Jeremiah 28:12
But shortly after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off his neck, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:
Sermons
A False Prophet and His FateD. Young Jeremiah 28:1-17
How to Answer Those Who Oppose the TruthA.F. Muir Jeremiah 28:1-17














The meekness of Jeremiah's reply emboldened the false prophet, and he forthwith proceeded from words to actions. The symbol appointed by God was publicly removed from the shoulders of Jeremiah and destroyed. Opposition to the spirit and will of God could scarcely go further. The interpretation given to the action reveals how false and dangerous the position assumed.

I. THE SERVANTS OF GOD ARE FREQUENTLY AT APPARENT DISADVANTAGE AS COMPARED WITH THE SERVANTS OF SATAN. The action was so sudden and unexpected that Jeremiah had but little to say, and eventually went his way, sad but silent. Everything seemed to favor his opponent. The "patriotic party" was enthusiastic, and not to be restrained. The wisdom of this world is prompt and versatile because it is unprincipled; and it is bold because it is profane and unbelieving. Yet this is the condition under which the followers of the truth are to contend.

II. THE SERVANTS OF SATAN ARE THEREBY ENCOURAGED TO MORE PRONOUNCED BEHAVIOR, AND COMMIT THEMSELVES BEYOND RECALL. Hananiah's case illustrates this in two ways, viz.:

1. Sacrilegious action. Touching the person of the prophet. Deliberately destroying the yoke which he must have known was of Divine appointment.

2. Its definitive interpretation. He not only rebelled against the Lord, but committed himself to a prediction with a fixed date, and one that must soon arrive. The necessity of the position he had assumed was upon him. Woe to the prophet of lies who ventures upon definite and verifiable prophecies! There is no halting-place to those who begin systematically to oppose God's truth. They must ere long be caught in their own snares. With the sense of reverence the fear of consequences is forgotten and caution is discarded.

III. BY SO DOING THEY HASTEN THEIR OWN JUDGMENT. The triumph is brilliant but short-lived, and purchased at terrible cost. Let sinners pause when their crimes are made easy for them and excess follows upon excess. The motion of the rapid may but precede the fall (Jude 1:8-13). When human resources and precautions are exhausted, it may be a sign that God will undertake his own cause. His servants are justified at such a time in looking for and invoking his help, which is likely to be of a very signal and determining kind. - M.

And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.
(with Jeremiah 26:14): — We couple these passages together, because they lead our minds to the same important thought, namely, the laying aside of "self" by the servants of the Lord. Hananiah takes the yoke from off Jeremiah s neck, and breaks it, and so discredits him and his prophecy in the presence of the people. "And the prophet Jeremiah went his way." He left it to God to vindicate His own honour, which He did very soon — very terribly. Before the princes also, in chap. Jeremiah 26., he tells out uncompromisingly all the truth of God; he knew that he did so at the peril of his life. "As for me," — he was not insensible to personal suffering, still himself he was as nothing — "behold I am in your hand, do with me as seemeth meet unto you." By this complete abnegation of "self" on the part of the prophet, we are led to consider some matters connected with "self" in our service. There is a young period in the Christian's life, when we are deceived by not seeing "self" at all; when we have no dread of it; when we never even suspect its existence. At this time, we mistake its energies for spiritual life, and often seek to carry out what is really the Lord's work, in the powers and energies of the flesh, i.e. "self." There is a period farther on, when we detect "self" partially. The Spirit of God has led us onward in our education, and raised our standard, making us watchful and distrustful of "self" to some degree. Then comes a yet more advanced stage, when we see "self" to such an extent as to make us dread it greatly — when we see it ever intrusive, ever substituting motives low and mean for what should be holy and high; and we wage war with this "self," fully determined to put it down. There is also yet a more advanced state, when we have attained such a knowledge of the power of "self" that, while we war with, and repress it, we have come to know that here we shall never have done with it, and look forward to full deliverance only when we reach that land where there is perfect freedom.

I. THE WRONG OPERATIONS OF "SELF" IN SERVICE. Much that we do may be done from the action of mere natural feelings — there may be nothing of God in it at all A man may be gratifying only his own natural energy in all that seems so earnest and true. And when we allow "self" to influence us, we shall be subjected to disturbing influences. Self-love will be easily wounded in the rough contact with opposers of the truth. And our judgment will be warped. It is very hard to be calm, and judicial, when under the influence of strong personal feelings, and where personal interests are concerned. Self will also drive us on too far. We shall not know when "to go our way." We need not go far to detect some of the evil effects which flow from this wrong operation of "self" in service. It gives the enemy occasion to blaspheme. Satan continually attempts to confound persons and principles; men will look at the imperfect way in which we have manifested the principle, and not at the principle itself. Our infirmities become mixed up with the cause of God, and so far as they can, bring it into disrepute. And thus that saying becomes true — "religion suffers more from her friends than her enemies."

II. THE EXPULSION OF "SELF" FROM SERVICE. How can this be done? In the most favourable of cases only by degrees. But what is a man to do?

1. He must seek for enlightenment on this subject from the Holy Spirit.

2. Let him seek for a more perfect sympathy with Christ. If we have this, we shall become assimilated with Him — we shall grow like Him; His mind will transfuse itself into our mind — and the principles, on which He acted, will become ours.

3. And then the seeking for a true knowledge of our own insignificance is very important in putting down "self." We both think and act sometimes as though we were the first cause; and not only the first cause, but the final object also — as if all were to be by us, and for us — the axe thinks that it is doing all the work, and is independent of the one that heweth therewith. The very learning our insignificance will be helpful; and, when we have learned it in some degree, it will keep us, in proportion as the lesson has been learned, to our proper place.

(P. B. Power, M. A.)

People
Azur, Azzur, Gibeon, Hananiah, Jeconiah, Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim, Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah
Places
Babylon, Gibeon
Topics
Bar, Breaking, Broken, Hananiah, Hanani'ah, Jeremiah, Neck, Prophet, Saying, Sometime, Yoke, Yoke-bars
Outline
1. Hananiah prophesies falsely the return of the vessels, and of Jeconiah
3. and there continue until the day of visitation.
5. Jeremiah, wishing it to be true, shows that the event will declare the true prophets.
10. Hananiah breaks Jeremiah's yoke.
12. Jeremiah tells of an iron yoke;
15. and foretells Hananiah's death.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 28:8-17

     1424   predictions

Jeremiah 28:10-14

     4696   yoke

Library
Yokes of Wood and Iron
'Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron.'--JER. xxviii. 13. I suppose that I had better begin by a word of explanation as to the occasion of this saying. One king of Judah had already been carried off to Babylon, and the throne refilled by his brother, a puppet of the conquerors. This shadow of a king, with the bulk of the nation, was eager for revolt. Jeremiah had almost single-handed to stem the tide of
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Two Yokes
With this, by way of preliminary observation, we will now come to the text, and endeavor to make some use of it for ourselves. Hananiah took off the symbolic yoke, the wooden yoke, from Jeremiah's neck and broke it. Jeremiah comes again, and says, "You have broken the yoke of wood, but God has commanded that ye shall now wear yokes of iron." They were not benefited, therefore, by the change, but the reverse. This is suggestive of a broad principle. From the symbol, which was applicable in one case,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

Meditations of the Misery of a Man not Reconciled to God in Christ.
O wretched Man! where shall I begin to describe thine endless misery, who art condemned as soon as conceived; and adjudged to eternal death, before thou wast born to a temporal life? A beginning indeed, I find, but no end of thy miseries. For when Adam and Eve, being created after God's own image, and placed in Paradise, that they and their posterity might live in a blessed state of life immortal, having dominion over all earthly creatures, and only restrained from the fruit of one tree, as a sign
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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