Jeremiah 21-36 A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by (Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries)

Speaking of Kings (21:1-23:8) 97

Some modern Versions (RSV; JB; NAB; NIV) follow T, which combines the

last two categories of a) into one ("and the people in this city who remain" or

the like), reducing the number from four to three. But other modern Versions

(NEB; NJV; NRSV; REB; NJB) correctly translate four categories. In v 9 we

find again the common

by sword, and by famine, and by pestilence.

All of these phrases are Jeremianic, the one familiar from Deuteronomy being

"with outstretched hand and with strong arm" in v 5, although Jeremiah inverts

the cliche, probably intentionally. The usual form is "(with) strong hand and

(with) outstretched arm" (Deut 4:34; 5: 15; 7: 19; 11:2; 26:8).

The LXX has a fewer number of accumulated phrases than MT, which may

mean, as Janzen ( 1973: 43-44; 205 n. 19) and Mc Kane argue, that the Hebrew

Vorlage to the LXX did not have them. But this makes neither the LXX nor its

Vorlage the better and/or more original text. McKane's view of a later "editorial

process of systematization and expansion" in MT is not the correct one, nor is

there justification in his claim that rhetorical prose of the type found here is

"far removed from the historical Jeremiah" (pp. 505-6). What has happened is

that homiletical rhetoric-perfectly good homiletical rhetoric-has suffered

both deliberate and accidental loss in the LXX text of Jeremiah.

Catchwords connecting to the following cluster of oracles:

v 10 fire v 12 fire

NOTES

21:1. The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh when King Zedekiah sent to
him Pashhur son of Malchiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest. Here
for the first time in the book is third-person narrative prose documenting
events in the reigns of either Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Neither king is men-
tioned in the First Edition, except in the superscription of 1:1-3.
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh. On this superscription, see
Note for 7:1. Outside the First Edition, it appears variously in 21:1; 25:1; 30:1;
32:1; 34:1, 8; 35:1; 40:1; and 44:1. The T, as elsewhere, expands to "word of
prophecy."
King Zedekiah. "Zedekiah" was the throne name given to Mattaniah by Ne-
buchadrezzar, who made him king after capturing Jerusalem and exiling Jehoi-
achin, the queen mother, and other leading citizens to Babylon in 597 B.C.
(2 Kgs 24:17). An uncle to King Jehoiachin (not a brother, as stated in 2 Chr
36:10), Zedekiah became king at 21 and ruled for 11 years (597-586 B.c.), until
Jerusalem fell a second time to Nebuchadrezzar, and Judahite nationhood was
brought to an end (2 Kgs 24:18; cf. Jer 1:3). This king's weak personal charac-
ter, a city now bereft of its most capable citizens, and a rival Judahite king held
captive in faraway Babylon combined to create a near-chaotic existence all