6 Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD's house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place.
(Verse 5 onwards) And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah: Listen, Hananiah: The Lord did not send you, and yet you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send (or cast) you away from the face of the earth, you will die this year. And what follows: Because you have spoken against the Lord. And Hananiah the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month, which is not mentioned in the Septuagint. For as much as they have set him forth above: He died in the seventh month. And this Ananias is not spoken of in the Septuagint as a prophet, though the Holy Scripture of the Hebrews calls him a prophet, even though Jeremiah accuses him, saying: Hear, Ananias, the Lord has not sent you, yet thou have prophesied. For how could he call him a prophet, whom he denied to be sent by the Lord? But the truth and order of the history is preserved, as we have said, not according to what it was, but according to what it was thought to be at that time. You deceived, he says, the people with a lie, so that they would not submit to the judgments of God. Therefore, you know that you will die this year. When we die, we are released from the prisons of the body, according to that testimony, which heretics interpret wrongly: Bring my soul out of prison (Ps. 141:8): so how is death now imposed as a punishment on false prophets? But in this place it should be noted that Jeremiah, after suffering injury from a false prophet, and before receiving a direct message from the Lord, remains silent; later, however, sent by the Lord, he boldly accuses the liar and announces his impending death. And that he who usually translates the seventh month is said to rest under this number, perhaps they falsely claim that he died in the seventh month so that he may be freed from the evils of the body, according to what they quote from the writing. Death is rest for a man. But we know that the bodies of believers are temples of God, if indeed the Holy Spirit dwells in them (Sirach 22:11).
(Vers. 5, 6.) And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Ananias, in the eyes of the priests and in the eyes of all the people who stood in the house of the Lord. And Jeremiah the prophet said: Amen, let the Lord do so. May the Lord fulfill your words that you prophesied; so that the vessels may be brought back to the house of the Lord, and all the exile of Babylon to this place. He wishes to become what the false prophet lies about, for this is what Amen signifies: a word that the Lord often uses in the Gospel: Amen, amen I say to you (John 5:19). And he desires, for the prosperity of things, to speak more kindly than strictly. Hence another prophet bears witness, saying: O that I were not a man having the spirit, and spoke rather falsehood (Micah 2:11). On the contrary, Jonah is distressed why he lied, and is reproved by the Lord, that it is more profitable for prophets to speak falsehood than the multitude of such ruin (Jonah 3). And lest he seem to approve the prophecy of a false prophet, he asserts the truth under the example of others lying without injury.
Jeremiah wishes “May the Lord do” what the false prophet said falsely, for this is what “Amen” signifies, a word that the Lord often employed in the Gospel: “Amen, amen, I say to you.” He also has greater desire that prosperity is realized than that the truth is told. Another prophet testifies in this connection, saying, “O that I not be a man who has the Spirit and prefers to speak falsely!” Unlike Jeremiah, however, Jonah is saddened that he should tell a falsehood, in response to which the Lord proves that a false prophecy is better than the destruction of so great a multitude of people. Lest it seem that he was approving the prediction of the false prophet, he then speaks the truth by using an example from others, without utilizing harmful deception: “Yet, hear this word that I speak in your hearing and in that of all the people. The prophets who preceded me and you from the beginning also prophesied many things for the earth and for great kingdoms concerning war and disease and famine. The prophet who foretold peace, when it comes to pass, will be known as the prophet whom the Lord sent in truth.”
[AD 420] Jerome on Jeremiah 28:5-17