The following event is said to take place in that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year.
This date formula is more complex than what is normally used in the prophets, and it serves two functions in the larger context of the section (Jeremiah 26:1–29:32). First, it clearly links the events that took place in Jeremiah 27:1–22 with the events that are about to be recounted in Jeremiah 28:1–17. In Jeremiah 27:1–22 the Lord instructs Jeremiah to place a yoke on his neck and to send a message to the nations, including Judah, that they are to submit to the yoke of Babylonian rule. This is said to take place in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah.
It is also made clear that there are many prophets who are assuring the nations, including Judah, that Babylonian dominance will soon come to an end and that they should not submit. Now, at the start of Jeremiah 28:1–17, the date for the events in Jeremiah 27:1–22 is made more precise. Jeremiah spoke his message to the envoys in Jerusalem (see Jeremiah 27:3–7) in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s rule; now in the fifth month of that same year we have in Jeremiah 28:1–17 an immediate example of the kind of confrontation that Jeremiah experienced from the opposing prophets in Judah, in the form of Hananiah the son of Azzur. Secondly, the date formula in Jeremiah 28:1 also plays a significant role in the narrative of Jeremiah 28:1–17 because it highlights just how quickly Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning Hananiah is fulfilled. He speaks of the prophet’s death in the fifth month and only two months later the prophet dies (Jeremiah 28:17).1
1 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying,