178 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
B. Speaking of Prophets (23:9-40)
- Of Adulterers the Land Is Full! (23:9-12)
23 9 To the prophets:
My heart is broken within me
all my bones waver
I have become like a drunken man
and like a mighty man whom wine has overcome
before Yahweh
and before his holy words.(^10) Indeed of adulterers
the land is full!
Indeed before the curse the land mourns
pastures of the wild are dried up
Yes, their course has become evil
and their might is not right
(^11) Indeed even prophet
even priest-they are polluted!
Even in my house
I have found their evil
-oracle of Yahweh.
(^12) Therefore their way shall become to them
like slippery ground in thick darkness
they shall be pushed and fall upon it
Indeed I will bring evil upon them
in the year of their reckoning
-oracle of Yahweh.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
Here begins the Prophet Collection, 23:9-40, which forms the second part of
the appendix to the First Edition. Containing an introductory lannebi>fm ("To
the prophets"), it continues to the end of the chapter (see Rhetoric and Com-
position for 21:1-10). The verb "broken" (nisbar) in v 9 is a catchword to the
verb "broken" (nisberu) in 22:20 (Lundbom 1975: 103 [= 1997: 135]), showing
that 22:24-23:8 is a later addition to the King Collection preceding.
Oracles in the present collection come from different periods, although
most, if not all, were probably delivered during the reigns of Jehoiakim and
Zedekiah, at which time Jeremiah had a particularly difficult time with Jeru-