeremiah 28:15</a></div><div class="verse">Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">Hear now, Hananiah . . .</span>—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.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/28-16.htm">Jeremiah 28:16</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">I will cast thee . . .</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">I send thee. </span>The verb is the same as in the preceding verse, and is repeated with an emphatic irony.<p><span class= "bld">This year thou shalt die . . .</span>—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” (<a href="/jeremiah/1-10.htm" title="See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.">Jeremiah 1:10</a>), and has its parallels in the punishment of Ananias, in <a href="/context/acts/5-4.htm" title="Whiles it remained, was it not your own? and after it was sold, was it not in your own power? why have you conceived this thing in your heart? you have not lied to men, but to God.">Acts 5:4-5</a>, and of Elymas, in <a href="/acts/13-11.htm" title="And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is on you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. 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