Once again, Jeremiah had to use an “action sermon” to get the attention of the people, and he did it at a time when Zedekiah was conferring with representatives from five neighboring nations. These nations were allies of Judah, and together they were planning a strategy for dealing with Nebuchadnezzar.
The message of the yoke (27:1–22). A yoke speaks of submission, and that’s the message Jeremiah was trying to get across. First, Jeremiah sent the message to the envoys of the nations (vv. 1–11). What these politicians needed was not clever strategy but submission to Babylon. When Jeremiah was asked why he was wearing a yoke, he gave them the message from God: Judah and the other nations must submit to Nebuchadnezzar or else be destroyed. God had given the nations to the king of Babylon, and those nations who rebelled against him were rebelling against God (vv. 7–8, 11–12). He sent this message to the envoys gathered in Jerusalem, who certainly had heard about this peculiar Jewish man who was walking around wearing a yoke (see 28:10).
“And all nations shall serve him [Nebuchadnezzar], and his son, and his son’s son” is a proverbial expression that simply means they shall serve him for a long time. Nebuchadnezzar’s son Evil-Merodach did succeed him (52:31–34; 2 Kings 25:27), but he was followed by his brother-in-law Nergal-Sharezer (Jer. 39:3), not by Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson.
Judah had its false prophets, and the Gentile nations had their diviners (people who read omens), dreamers (those who interpret dreams), and enchanters and sorcerers (those who collaborate with demons in order to discover or control the future), but neither Judah nor the Gentile nations dared to listen to these purveyors of lies. Since dabbling in the occult was forbidden to the Jews (Lev. 19:26; Deut. 18:10–11), why would Zedekiah want to listen to political counsel from the pit of hell? (See 2 Cor. 6:14–18.)
Jeremiah then gave the same message to King Zedekiah (Jer. 27:12–15). Since the king had rebelled against Babylon and refused to pay tribute, he was now in serious trouble. When the king saw Jeremiah wearing the yoke, he surely must have gotten the message: “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live” (v. 12). Jeremiah warned the king not to listen to the deceptive messages of the false prophets, because they were speaking only lies in the name of the Lord.
Jeremiah then delivered the “yoke” message to the priests and the people (vv. 16–22). The false prophets were claiming that the valuable articles of gold and bronze that the Babylonians had taken from the temple would soon be returned to Jerusalem, but Jeremiah knew this was a lie. Actually, these treasures weren’t brought back until God visited the Jews and the remnant returned to Judah after the decree of Cyrus (Ezra 1—2). The important thing wasn’t to rescue the temple furnishings but to save the people from death and the city from destruction. This could be done only if the nation submitted to the king of Babylon.
Jeremiah taunted the false prophets by encouraging them to pray about the matter. After all, if they were true prophets of God, the Lord would surely answer their prayers. He told them to pray, not for the return of the treasures now in Babylon, but for the preservation of the treasures still in the temple. When the Babylonians organized a second deportation in 597 at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign (Jer. 27:1; 28:1), it proved that the false prophets were indeed liars and that their prayers weren’t answered.
Jeremiah ended his message to the priests and people with a promise of hope: At the end of the seventy years of captivity, God would visit His people in Babylon and bring them back to their land. Even in wrath, God remembers mercy (Hab. 3:2).
The breaking of the yoke (28:1–17). While Jeremiah was wearing the yoke and calling the nation to submit to Babylon, Hananiah, one of the false prophets, confronted him in the temple. About this same time, according to historians, Nebuchadnezzar was putting down a revolt in his own land. Hananiah wrongly interpreted the uprising as the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. Hananiah announced that God had broken the yoke of the king of Babylon and that the temple treasures would be returned to Jerusalem within two years. More than that, King Jeconiah and all the exiles would be returned with them.
These messages contradicted what Jeremiah had spoken in the name of the Lord. The Lord had told Jeremiah that the deported people and the temple vessels wouldn’t be restored to the land until He visited the exiles at the end of their seventy-year captivity (Jer. 27:16–22). Furthermore, King Jeconiah would never return to Judah but would die in Babylon (22:24–27; 52:31–34).
Jeremiah’s response to Hananiah’s message was “Amen, so be it! May the Lord fulfill what you have promised!” How are we to interpret this reply? Certainly not as agreement with what the false prophet had said, because Jeremiah knew better. Perhaps we might paraphrase Jeremiah’s words, “Oh, that the Lord would do what you have said! This would make me very happy!” But Jeremiah knew that Hananiah’s prophecy of peace wouldn’t be fulfilled. If it were fulfilled, this would contradict all that the prophets had predicted who had preceded them, for they prophesied judgment.
Hananiah became angry, removed Jeremiah’s yoke, and broke it before the people. If Jeremiah could preach “action sermons,” so could Hananiah! “Thus saith the Lord,” he announced. “Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years” (28:11). Not only would Judah be set free, but also all nations would remove the yoke of Babylon. Again, this contradicted the message Jeremiah had preached to the nations.
Jeremiah didn’t resist Hananiah when he removed the yoke, nor did he reply to the false prophet’s message. “And the prophet Jeremiah went his way” (v. 11). The priests and people witnessing this dramatic scene may have interpreted Jeremiah’s silence as agreement, but Jeremiah was only waiting for the right message from the Lord and the right time to deliver it.
The message to Hananiah was both national and personal. As far as the nation was concerned, because they would follow his deceptive counsel, an iron yoke would replace the wooden yoke (see Deut. 28:48). The nations would not escape; Nebuchadnezzar would enslave them. It’s always the case that when we reject the light yoke of God’s will, we end up wearing a heavier yoke of our own making. The personal message was that the false prophet would die before the year was up, and two months later, he did (Jer. 28:1, 17). But even this striking event didn’t awaken the hearts of the people, for they were bent on doing evil.
God doesn’t usually strike people dead in such a dramatic fashion, but it did happen to the followers of Korah (Num. 16), to Uzzah (2 Sam. 6), to the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19:35), and to Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).