Speaking of Kings (21:1-23:8)Two Zedekiah (~idqfyahil) oracles
A 'Yahweh is our righteousness' (yhwh ~idqenu) oracle21:3-7
23:5-6The whole of the present King Collection can be outlined as follows:Oracles on King Zedekiah and life for the nation (21:1-10)
Oracles to the royal house (21:11-22:5)
"Lebanon-cedar" oracles and royal laments I non-laments (22:6-23)
Oracle and lament for King Jehoiachin (22:24-30)
Oracles on kings, a future davidic king, and life for the nation (23: 1-8)95The present verses contain 1) an introductory narrative, followed by two ora-
cles for King Zedekiah (21: 1-7); and 2) a brief one-line introduction, followed
by two oracles for the people (21:8-10). The LXX lacks the messenger formula
in v 10, but this can be attributed to haplography (see Notes). A comparison
can be made here to Huldah's oracles in 2 Kgs 22:16-20, one of which was for
the nation (vv 16-17), the other for the king (vv 18-20). But these constituted
a single delivery; the oracles here have been assembled by an editor, which is
clear from the two introductions. Inv 4 Jeremiah instructs messengers to ad-
dress the king, whereas in v 8 Yahweh instructs Jeremiah to address the people.
Both oracle clusters emanate from the same period, however, which is the
beginning of the final siege of Jerusalem in 588 B.C. (Weiser).
The unit as a whole is delimited at the top end by a petubah in M\ ML,
and MP, and a petubah (reconstructed) in 4QJera before v 1, which is also
the chapter division. All three medieval codices have a setumah at the end of
v 10, marking the lower limit. In ML a setumah after v 2 and in MA a setumah
after v 3 serve to set off the introductory narrative. The MP and one MS in
the Cambridge Genizah Collection (A 14.4) have no sections at either
place.
Comparisons have been made between 21:1-7(10) and 37:1-10(11), since
both report embassies sent by Zedekiah to Jeremiah when Jerusalem was being
besieged by the Babylonians. Ewald and Stade (1892) argued that the two ac-
counts were different versions of the same event, but their views were rejected
early by Giesebrecht and Cornill, who believed that Zedekiah requested inter-
cession from the prophet on two occasions. The present embassy occurs before
the one in chap. 37. The siege was just beginning, according to Giesebrecht,
and the crisis has nothing to do with promised Egyptian relief on the way,
which is background for the embassy in chap. 37, as well as the slave manu-
mission in chap. 34. Cornill says the question in chap. 21 is "Will the Chal-
deans withdraw?" whereas the question in chap. 37 is "Will the Chaldeans,
who have withdrawn, come back again?" The possibility then of doublets has
been largely rejected (Peake; Streane; Volz; Condamin; Holladay; Jones),
with H. Weippert (1973: 72) rejecting also the view of Duhm, Rudolph, and
others that 21:1-7 is a secondary rewriting of 34:2-7 and 37:3-10. The narra-
tives in 21: 1-7 and 3 7: 3-10 report separate embassies by Zedekiah to Jeremiah,
both beginning major sections of the present book.