20: Having established an Israelite model of prophecy, the law
provides two criteria to distinguish true from false prophecy. The first is
that the prophet should speak exclusively on behalf of God, and report only
God’s words. Breach of that rule is a capital offense (Jer. 28:12–17). 21–23: The second criterion makes the
fulfillment of a prophet’s oracle the measure of its truth. That approach
attempts to solve a critical problem: If two prophets each claim to speak on
behalf of God yet make mutually exclusive claims—(1 Kings 22:6 versus v. 17;
Jer. 27:8 versus 28:2)—how may one decide which prophet speaks the truth? The
solution offered is not free of difficulty. If a false prophet is distinguished
by the failure of his oracle to come true, then making a decision in the
present about which prophet to obey becomes impossible. Nor can this criterion
easily be reconciled with 13:3, which concedes that the oracles of false
prophets might come true. Finally, the prophets frequently threatened judgment,
hoping to bring about repentance (Jer. ch 7; 26:1–6). If the prophet succeeds,
and the people repent and thereby avert doom (Jonah chs 3–4), one would assume
the prophet to be authentic, since he has accomplished God’s goal of
repentance. Yet according to the criteria here (but contrast Jer. 28:9), the
prophet who accomplished repentance is nonetheless a false prophet, since the
judgment oracle that was proclaimed remains unfulfilled. These texts, with
their questions and differences of opinion on such issues, reflect the vigorous
debate that took place in Israel about prophecy. (The Jewish Study Bible, ed. Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi
Brettler, and Michael Fishbane [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 408-9)
