NOTES for Jer 42:1-43:13
The prophecy was requested and then ignored. The people wanted to hear a favorable “oracle,” but encountered the living Word. They wanted authorization, approval “from above,” but it turned out that God speaks to people not only to bless their own undertakings, but also to reveal His own will, which often does not coincide with human will. What is the prophet to do in this situation? He does not want to be a “professional diviner” like those he denounced at the royal court—he must be a prophet, and that entails a great risk: hearing something other than what the immediate situation demands. And what is God to do in this situation? He too wants to remain God, rather than merely serving as the religious justification for one political or social decision or another.