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False Prophet

• Zedekiah: Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah seems to have been the leader of the four hundred false prophets who encouraged Ahab and Jehoshaphat to war against Ramoth-gilead. It turned out they all had a lying spirit sent by God for the purpose of luring Ahab to his death (1 Kings 22:1–12).

• Hananiah: The years leading up to the Babylonian Captivity were scary times for unbelieving Jews, and it didn’t help that Jeremiah kept telling them to submit to the Babylonians and trust God to return them from exile. Prophets like Hananiah publicly contradicted Jeremiah’s prophecies and denied that God was angry with His people (Jeremiah 28).

• Ahab and Zedekiah: In his letter to the Babylonian exiles, Jeremiah encouraged them with their promised return to Judah and foretold great hardships for those who stayed in Jerusalem. He particularly rebuked Ahab, son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, son of Maaseiah, who falsely prophesied in God’s name (Jeremiah 29:15–23).

• Shemaiaha and Noadiah: Although Artaxerxes had told the returned exiles in Jerusalem they could rebuild the city wall, their neighbors opposed their efforts and threatened them. Nehemiah arrived from Babylon with supplies and the drive to get the wall finished. Shemaiah tried to trick Nehemiah into hiding in the temple. It’s unclear what Noadiah and the other prophets did, but Nehemiah trusted God and was not caught in their traps (Nehemiah 6:9–14).

• Simon the magician: Simon had been a magician in Samaria when the gospel arrived. Simon made a profession of accepting Christ, but he also wanted a share in the apostles’ power. After being rebuked by Peter, he asked the apostles to pray for him (Acts 8:9–24).

• Elymas (a.k.a. Bar-Jesus): Barnabas and Paul met the Jewish false prophet Elymas on Cyprus. Elymas tried to distract the proconsul from Paul and Barnabas’s message, but Paul cursed him with blindness and the proconsul believed (Acts 13:4–12).

• The fortune-telling girl: Paul and Silas were staying with Lydia in Philippi when they were met by a slave girl who was possessed with a spirit of divination. The young slave girl followed them for several days, announcing who they were. Paul grew weary of her unwanted prophecies and finally told the spirit to leave her. It did, and the girl’s owners had Paul and Silas thrown into prison for ruining their fortune-telling business (Acts 16:16–24).

• Jezebel: In Jesus’ rebuke of the church in Thyatira, He condemned their acceptance of “that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess” and who was leading God’s people into sexual immorality and idolatry (Revelation 2:20–23).

• The False Prophet: Just as many of the kings of Judah and Israel had particular prophets who gave them God’s guidance, so the Antichrist in the end times will have a false prophet. His job will be to entice the world to worship the Antichrist, and he’ll be able to perform extensive miracles to lead the world astray (Revelation 13:11–15; 16:13; 19:20; 20:10).

2 Peter 2

Mark 13:21-22

Revelation 16:13

Matthew 7:15

Notes

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