PREFACE
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The present volume and one to follow on chaps. 37-52 bring to completion my
Anchor Bible commentary on the book of Jeremiah. The decision to issue the
work in three volumes instead of two allowed for a break at chap. 36, which is
fitting in that this chapter-and earlier its expanded colophon in vv 1-8-
served to conclude a prose composition that is now embodied in the present
Jeremiah book and perhaps was even a book in itself at an earlier time. The
"Introduction" contained in Jeremiah 1-20 can suffice for both volumes, re-
quiring as it does no essential revision now that the entire book has been trans-
lated, exegeted, and commented upon. A few texts cited in the Introduction
were later altered, but the changes were all very minor.
In Jeremiah 21-36 and Jeremiah 37-52 I have made full notation of the section
markings in MA (Aleppo Codex), ML (Leningrad Codex), and MP (St. Peters-
burg Codex of the Prophets); in Jeremiah 1-20 the sections cited were those of
ML unless otherwise noted. The reader should be advised that the Qumran
(Dead Sea Scroll) fragments and major medieval manuscripts (MP, MA, and
ML) simply have blank spaces at the beginning, middle, and end of lines, or be-
tween lines, which mark the setumah (closed section) and petu~ah (open sec-
tion). The sigla (0 for a setumah and £l for a petu~ah) came later, their first
known appearance being in an edition of Isaiah and Jeremiah published at Lis-
bon in A.D. 1492 (C. D. Ginsburg 1885 III: xvi). In both of the present volumes
I have also included more Greek readings from Aquila (Aq), Symmachus
(Symm), and Theodotion (Theod) as they appear in the standard work of Fre-
derick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum II ( 1875), one reason being that they consis-
tently support the MT when the LXX contains an omission. In the present
volume I have included a Bibliography Supplement and Abbreviations Supple-
ment that fill out documentation in both Jeremiah 21-36 and Jeremiah 37-52.
Once again, I am indebted to a number of individuals, schools, and granting
institutions for making the completion of this large work possible, and wish
here to express thanks for all help kindly given. I began work on these last two
volumes at the Albright Institute (American School of Oriental Research) in
Jerusalem, where I was an NEH Fellow and Albright Fellow for the fall and
winter of 1997-98. Work continued in the spring and summer of 1998 at my
Cambridge University college, Clare Hall. Research and writing at both insti-
tutions were underwritten by a grant from the U.S. National Endowment of the
Humanities. In Jerusalem the fine libraries of the Albright and nearby Ecole
Biblique proved once again to be invaluable, and in Cambridge the same can
be said for the incomparable University Library, as well as the excellent librar-
ies of Oriental Studies, the Divinity School, and neighboring Tyndale House.