John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 28:17

"So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month." — Jeremiah 28:17 (ASV)

All those who had disregarded Jeremiah saw, in a way, before their eyes the judgment of God. No surer confirmation could have been expected by the Jews, if they had even a little understanding, than to see the impostor slain by the word of Jeremiah alone; for he never touched him with a finger, nor caused him to be led to punishment, though he deserved this; but he drove him out of the world by the mere sound of his tongue.

Since, then, the word of the holy Prophet had a celestial and divine power, as though God Himself had thundered from heaven, or with an armed hand had slain that ungodly man, how great was their blindness not to be moved! However, they were not moved. Therefore, some of the Rabbis, wishing to conceal, as is their custom, the reproach of their own nation, imagine that the disciples of Hananiah secretly took away his body, and that then the people knew nothing of his death.

But what need is there for such an evasion as this? For Jeremiah says no such thing, but speaks of the event as well known; it was indeed a sure testimony of his own call. It therefore follows that it was not unknown to the Jews. And yet the devil had so blinded most of them that they paid no more attention to the holy man than before; on the contrary, they wholly disregarded those threats of which he had been the witness and herald.

But how does this appear? Most of the people often rose up against him as though he were the most wicked of men. He was accused as the betrayer of his country and hardly escaped, through the clemency of a cruel king, when he was cast into a dungeon as one half-dead.

Since, then, the Jews thus persistently raged, we therefore understand what the Prophet so often threatened them with: the spirit of giddiness, of fury, of madness, of stupor, and of drunkenness. Moreover, it was necessary for that small portion which was not wholly irreclaimable to be restored to the right way; and this was done by this manifest proof of Jeremiah’s call.

It was also necessary, on the other hand, that the unbelieving should be more restrained, so that they might be condemned by their own conscience, as Paul calls heretics self-condemned who had become fixed in their own perverseness and had willingly and intentionally sold themselves as slaves to the devil.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as You kindly and graciously invite us to repentance, we may be so touched by the sense of Your wrath, that we may not by our perverseness increase more and more the heinousness of Your vengeance against us, but take hold of the mercy that is offered to us, so that we may experience the efficacy and fruit of Your truth for our salvation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.