**************************************** 1.  The difference between Deuteronomy xviii. 22 and 1Kings xxii. 19-23 may be thought to throw light on the two positions.  In the former passage we read that if a prophet says something in the name of Jehovah which does not come to pass, it is a word which Jehovah has not spoken.  Here, on the contrary, Micaiah ben Imlah, when the prophets of Jehovah promise the king of Israel a happy issue of the campaign against the Syrians, regards the prediction as contrary to the truth, but as none the less on that account inspired by the spirit of prophecy; Jehovah, he said, had made his spirit a Iying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.  It may be that this difference reflects to us the interval between two different ages:  but on the whole Micaiah’s view appears to be rather a piece of ingenuity which might have been resorted to in later times as well.  In the seventh century the command, “every firstborn is mine,” was held to apply to the human firstborn as well, the sacrifice of which Jehovah was thought to require:  this appears from Jeremiah’s protest, “I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind,” vii. 31, xix. 5.  With reference to this Ezekiel says that because the Israelites despised the wholesome commandments of Jehovah, He gave them laws which were not good and statutes by which they could not live.  That is a similar ingenious escape from a difficulty, without deeper meaning.  See the converse, Koran, Sura ii. 174. *********************************************

It certainly was not the intention of the legislator to encroach upon the spoken Torah or the free word.  But the consequence, favoured by outward circumstances, was not to be avoided:  the feeling that the prophets had come to an end did not arise in the Maccabean wars only.  In the exile we hear the complaint that the instruction of the priests and the word of the prophets are silent (Lamentations ii. 9); it is asked, where he is who in former times put his spirit in Israel (Isa lxiii. 11); in Nehemiah’s time a doubtful question is left unsettled, at least theoretically, till the priest with Urim and Thummim, i.e., with a trustworthy prophecy, shall appear (Nehemiah vii. 69).  We may call Jeremiah the last of the prophets:  2

********************************* 2.  In his early years Jeremiah had a share in the introduction of the law:  but in later times he shows himself little edified by the effects it produced:  the Iying pen of the scribes, he says, has written for a lie.  People despised the prophetic word because they had the Torah in black and white (viii. 7-9). **********************************