September 19, 2020: Day 28 – Jeremiah 28

Nothing like a little competition to grab your interest.  Jeremiah is not the only prophet who was under the king’s court, but it seems like he was the only prophet who was speaking the words of the Lord.  Remember, Jeremiah’s latest metaphor is the wooden yoke that he is carrying around Jerusalem to remind the people of Judah and the leaders of Judah that they are to succumb and yield to the king of Babylon and let him have his way.

Well along comes Hananiah who physically takes the yoke from the shoulders of Jeremiah and breaks it and says the word of the Lord came to me and said that in two years the king of Babylon will fall so rise up and turn against the king and God will be on your side.  He will return the exiled king and make him rule over the land and he will return the ark of the covenant to the temple.  Well, without his yoke Jeremiah turns away and walks away and is probably thinking, that certainly doesn’t sound like what God told me.  But this  guy is a prophet of the king and so maybe, just maybe, God is going in a different direction.

In fact, God comes to Jeremiah again and tells him that in place of a wooden yoke God is now going to place an iron yoke that will not and cannot be broken.  He speaks directly to Hananiah and calls him a liar for saying that he was speaking the words of the Lord.  In fact, because he did that he would die within the year.  That’s how this chapter ends.  Hananiah does end up dying before the end of the year.  I guess Jeremiah won that battle.  It does remind me of a bit of the battle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  They also met their doom because they went against the Word of the Lord.