the thing does not happen and
does not come about. “Thing” here is also “word,” since davar refers
both to speech and to the referent of speech, and in vatic contexts also has
the technical sense of “oracle.” This criterion for detecting false prophecy presents
notorious difficulties and seems to be put forth here chiefly out of some
general sense that a true prophet will speak the truth. The literary prophets
in the biblical canon are less in the business of prediction than of castigation.
The predictions they make of national catastrophe are almost always conditioned
on Israel’s failure to change its ways, and the predictions of glorious
national restoration in the face of imminent disaster are always projected beyond
the immediate future. It is conceivable that this text does not have in mind
literary prophets but rather prophets who addressed mundane issues of everyday
life, making short-range predictions that might be quickly verified or
falsified by the events. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols.
[New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 1:681)
