JEREMIAH 16:14-16

A typical example of predictive prophecy in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 16:14-16:

       Therefore, the time is coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, “As the                           LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the LORD               lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands                   where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to the soil of their ancestors.

This sort of passage is treated differently by scholars of various theological camps.

Liberals / Skeptics

There is no such thing as prediction of future events in the Bible. Therefore one of the following three must be true:

1. Isaiah took a lucky guess or logically figured out that most likely future scenario was that the Jews would eventually return from the Babylonian exile.

2. There were many “prophecies” and “prophets” at the time, but the Jews only preserved those predictions that came true later and discarded all the rest.

3. The book, or at least this particular passage, must have been written after the return from exile had already taken place, not before it.

Amillennialists

They would treat this prophecy as referring to the return of Israelites from the Babylonian Exile using the principle that the closest adequate fulfillment is the preferred one. Almost all OT prophecies were adequately fulfilled in OT times. Others were figuratively fulfilled by Christ or the institution of His church, or remain to be fulfilled at the Second Coming.

Historical Premillennialists

The closest adequate fulfillment of the prophecy is the preferred one, but it may also possibly point to a later similar fulfillment, perhaps during the Millennium, an ill-defined interim kingdom of Christ on earth (principle of multiple fulfillments).

Dispensationalists (Pre-tribulation Premillennialists)

All OT prophecies must be literally fulfilled.Therefore, at best, the return from the Babylonian Exile is a dim type of what is to come during the Millennium.

In treating this passage, dispensationalists get highly literal to prove their point. They say that the word “all” can't refer to the Babylonian captivity since the Jews were only sent into a few lands to the north. It also can't refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel since that doesn't encompass all of the territory that God originally promised Israel. Thus, this predicted event has not yet happened.

 Because of their demand for mainly literal fulfillments, the dispensational scenarios for the future tend to be much more detailed than other approaches, and their practitioners seem to be much more certain of themselves than proponents of other views. Which is part of why their approach is so appealing.

By contrast, my own personal opinion based on NT examples is that the only sure guide to the fulfillment of a prophecy is when the New Testament actually states that a particular event is a fulfillment.