ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף ירמיהו 28:9

לא תעשו לכם, even though you yourselves are now subservient to the pagans, as for instance the Jew who was forced to sell himself to a pagan, you must not trade your dignity, i.e. your religion, for a religion which is totally useless. Although this whole line appears superfluous, as the Torah had spoken on this subject repeatedly, the Torah here inserts this line so that people who due to force of circumstances had to enter the service of pagans, and who attribute this to their own G’d having abandoned them, do not commit the additional error of thinking that Judaism no longer has a claim on them in such circumstances. In Ezekiel chapter 20 the prophet dealt with the people who wanted to know how G’d could still have a claim on them seeing he had “sold” them to the pagans into exile. The matter was compared to a husband who had divorced his wife and continued to dictate to her. One of the most convincing answers is that G’d continues to speak of “My servant David” in Samuel II 3,18, the same description G’d applies to Nevuchadnezzar in Jeremiah 28,9. In other words, no human being whether out of his own volition or because he considers himself rejected by G’d, is ever free from the obligation to serve the Creator, His ultimate Master. At the end of the תוכחה, the predictions of the retribution we will experience for failure to observe G’d’s commandments, (Leviticus 26,44) G’d is on record as saying that even when the Jewish people have reached a historic low in their fortunes, G’d did not despise them nor abandon them permanently.

It is a well known fact that one does not accept a person’s claim to be a prophet until he has legitimized himself either by an אות or by a מופת. Not only do the miracles he foretold have to occur, but they have to occur 100% as he had foretold, both regarding date, regarding extent, etc. If a single detail of what the claimant promised did not materialize it is certain that he is not a prophet. Once a person has legitimatized himself in that all the miracles he foretold occurred in accordance with his predictions, if he will foretell a disaster in the future and the disaster does not occur this does not mean that he is a fraud. The test of whether a prophet is real or an impostor is when he foretold something pleasant, something that people look forward to and all or some of it fails to materialize. It makes no difference whether his prophecy concerned an individual or a group of people; not a single detail of what he predicted is allowed to fail to come true. In Jeremiah 28,9 the prophet told Chananiah son of Azor, who claimed to be a prophet “if a prophet prophesies good fortune, then only when the word of the prophet comes true can it be known that the Lord really sent him.” When prophets predict disasters which do not occur, one does not suspect them but attributes this to other causes, primarily that the people warned of the disaster had repented. After all, the whole purpose of the prophet’s mission is to cause people to return to G’d in penitence. We have a rule that G’d never reconsiders the promise of good fortune (compare Maimonides Yesodei Hatorah 10,4). Proof that the failure of a prophet’s foretelling disaster does not disqualify him when it does not occur, is what happened a Nineveh. Jonah was not discredited by the people of Nineveh doing teshuvah. Had G’d wanted to destroy those people at that time why did He have to send the prophet to them in the first place? When Isaiah told king Chizkiyah מות תמות, “you will surely die,” it did not discredit the prophet when Chizkiyah was given 15 more years of life on earth. At the time Iaaiah warned Chizkiyah he was most certainly under divine sentence of death. G’d allowed Himself to be entreated by him; this did not make Isaiah a liar. The technical reason why such prophetic pronouncements can be canceled is that teshuvah, repentance, was created prior to the creation of the universe, i.e. it overrides anything created later. (compare Pesachim 54).

if the prophet predicts something… Just as in the words of Jeremiah (“when the word of that prophet shall come to pass” [Jeremiah 28: 9]), the event must occur within the time specified by the prophet.