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

172 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

occurrences of the phrase in the book (see Note for 7:32), to an indefinite fu-

ture after the collapse of the nation, when kingship will be reinstated.

when I will raise up for David a righteous Shoot. The phrase is given messi-

anic interpretation in T ("when I will raise up for David an Anointed One [ =

Messiah] of righteousness"), as well as in Kiml_i.i. Abarbanel says that, since the

Hasmonean kings were not of the Davidic dynasty, the passage must refer to

the Messianic Era. "Messianism" is the Jewish hope for a future golden age

that will revive the golden age of the past, i.e., the kingdom ruled by David.

Levey (1974: xix) gives this definition:

Messianism is the predication of a future Golden Age in which the central

figure is a king primarily of Davidic lineage appointed by God ... it was

believed that during the time of the Messiah the Hebrew people will be

vindicated, its wrongs righted, the wicked purged from its midst, and its

rightful place in the world secured. The Messiah will pronounce doom

upon the enemies of Israel, will mete out reward and punishment in truth

and in justice, and will serve as an ideal king ruling the entire world.

While Messianism has roots in preexilic prophecy, it flowers much later, for
which reason messianic ideas must not be read back into the mind of Jeremiah
as, for example, Calvin does when he says that the present prophecy speaks of
(the) Christ. The term "Messiah" (masfab) is not used with reference to a fu-
ture redeemer anywhere in the OT or Apocrypha (Klausner 1956: 8), and the
term "Shoot" ($emab), which appears here, assumes a technical meaning only
in Zech 3:8 (= Zerubbabel originally; so Duhm) and 6:12 (=Joshua, the high
priest). In the Tannaitic literature of ca. 50 B.C. to A.D. 200 (BT Sanhedrin 97a-
98b) and in the NT Gospels (Matt 9:27; 15:22; 20:30-31 and parallels), "son of
David" has come to mean "the Messiah." This having been said, however, the
idea of Yahweh raising up an ideal king from Davidic stock can reasonably be
attributed to Jeremiah, although it is not original with him. Isaiah gives elo-
quent expression to the idea of a renewed kingdom under Davidic rule in Isa
11: 1-9, a passage with striking similarities to the present one. One also sees the
hope of a restored Davidic rule in Amos 9:11; Mic 5:l[Eng 5:2] and Isa 9:6-7.
Mowinckel ( 1956: 15-20) assigned all these passages except Isa 9:6-7 to the
postexilic period, doing the same with the present verses, which he believed
were dependent on Zech 3:8 and 6: 12. But all the named passages are arguably
preexilic, and few if any scholars today would claim that the verses here owe
their inspiration to Zech 3:8 and 6:12. The idea of David's royal line continu-
ing forever has its basis in the covenant promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, which
is preexilic. Psalm 89:28-37 is a later echo.
when I will raise up. Hebrew wahaqimotf. In 33:15 it is "I will make sprout"
Ca?mfab). The verb here functions as a catchword to the previous oracle clus-
ter (see Rhetoric and Composition).
a righteous Shoot. Or "a rightful Shoot." Hebrew $emab $addfq. The term
$emab means "sprout, shoot," although most modern Versions follow the AV