In Jeremiah 28—set after the Babylonians have already reduced Judah to vassal status, but not yet conquered the kingdom or destroyed Jerusalem—the titular prophet finds himself facing a rival prophet named Hananiah. While Jeremiah urges capitulation and acceptance of divine punishment, his competitor offers hope, claiming that God is poised to “break the yoke of the king of Babylon.” Hananiah proves to be a false prophet, but a popular one. James A. Diamond analyzes the episode, and the way medieval and modern commentators used it to discuss a crucial question: how to tell a false prophet from the real thing.
Hananiah’s inappropriate exploitation of a shattered yoke as a symbol of liberation is glaring in light of Israel’s own perpetuation of slavery over its citizens. Indeed, Jeremiah complains that Israel had ignored the obligation of sabbatical manumission of slaves since the inception of the monarchy, and that God says that Judah will be conquered by its enemies because of this.
In the face of Israel’s own failure to shatter the yokes of its own slaves, Hananiah’s resort to this imagery can be seen as disingenuousness. How could the Lord use this imagery now, Jeremiah may have asked, when the Lord has also expressed that Judah has been acting like an oppressor and deserves its fate? Hananiah’s doubling down simply coopts a stale and dated message conveyed previously to other prophets to confront a current crisis.
Read more on theTorah.com: https://www.thetorah.com/article/how-do-we-know-a-true-prophet-jeremiah-vs-hananiah