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

194 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

The main poem is three stanzas, its repetitions and balancing key terms be-

ing the following:

II

... who has stood in the council of Yahweh

.............. and let him hear his word!

who.............. .. my word and heard?

I did not send the prophets

yet they, they ran

I did not speak to them

yet they, they prophesied

III ....... they had stood in my council

and caused ....... to hear my words

v 18

v 21

v 22

For other tightly-balanced centers in the Jeremianic poems, see Rhetoric and

Composition for 2:4-9.

Yahweh is the speaker throughout. His initial question in v 18 is posed in

the third person, but with "my word" (Kt) comes a shift to the first person,

which is then retained to the end of the poem. A similar shift of person occurs

at the beginning of the divine speech to Coniah in 22:24. "His word" (Q) can

be explained as an attempt to provide consistency in v 18, once vv 19-20 were

inserted, at which point the continuity between vv 18 and 21 was broken.

The inserted poem of vv 19-20 begins with the familiar Jeremianic hinneh

("Look"), on which see Note for 1:9. The speaker here is Jeremiah, who adds a

word of judgment to Yahweh's word of indictment. Jeremiah's speech is a gen-

eral condemnation of the wicked but in its present context becomes a condem-

nation of the uncredentialed prophets and their message, although the

judgment is still slated for everyone. Why it breaks up the Yahweh speech is

not clear. The usual explanation is that it announces Yahweh's true word of

judgment spoken in council, which counters the false word of prophets who

say (in v 17) that there will be peace (Cheyne; Rudolph; Bright; Thompson;

Boadt; Craigie et al.; Jones). But the judgment would have gone much better

after v 22.

Catchwords connecting to the previous unit:

v 18

v 20

v 21

v 22

and let him hear ... and heard v 16

his heart

the prophets ... they, they prophesied

caused to hear v 17

evil (2x)

listen

the prophets who prophesy

their own heart

his heart

Evil

There are no catchwords connecting to the oracles following.