John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 28:7-9

"Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people: The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The prophet that prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that Jehovah hath truly sent him." — Jeremiah 28:7-9 (ASV)

Jeremiah, having testified that he did not wish for anything harmful to his own people, but wished them well, now adds that what he had predicted was nevertheless completely true. This shows more fully what I have said about his conflicting feelings; for though the Prophet desired the people's welfare, he nevertheless did not cease to give full obedience to God, and to announce those messages that were, at the same time, very distressing: thus Jeremiah did not keep silence, but became a herald of God’s vengeance against the people.

On the one hand, then, he showed that he desired nothing more than the well-being and safety of his people, and yet it was not in his power, nor in that of any mortal, to change the heavenly decree which he had pronounced. From this we see that God so influenced the minds and hearts of His servants, so that they were not cruel or barbarous; and yet they were not made soft and yielding through human sentiment, but boldly declared what God had commanded them.

For this reason he said, Nevertheless, hear you this word which I pronounce in your ears, and in the ears of all the people. By these words, Jeremiah indirectly condemned the vanity of Hananiah, who sought to flatter the people and, by his flattery, hunted for favor and applause, as is usual with such impostors. Jeremiah then said that it availed Hananiah nothing to give the people the hope of an imminent deliverance, for God had not changed His purpose. And Jeremiah now boldly and openly opposed him, as he had sufficiently refuted the ill-will with which he was unjustly burdened, for impostors always find slanders by which they assail the faithful servants of God.

Hananiah might at the beginning have objected to Jeremiah and said, “You are alienated from your own nation; you are not touched by the many miseries by which we have been until now distressed, nor do you care for what may happen to us in the future.” Thus Hananiah might have kindled hatred against Jeremiah, had Jeremiah not vindicated himself. But after he had testified that he felt kindly and was well-disposed toward his own nation, he attacked the impostor himself and did not hesitate to assert what seemed very distressing: that the people would become captives.

Yet Jeremiah seems here to have been struck to some extent with fear, for he did not confirm his own prophecy but left that, as it were, in suspense; and yet he undoubtedly exposed Hananiah's false declaration.

But we know that not everything the Prophet said is recorded, for he only briefly records the main points or chief things. And further, as we will soon see, Jeremiah could not act as he wished in the midst of such a tumult, for he would have been speaking to deaf ears. Since Hananiah had prejudiced the minds of almost everyone, the holy Prophet would not have been listened to while there was such confusion.

He was therefore satisfied with the brief assertion that God would soon show that Hananiah was a false witness in promising such a quick return to the captives and exiles.

But he makes here only a general statement: The Prophets who have been before me and you, and prophesied against many lands (or great) and against great kingdoms, have prophesied of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The word רעה, roe, evil, is placed between two other kinds of evil, but it is undoubtedly to be taken here for famine, as is evident from many other passages.

Then he adds, changing the number, “When any prophet spoke of peace,” the event proved whether or not he was a true prophet.

“Now, experience itself will shortly prove you to be false, for after two years the people who are now in Babylon will still be there under oppression, and the condition of the remnant will be no better, for those who now remain in the city and throughout all Judea will be driven into exile just like their brothers.”

Jeremiah seems here to conclude that only those are to be considered true prophets who prove by the outcome that they have been sent from God. Not only does it appear that this may be gathered from his words, but it may also be shown to be the definition of a true prophet; for when the outcome corresponds with the prophecy, there is no doubt that he who predicted what comes to pass must have been sent by God. But we must remember what is said in Deuteronomy 13:1-2, where God reminds the people that even when the outcome corresponds to the prophecy, the prophets are not to be believed thoughtlessly and indiscriminately, as though they predicted what was true;

“For God,” He says, “tries you,” that is, proves your faith, whether you will be easily carried away by every wind of doctrine.”

But there are two passages, spoken by Moses himself, which at first sight seem to contradict each other. We have already quoted the first from Deuteronomy 13; we have the other in Deuteronomy 18:18:

“The prophet who has predicted what is found to be true,
I have sent him.”

God seems there to acknowledge as His faithful servants those who foretell what is true. But Moses had before reminded the people that even impostors sometimes speak the truth, but that they should not be believed on this account. We must remember what God often declares by Isaiah, when He claims for Himself alone the foreknowledge of things:

“Go,” He says, “and inquire whether the gods of the Gentiles will answer as to future things.” (Isaiah 44:7)

We see that God ascribes to Himself alone this unique attribute: that He foreknows future events and testifies about them. And surely nothing can be clearer than that God alone can speak of hidden things; people, indeed, can conjecture this or that, but they are often mistaken.

With regard to the devil, I pass by those subtle discussions with which Augustine especially troubled himself; for above all other things he labored on this point: how do devils reveal future and hidden things? He speculated, as I have said, in too subtle a manner. But the solution to the difficulty, regarding the subject at hand, can be easily given.

We first conclude that future events can be known only by God, and that, therefore, foreknowledge is His exclusive property, so that nothing future or hidden can be predicted only by Him.

But then, it does not follow that God does not allow the devil and his ministers the freedom to foretell something true. How? This was the case with Balaam, who was an impostor, ready to offer his prophecies for hire or to sell them, as is well known, and yet he was a prophet.

But it was a special gift to foretell things: from where did he get this? Not from the devil any further than God allowed; and yet the truth had no other source than God Himself and His Spirit. When, therefore, the devil declares what is true, it is, as it were, external and incidental.

Now, as we have said that God is the source of truth, it follows that the prophets sent by Him cannot be mistaken, for they do not exceed the limits of their calling, and so they do not speak falsely about hidden things; but when they declare this or that, they have Him as their teacher.

But these terms, as they say, are not interchangeable: to foretell what is true and to be a true prophet. For some, as I have said, predict what is afterwards found by trial and experience to be true, and yet they are impostors. Nor did God, in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, intend to give a specific definition by which His own prophets are to be distinguished; but as He saw that the Israelites would be too credulous, so as to greedily seize upon anything that might have been said, He intended to restrain that excess and to correct that excessive eagerness.

Hence He commanded them to await the outcome, as though He had said, “If any arise among you who will promise this or that in My name, do not immediately receive what they may announce; but the outcome will show whether I have sent them.” So also, in this place, Jeremiah says that the true prophets of God had spoken effectively, as they had predicted nothing but what God had ratified and truly proved to have come from Him.

Thus, then, we ought to think, for the most part, that those who predict what is true are generally the prophets of God: this is to be taken as the general rule. But we cannot therefore conclude that all those who apparently predict this or that are sent by God, so that everything they teach is true, for one particular prophecy would not be sufficient to prove the truth of all that is taught and preached.

It is enough that God condemns the vanity of those who speak from their own hearts or from their own minds, when the outcome does not correspond. At the same time, He points out His own prophets by this evidence—that He truly shows that He has sent them when He fulfills what has been predicted by them. As for false prophets, there is a special reason why God permits them so much liberty: for the world is worthy of such a reward when it willingly offers itself to be deceived. Satan, the father of lies, lays his snares everywhere for people, and those who run into them, and wish to throw themselves on his hooks, deserve to be given over to believe a lie, as they will not, as Paul says, believe the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10, 11).

We now see, then, what Jeremiah's objective was: his purpose was not to prove that all were true prophets who predicted something true, for this was not his subject. Instead, he took up another point—that all who predicted this or that, which was afterwards found to be empty, were thus convicted of falsehood.

If, then, anyone predicted what was to be, and the thing itself did not come to pass, it was sufficient proof of his presumption; it therefore appeared that he was not sent by God, as he boasted.

This was Jeremiah's objective, and he did not go beyond it. He did not discuss the point of whether all who predicted true things were sent from God, and whether all their doctrines were to be credited and they believed indiscriminately; this was not the subject Jeremiah dealt with.

Instead, he showed that Hananiah was a false prophet, for it would become evident after two years that he had spoken in vain of what he had not received from God’s Spirit. And Moses had the same thing in view, as I have already explained.

As to the prophets who had been in all ages and prophesied concerning many lands and great kingdoms, they must be considered as exclusively the true prophets. For though there had been some prophets among heathen nations, Jeremiah would not have considered them worthy of such great honor; and it would have been to mix sacred and profane things if he had placed these empty foretellers and the true prophets in the same category.

But we know that all God’s servants had directed their discourse to the elect people, yet also spoke of foreign kingdoms and distant countries; and this has been distinctly expressed not without reason. For when they spoke of any monarchy, they could not by themselves conjecture what would happen; it was therefore necessary for them to speak in this way by the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

Were I inclined to assume more than is lawful, and to pretend that I possess some special gift of prophesying, I could more easily lie and deceive if I were to speak only of one city and of the state of things visible before my eyes, than if I extended my predictions to distant countries.

When, therefore, Jeremiah says that the prophets had spoken of diverse and large countries, and of most powerful kingdoms, he intimates that their predictions could not have been ascribed to human conjectures.

For even if anyone possessed the greatest insight, and were he to surpass angels in intelligence, he still could not predict what is to take place in the future in lands beyond the seas. But whatever had been predicted by the prophets, God confirmed it by the events of time.

It then follows that their calling was at the same time confirmed; that is, when God, as it were, ratified from heaven what they had spoken on earth. Whether, therefore, the prophets spoke of peace (that is, of prosperity) or of war, famine, and pestilence, when experience proved true what they had said, their own authority was at the same time confirmed, as though God had shown that they had been sent by Him.

We must also notice the word באמת , beamet, he says that God sent them in truth. He condemns here the boldness which impostors always assume, for they surpass God’s faithful servants in boasting that they have been sent. As then they were thus insolent, and by a false pretense of having been called to their office, deceived unwary people, the Prophet adds this clause here, intimating that they were not all sent in truth. He thus conceded some sort of calling to these unprincipled men, but yet showed how much they differed from God’s servants, whose calling was sealed by God Himself.