Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 28:1

"And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet, who was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of Jehovah, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying," — Jeremiah 28:1 (ASV)

And it came to pass the same year ...— The chapter stands in immediate sequence with the one that precedes it and confirms the conclusion that the name Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 27:1 is simply a transcriber’s mistake. Of Hananiah, who appears as the most prominent of the prophet’s adversaries, we know nothing beyond what is recorded here. 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 neighboring nations in Jeremiah 27, and whose hopes had been revived by the accession of Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) to the throne of Egypt in 595 B.C.

The mention of Gibeon suggests two or three thoughts that are 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 (Joshua 21:17), and Hananiah was probably, therefore, a priest as well as a prophet.
3. While still retaining the venerable relics of a worship that had passed away, it had also once been the sanctuary of Jehovah (1 Chronicles 16:39).

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 (2 Chronicles 1:3). There Solomon, at the beginning of his reign, offered a stately sacrifice (1 Kings 3:4). Should not the prophet who had grown up in the midst of those surroundings have learned 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.