Why does Hananiah say that the Lord has broken the yoke of the king of Babylon and that within two years the vessels will return to the temple?

Hananiah sets up a very public confrontation with Jeremiah by speaking directly to him in the temple in the presence of the priests and all the people. This is the same audience that had listened to Jeremiah’s message concerning the temple items in chapter Jeremiah 27:16–22.¹ This confrontation did not necessarily take place directly after Jeremiah’s message in chapter Jeremiah 27:1–22. It may be that Jeremiah wore the yoke for a few weeks or months as a reminder of his message.

Hananiah’s message is compelling. Even the structure of his speech is carefully crafted. There is a chiastic structure with the speech beginning and ending with a prediction of the Lord breaking the yoke of Babylonian rule (Jeremiah 28:2b, Jeremiah 28:4b), and at the heart of the speech is the declaration that the Lord will bring both the temple vessels and the exiled king Jeconiah back to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 28:3–4a). The speech brings together three of the main themes in Jeremiah 27:1–29:32: (1) the length of Babylon’s dominance, (2) the fate of the temple and the exiles, especially Jeconiah, and (3) the final restoration of the temple and Judah.²

Hananiah, claiming to speak as the Lord’s prophet, says that the Lord will end Babylon’s rule and within two years both the temple and the exiles currently in Babylon with king Jeconiah would be returned to Jerusalem. In other words, the nation would be fully restored within two years. This obviously contradicts Jeremiah’s message in Jeremiah 22:24–27 where he says that Jeconiah will never return from exile and his words in Jeremiah 25:11 where he says that the exile would last for seventy years. It also contradicts what Jeremiah has just said to Zedekiah and the nation in Jeremiah 27:12–22 where he calls on the king and the people to submit to Babylonian rule or face destruction.

The difference between the two prophets is not just a matter of timing concerning these events, but rather Jeremiah’s call for the people to submit to Nebuchadnezzar.³ In other words, the big difference between Jeremiah’s message and that of the other prophets, here represented by Hananiah, is that the Lord’s judgment against Judah has not run its course. According to Jeremiah, to resist Babylonian rule is to resist the Lord. The unfaithfulness that has brought about the initial Babylonian invasion and exile in 597 BC is still alive and well among those who remain in Judah under Zedekiah and the Lord’s judgment is coming.

Hananiah’s speech also makes it clear that it is going to be difficult to distinguish between the two prophets. Both are referred to as prophets throughout the encounter.⁴ Their messages also have much in common, even if they are fundamentally different. It is clear that the audience witnessing the encounter, the priests and all the people and especially those reading about it later in Babylonian exile will have to make a decision as to who the true prophet is.