Clashes between true and false prophets take place in many places in the Bible. But for no other prophet does this type of confrontation play such a central role in his world as it does for Yirmiyahu.
Yirmiyahu highlights four distinctions between the true prophet and the false prophet.
Personality of the Prophet:
One cannot separate the prophet's personality from his prophecy. Prophecy is not a profession external to the prophet's person; rather, it must fill his entire world. Hence, a prophet who sins in his personal life cannot be a true prophet in his public life.
Purpose of the Prophecy:
The role of the true prophet, from the days of Avraham, is to speak out against the faults of society and try to fix them, thus trying to prevent the moral deterioration so that it not be destroyed like Sedom. The false prophets, on the other hand, work in the opposite manner: They turn Jerusalem into Sedom by way of their false prophecies of reassurance, thus betraying their role as prophets.
Wording of the Prophecy:
The authenticity of a prophecy is reflected in the unique style of the prophet who delivers it. He receives the word of God and then formulates it in his own words and his own personal style. The uniform style of the false testifies to its inauthenticity and the absence of inner connection to the prophet himself.
Experience and Clarity of the Prophecy:
The realm of dreams is by its very nature a place where the boundary between reality and imagination becomes blurred; a person is liable to think that he received a prophecy from above, when in fact he merely had a dream and imagined fantasies in his mind. The experience of prophecy, on the other hand, is unequivocal; a prophet who experiences the intensity of prophecy – "like a burning fire shut up in my bones" cannot be mistaken about it. The inner distinction between imagination and prophecy is sharp and clear, and anyone can distinguish between the two in himself.
