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Jeremiah 28: What the Passage Says

66 claims across 17 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Jeremiah 28 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the fourth year of King Zedekiah's reign, a prophet named Hananiah announces in the temple that God has broken the power of Babylon and will bring back the temple articles and the exiles within two years. Jeremiah answers that he wishes it were true, but that a prophet who predicts peace is proved genuine only when his words come true. Hananiah breaks the wooden yoke off Jeremiah's neck, and God then tells Jeremiah that a yoke of iron has replaced it and that Hananiah will die that year for preaching rebellion. Hananiah dies two months later.

Claim by Claim

  1. 28:1
    • The events happened in the same year.
    • The events happened in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah.
    • The events happened in the fourth year.
    • The events happened in the fifth month.
    • Hananiah was the son of Azzur.
    • Hananiah was a prophet.
    • Hananiah was from Gibeon.
    • Hananiah spoke to Jeremiah.
    • Hananiah spoke in the house of the LORD.
    • Hananiah spoke in the presence of the priests and all the people.
  2. 28:2
    • Hananiah said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, spoke.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
  3. 28:3
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying he would bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's house within two years.
    • Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken those vessels away from this place.
    • Nebuchadnezzar had carried those vessels to Babylon.
  4. 28:4
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying he would bring back to this place Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying he would bring back to this place all the captives of Judah who went to Babylon.
    • The statement is attributed to the LORD as his declaration.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying the reason is that he will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
  5. 28:5
    • Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Hananiah the prophet.
    • Jeremiah spoke in the presence of the priests.
    • Jeremiah spoke in the presence of all the people.
    • The people were standing in the house of the LORD.
  6. 28:6
    • Jeremiah the prophet said, Amen.
    • Jeremiah said, may the LORD do so.
    • Jeremiah said, may the LORD confirm the words Hananiah prophesied.
    • The words Hananiah prophesied were about bringing back the vessels of the LORD's house from Babylon to this place.
    • The words Hananiah prophesied were about bringing back all the exiles from Babylon to this place.
  7. 28:7
    • Jeremiah told Hananiah to listen to this word.
    • Jeremiah said he was speaking the word in Hananiah's ears.
    • Jeremiah said he was speaking the word in the ears of all the people.
  8. 28:8
    • There were prophets before Jeremiah and before Hananiah from long ago.
    • Those prophets prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms.
    • Those prophets prophesied war.
    • Those prophets prophesied disaster.
    • Those prophets prophesied plague.
  9. 28:9
    • There is a prophet who prophesies peace.
    • Only when that prophet's word comes to pass will the prophet be known as one the LORD truly sent.
  10. 28:10
    • Hananiah the prophet took the yoke bar off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet.
    • Hananiah broke the yoke bar.
  11. 28:11
    • Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people.
    • Hananiah said the LORD spoke.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying he would break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in this same way.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying the breaking would happen within two years.
    • Hananiah quoted the LORD as saying the yoke would be broken from the neck of all the nations.
    • Jeremiah the prophet went his way.
  12. 28:12
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
    • The word came after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke bar off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet.
  13. 28:13
    • The LORD told Jeremiah to go and speak to Hananiah.
    • The LORD said Hananiah had broken yoke bars of wood.
    • The LORD said Hananiah would make in their place yoke bars of iron.
  14. 28:14
    • The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, spoke.
    • The LORD said he had put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations.
    • The purpose was that they serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
    • The LORD said they would serve him.
    • The LORD said he had also given Nebuchadnezzar the beasts of the field.
  15. 28:15
    • Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Hananiah the prophet.
    • Jeremiah told Hananiah to listen.
    • Jeremiah said the LORD had not sent Hananiah.
    • Jeremiah said Hananiah made this people trust in a lie.
  16. 28:16
    • Jeremiah said the LORD spoke.
    • The LORD said he was about to send Hananiah away from the face of the ground.
    • The LORD said Hananiah would die that year.
    • The reason given is that Hananiah had spoken rebellion against the LORD.
  17. 28:17
    • Hananiah the prophet died that same year.
    • Hananiah died in the seventh month.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

28:1
The dating is precise: Zedekiah was installed as king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, so his fourth year falls in 594-593 BC. The fifth month of the Hebrew year (which began in spring) corresponds roughly to July-August. "Early in the reign" and "the fourth year" sit awkwardly together in the Hebrew as well; the wording is preserved rather than smoothed out. "That same year" links this scene to the events of the previous chapter. Gibeon was a town about six miles northwest of Jerusalem, one of the settlements assigned to priests, so Hananiah likely came from a priestly family. Both men are called "the prophet" throughout the chapter: the title says only that each spoke publicly in the LORD's name, not that either was believed.
28:2
"The LORD who commands armies" translates the Hebrew title "LORD of hosts"; the "hosts" may be heavenly armies, the stars, or Israel's own fighting men, and the phrase was probably heard as all of these at once. A yoke is the wooden collar or crossbar strapped over the neck of an ox to harness it to a plow or cart; across the ancient Near East it was the standard image for one nation's subjection to another. The image is not abstract here: as the previous chapter describes, Jeremiah had been walking around Jerusalem wearing an actual yoke on his own neck, as a visible sign that Judah and its neighbors must submit to Babylon.
28:3
The "objects" are the gold and silver vessels and furnishings used in the temple's worship. Nebuchadnezzar had carried off a portion of them in 597 BC, when Jerusalem surrendered to him after a short siege. Their return would have signaled that the humiliation was over.
28:4
Jeconiah, also called Jehoiachin, was king of Judah for only three months before surrendering to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. He was deported to Babylon with the royal household, the leading citizens and thousands of others, and was still alive there. Zedekiah, his uncle, was placed on the throne in his stead by the Babylonians, so many in Judah regarded Jeconiah as the rightful king and his return as the reversal of the whole disaster.
28:6
"Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning roughly "so be it" or "that is sure." It was the formal way of endorsing someone else's words, as at the swearing of an oath.
28:8
Where the King James has "evil," the word in 1611 English meant harm, calamity or disaster, not wickedness. War, disaster and epidemic disease form a standard trio in Jeremiah for the destruction that comes with invasion: the sword, the collapse of food supplies under siege, and the sickness that follows.
28:9
Jeremiah is appealing to a recognized test: a prophet's message was judged by whether it came true (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). His point turns on the fact that the older prophets typically announced disaster, so a message of disaster carried a certain weight of tradition behind it, while a message of peace had nothing to authenticate it in advance except the event itself.
28:10
Breaking the yoke was not merely an outburst. Prophets in Israel regularly acted their messages out physically, and a rival prophet destroying Jeremiah's sign was itself a counter-prophecy, canceling the message in public view.
28:11
Jeremiah walking away does not mean he conceded. Verse 12 makes clear he had no reply at that moment, and the answer came to him afterward.
28:13
The contrast is the whole point of the image. A wooden yoke can be smashed by hand, which Hananiah has just demonstrated; an iron one cannot. By destroying the sign of a survivable submission, Hananiah has, in effect, made the alternative harsher.
28:14
Giving a king even the wild animals is a formula for total dominion, used of Nebuchadnezzar earlier in Jeremiah as well: his authority is said to extend past the settled human world to the creatures outside it.
28:16
There is a play on words in the Hebrew: the verb rendered "remove" or "send away" is the same verb used in the previous verse for the LORD not having "sent" Hananiah. He was not sent out as a prophet; he will be sent off the earth. "Rebellion" here means incitement to revolt against a ruler; Jeremiah's charge is that urging Judah to throw off Babylon was, in the circumstances, urging revolt against the LORD who had handed Judah over.
28:17
Two months after the confrontation of verse 1, and so still within the year in which Jeremiah said he would die. The Hebrew year began in spring, so the seventh month (roughly September-October) falls later in the same year, not in the next one.

Read Jeremiah 28