Speaking of Prophets (23:9-40) 179salem's priests and prophets. Doubts expressed by older scholars about the gen-
uineness of this material are passe and should no longer be entertained.
Duhm's view that vv 16-40 are a product of the second century B.C. is fanciful,
and one can dismiss also the views of Cornill and Mowinckel ( 1914: 20), who
say that little can be credited to Jeremiah after v 24. The entire section reflects
accurately the prophet as he is otherwise known, also the last decades of
Judah's existence when Jeremiah was in conflict with Yahweh prophets who
were nevertheless false. The conflict reaches a dramatic climax at the Temple
in 594/3, when Jeremiah meets the Yahweh prophet Hananiah son of Azzur
and declares him to be ingenuine (chap. 28).
Some scholars (Volz; Rudolph; Weiser; Hyatt; Kraus 1964: 27-28) have sug-
gested that the opening oracle in vv 9-12 was spoken early in Jeremiah's min-
istry, soon after his call, when he was young, naive, and having his eyes opened
for the first time to just how much evil existed in Jerusalem, lurking even
within the Temple precincts. This view is a bit romantic and does not corre-
spond to the facts as we know them. Berridge ( 1970: 182-83) has therefore
called it into question, and rightly so. Jeremiah did battle with the men from
Anathoth early in his career (11:18-23), which would have included priests
from that village, but during this time he was not, so far as we know, in conflict
with priests and prophets in Jerusalem. These came later in the reigns of
Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. Furthermore, with Jeremiah's public career begin-
ning in 622 B.C. or soon after, as I have argued, there cannot be in these verses
a reaction to objectionable Temple practices that existed prior to the Josianic
Reform (cf. v 11). Giesebrecht thinks these first verses come from the end of
Jeremiah's ministry, which is more likely, although they need not be confined
to Zedekiah's reign. Charges against the Jerusalem prophets-here and in
chaps. 27-29-are basically two: 1) they are prophesying in Yahweh's name but
are false; and 2) they are guilty of low moral character, engaging in adultery,
lying, and strengthening the hand of evildoers (23: 14). They are not prophesy-
ing by Baal, as were the prophets singled out for reproach in 2:8 (pace Hyatt).
In 23:9-40 this forbidden practice is ascribed only to the prophets of Samaria
(23:13). Baal worship is much remembered and probably still around (7:9;
9: 13 [Eng 9: 14); 11:13, 17; 12: 16; 19:5; 23:27; 32:29, 3 5), butthe prophets in this
later period seem more to be Yahweh prophets who have a wrong message and
are themselves of dubious character.
The first unit in this collection is vv 9-12, delimited at the top end by the in-
troductory "To the prophets," before which is a petubah in MA and a setumah
in ML and MP. There are no sections in the medieval codexes after v 12, but an
"oracle of Yahweh" formula does conclude the second oracle there. Some
MSS of the LXX omit this formula, but it should be included, as should the
formula at the end of v 11, which the LXX omits. BHS and most commentators
take vv 9-12 as the unit, which it undoubtedly is.
The unit consists of a Jeremiah confession (v 9); an oracle of indictment
(vv 10-11); and a second oracle of judgment introduced by "therefore" (v 12).
All is poetry. The confession is in the style of a lament (Weiser; Kraus 1964: 26;