Jeremiah and the False Prophets. 

        It would be unfair to assume that the majority of the false prophets were deliberate deceivers, at least at first. But the moment the prophet became a professional, attached to a sanctuary, his bread and butter depended on his not offending unduly against popular opinion, and above all on his getting results. No delay like that of Jeremiah’s (42:7) would ever have been tolerated from a professional. How great the temptation could be, may be judged by the fact that Jeremiah must have been intellectually certain all through the critical time of waiting what God’s word would finally be.

        Just because the professional prophets were not mere deceivers, because adulterated truth is so hard to distinguish from unadulterated, because spirituality is so easily imitated, because book knowledge can so easily replace inspiration, the distinguishing of true from false prophets was never easy. One thing was clear to all: God would not speak with two different voices. The religious world is always tempted to be on the side of the big battalions, so when Jeremiah stood alone faced by the other prophets, he found the people against him, de­nouncing him as a deceiver or madman; at times he was tempted to doubt himself. He did not have that overpowering, monumental character that seems to have made Isaiah almost impervious to opposition.

        Why Hilkiah inquired of Huldah about the book of tnc law is not clear (IIKings 22:14); certainly Josiah had his pro­fessional prophets (IIKings 23:2). Perhaps the high prst knew them too well. Probably it was their reiterated phecies of prosperity that first awoke Jeremiah to the problem nvolved (4:10). He was soon to realize the amount of evil among the prophets (5:30f), who were willing to sell themselves for money (6:13).

        As Jeremiah was increasingly rejected in the early years of Tehoiakim, he found the burden of standing out alone against the prophets growing ever greater (14:13-18). Through it he learnt to understand the nature of true prophecy better. We may reasonably attribute the collection of prophecies against the false prophets to this period (23:9-40). The opening passage stresses the terrible consequences, when the prophet plays false. The remainder shows how deeply Jeremiah had been led to understand the true nature of prophecy, an under­standing of real importance for to-day.

        A prophetic dream was no guarantee of truth, for the dream might be the expression of the prophet’s own desires (vers. 16, 25ff), or his unconscious, to use the language of modern psychology. Equally the fact that the message might be true was no guarantee that the bearer had been entrusted with it; he might be simply borrowing from another (ver. 30). There were two signs of the true prophet: an outward — if his message were accepted, it would transform lives (ver. 22); and an inward — the prophet’s knowledge that he had stood in God’s council chamber (vers. 18, 22).