Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Hananiah the false prophet falsely prophesies peace for Jerusalem: whereupon at verse 12, he removes the yoke and chains from the neck of Jeremiah, by which he was portending the captivity of the Jews. On this account God commands Jeremiah to make iron chains in place of wooden ones, to signify that a harsher yoke is to be borne by the Jews. Furthermore, at verse 15, Jeremiah announces death to Hananiah from God, and he dies that same year.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 28:1-17
1. And it came to pass in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah son of Azur, a prophet from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the Lord, before the priests and all the people, saying: 2. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3. Within two full years I will cause to be brought back to this place all the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took from this place and carried to Babylon. 4. And Jeconiah son of Joakim king of Judah, and all the exiles of Judah who entered Babylon, I will bring back to this place, says the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. 5. And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet in the sight of the priests and in the sight of all the people who stood in the house of the Lord. 6. And Jeremiah the prophet said: Amen, so may the Lord do: may the Lord fulfill your words which you have prophesied: that the vessels may be brought back to the house of the Lord, and all the exiles from Babylon to this place. 7. Nevertheless hear this word which I speak in your ears and in the ears of all the people: 8. The prophets who were before me and before you from the beginning prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of affliction and of famine. 9. The prophet who prophesied peace: when his word comes to pass, the prophet whom the Lord has sent in truth shall be known. 10. And Hananiah the prophet took the chain from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. 11. And Hananiah said in the sight of all the people, saying: Thus says the Lord: So will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon within two full years from the neck of all nations. 12. And Jeremiah the prophet went his way. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the chain from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 13. Go and tell Hananiah: Thus says the Lord: You have broken chains of wood: and you shall make in their place chains of iron. 14. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they shall serve him: moreover I have given him the beasts of the earth also. 15. And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet: Hear, Hananiah: the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. 16. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send you from the face of the earth: this year you shall die: for you have spoken rebellion against the Lord. 17. And Hananiah the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month.
Verse 1
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THAT YEAR, IN THE BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF ZEDEKIAH (that is) IN THE FOURTH YEAR. — You will ask: If at the beginning of the reign, how in the fourth year? Christophorus a Castro, Sanchez, and others respond that these words: "And it came to pass in that year, which was at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah," pertain to the preceding chapter: but the words "in the fourth year" pertain to what follows; and chapter 28 begins from there. For from those words this chapter begins in the Septuagint, St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rabanus, and St. Thomas.
Second, Vatablus and Scaliger in his Emendation of Times respond that the fourth year here is to be understood not of the reign, but of the week, השמיטה (hasshemitah), or sabbath, that is, of rest and cessation of the land, according to the law of Leviticus 25. For the beginning, or first year of Zedekiah's reign, was the fourth year of a sabbatical week, or of sabbatical years.
This opinion seems plainer and truer. They add that it plainly corresponds to the chronology. For the fifteenth year of Hezekiah, they say, was a sabbatical year (although Torniellus denies this), as is gathered from 2 Kings 18:13, compared with 2 Kings 19:29; from that year 15 to the first of Zedekiah, 116 years elapsed, which if divided by seven (for the seventh year was sabbatical), you will find 16 sabbatical years and 4 years besides, so that the first year of Zedekiah was the fourth year of the seventeenth current sabbatical cycle, and consequently the fourth year of Zedekiah was the eighteenth sabbatical year. For the Jews used to record their own and their people's deeds and annals by sabbatical years and jubilees, as the Greeks by Olympiads; although the Jews in these times, being more avaricious, did not release their slaves or observe the prescriptions of the law for this year, as is evident from chapter 34.
Lyranus and Maldonatus respond differently, namely that the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign is called the beginning because it was not the middle part of the time he reigned; for he reigned eleven years. But this is a very generous "beginning."
Verse 2
2. I HAVE BROKEN — I have resolved to crush and destroy the empire of the Chaldeans. See Canon 29; so St. Thomas.
Verse 3
3. WITHIN TWO FULL YEARS — after two years shall have run their course and been completed in their days. The Chaldean says: at the end of two years. Thus in Scripture days are often taken for time: for we measure time by days, whether it be short or long.
Verse 6
6. MAY THE LORD FULFILL YOUR WORDS — may He make them true. As if to say: I myself wish the same, but I know it will not happen.
Verse 7
7. HEAR. — Hugo and Vatablus think that Jeremiah initially doubted whether Hananiah was a true prophet of God, and therefore here awaited the outcome of his prophecy. Better, St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Rabanus judge that Jeremiah knew Hananiah was a false prophet; because he knew the captivity was not to be ended before 70 years: therefore what Hananiah said—that it would be ended after two years—was false. But on account of the people who believed him, Jeremiah commands them to wait and see the outcome of the matter.
Verse 8
8. THE PROPHETS, etc., PROPHESIED, etc., OF WAR — that is, the prophets who announced adversities, such as wars, famine, etc., sometimes announced things that did not come to pass, because at their announcement the people did penance and changed their ways: for then God, who is inclined to mercy, likewise changed and revoked His sentence. But prophets who announce prosperity, such as peace, as you do, O Hananiah, unless that very thing comes to pass, will be judged to be false prophets. For although God can also change His sentence in this case, if the people change their ways and become worse, yet this is rare; because God is more inclined to clemency than to vengeance, and if He wishes to change the former to the latter on account of sins, He will likewise proclaim and foretell it through a prophet. So Vatablus and Maldonatus. Therefore the contrary outcome, namely war and the devastation of Jerusalem, will teach that you, O Hananiah, are a false prophet and have falsely promised it peace. But this exposition supplies much that is not in the text and does not seem solid enough. For if men change their ways, God equally retracts His promises as well as His threats. Hence our Translator here does not distinguish between a joyful and a sorrowful prophecy. For so Eli did, in 1 Samuel 2: "Speaking," he said, "I spoke so that your house and your father's house would minister before Me forever; but now the Lord says: Far be it from Me." We saw something similar in chapter 18, verse 10. The sense therefore is, as if to say: "The prophets who were before me and before you from the beginning, and who prophesied," etc. Understand: by this sign, whether they were true or false, they were recognized and distinguished, namely: "The prophet who prophesied peace: when his word comes to pass, the prophet whom the Lord has sent in truth shall be known." That is, every prophecy, whether prosperous or adverse, is proved by the outcome of events: hence yours, O Hananiah, will appear from the outcome to be false. So St. Jerome and Dionysius the Carthusian.
Verse 13
13. YOU HAVE BROKEN CHAINS OF WOOD, AND YOU SHALL MAKE IN THEIR PLACE CHAINS OF IRON. — Jeremiah, having received injury and insult from Hananiah, is silent and patiently goes away. Whence God defends him, speaking through the mouth of Jeremiah, as if to say: O Hananiah, you do not want the wooden yoke by which I urge that the Jews voluntarily surrender to the Chaldeans and bear a light servitude: hence you shall make, that is, you shall be the cause that iron chains are made; because you urge and persuade the people to throw off the wooden yoke and rebel, God will therefore impose upon them an iron yoke, so that the city with the temple will be devastated, the citizens killed or dragged off into slavery by the right of war. So Theodoret and Lyranus.
Note: "You shall make" means: you shall bring upon yourself and your people, O Hananiah, the iron yoke of Babylon.
Second and more fittingly, "you shall make" is addressed to you, O Jeremiah: iron chains in place of the wooden ones you wore and which Hananiah broke. For among the Hebrews there is a frequent change of person. Hence the Septuagint and St. Jerome translate: "I will make chains of iron in their place." For God was making them through Jeremiah: Hananiah himself was also making them, that is, he was the cause for God and Jeremiah to make them. For it is quite probable that Jeremiah by God's command actually made and wore these iron chains in place of the wooden ones that Hananiah had broken, and this in order to signify and represent through them that such chains were to be made and placed upon Hananiah (if he survived) and the Jews by the Chaldeans.
Note here the manner in which God compelled the stubborn and rebellious Jews, who had cast off God's sweet yoke, to take it up again, namely by imposing upon them a harsher yoke, that is, the iron yoke of the Chaldeans. For, as St. Paul teaches, the stubborn must be sternly rebuked. And of these Christ says: "Compel them to enter." St. Bernard beautifully says in his Sentences: "There are four classes of those coming to heaven. For heaven is seized by the poor in spirit; purchased by the rich; stolen by the merciful; and the miserable and afflicted are compelled to enter."
Tropologically, every affliction and mortification of this life is a wooden yoke; whoever refuses this will have an iron one in hell. "Burn here, therefore, cut here, O Lord, that You may spare in the future." This is what Job says, chapter 6, verse 19: "He who fears the frost, the snow shall rush upon him," and chapter 20, verse 24: "He shall flee from iron weapons, and shall fall upon a bow of bronze." Therefore if you are wise, subject yourself to God and His discipline, put your foot into His fetters. St. Bernard excellently says in his letter to the monks of St. Bertin: "The light burden of the Savior, the more it increases, the more bearable it becomes: it carries, as feathers carry a bird, rather than being carried."
Origen understood the wooden fetters to mean the airy bodies of demons, the annoyance of which our souls did not wish to suffer, and hence were thrust down into these gross bodies which, being as it were iron, more severely torment them. This is an error long since rejected.
Verse 16
16. I WILL SEND YOU — I will cast you out of this life and land into hell. So St. Jerome.
YOU HAVE SPOKEN AGAINST THE LORD. — The Hebrew adds: You have spoken, סרה (tsarah), that is, as the Septuagint has it, apostasy and defection; Vatablus says, prevarication; Pagninus, rebellion, or a perverse word; namely, so that the Jews would withdraw from the word of God threatened and proposed by me, to your false hopes.
Verse 17
17. AND HANANIAH THE PROPHET DIED IN THAT YEAR, IN THE SEVENTH MONTH — in September, namely two months after this prediction, which was made in the fifth month, that is in July, as is evident from verse 1. So Hugo, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and Castro. But if we take the sabbatical year here, as I said on verse 1, it must be said that this seventh month was Nisan, or March: for the sabbatical year began from September, as I showed at Leviticus 25:9.