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

190 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

(Giesebrecht, Rudolph, Weiser, Hyatt, Bright, Lipinski l 970a; Thompson,

Boadt, Carroll, Craigie et al., Jones, McKane) take vv 16-22 as the unit;

Holladay, vv 16-20. Neither grouping is correct. The upper limit is indi-

cated by a petu~ah in MA and ML before v 16, but not in MP. None of the

medieval codices has a section after v 17. Clarity comes only with a proper

delimitation of vv 18-22, into which has been inserted a separate oracle in

vv 19-20. The primary poem there is vv 18 and 21-22 (see Rhetoric and

Composition for 23:18-22). This leaves vv 16-17 as a self-standing oracle, in

which Yahweh addresses people on the problem of false prophets and false

prophecy.

The present oracle is prose (Cornill; RSV; NRSV), not poetry. Most com-

mentators, with the modern Versions, scan it as poetry, but they do so only by

making deletions, usually metri causa. However, in v 17 there are nicely bal-

anced phrases with inversion:

continually saying I to those who spurn me, Yahweh has spoken,

well I it will be for you,

and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart I they say,

it will not come upon you I evil.

The oracle is Jeremianic (Mowinckel 1914: 21), not assignable to some "Deu-

teronomic" editor (pace Carroll), much less an editor of the second century

(pace Duhm, who dates all of vv 16-40 then).

Catchwords connecting to the previous unit:

v 17 Evil v 14 evildoers ... from his evil

Catchwords connecting to the unit following, some of which are noted by

Condamin:

v 16 listen

the prophets who prophesy

their own heart

v 17 his heart

Evil

v 18 and let him hear ... and heard

v 20 his heart

v 21 the prophets ... they prophesied

v 22 caused to hear

evil (2x)

NOTES

23:16. Thus said Yahweh of hosts. Holladay (and before him Comill) deletes,
for which there is no textual warrant. The difficulty for Holladay appears to be
delimitation: Jeremiah, he thinks, must be the speaker in vv 16-20. The LXX
translates §eba>ot ("of hosts") with pantokrator, as it does occasionally else-
where (see Appendix VI).
Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. Hebrew <a[ is
equivalent here to >e[ (see Note for 11 :2). This directive is heard repeatedly in