What Do You Do with Failed Prophecies?

 What Do You Do with Failed Prophecies? 


Some biblical prophecies didn’t play out the way they were announced. That’s not heresy; that’s just honesty. One of the most striking examples comes from the book of Ezekiel. In chapter 26, God declares that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, will destroy Tyre, scraping it bare like a rock and tossing its debris into the sea. But that never really happened—not in the way it was described. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for 13 years and eventually gave up. Centuries later, it was Alexander the Great—not Babylon—who fulfilled something closer to that prophecy. So what does Ezekiel say? God gives Nebuchadnezzar a “make-up reward”: “Since he got no wages from Tyre, I will give him Egypt” (Ezekiel 29:17–20). But history shows he didn’t fully conquer Egypt either.


So what’s going on?


From an Open Theism view, this actually makes sense. God isn't predicting a locked-in future—He's interacting with free agents. God genuinely intended for Nebuchadnezzar to conquer Tyre. The prophecy reflected God's plan at that time. But human choices—Tyre’s resistance, Babylon’s weariness, shifting alliances—changed the outcome. God adjusted. He offered Egypt instead. When that too failed to unfold, we see not divine incompetence, but a relational God who works dynamically with the real flow of history.


Open Theism reminds us that God’s foreknowledge includes all possibilities, not a fixed script. Prophecies, then, aren’t ironclad blueprints but divine intentions spoken into a world of free will, politics, and response. Even Jeremiah 18 reflects this: God explicitly says He may relent from a prophetic word if the situation changes.


Instead of using failed prophecies to “disprove” the Bible, maybe we should use them to rethink what biblical prophecy really is. It’s not a cold decree from a distant deity. It’s a living word from a God who risks, adjusts, responds, and participates with us in unfolding history. And that kind of God isn’t less powerful—He’s far more personal.



Conclusion 


When we read the Bible through that lens, prophecy becomes less about fortune-telling and more about trust in a God who moves with us—not just ahead of us.

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