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

Speaking of Prophets (23:9-40)

(^32) Look I am against those prophesying lying dreams
-oracle of Yahweh-
yes, they recount them and lead my people astray
with their lies and with their wantonness.
For I, I did not send them
and I did not command them
and they are no profit whatever to this people
-oracle of Yahweh.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
203
The present verses contain at the beginning a divine polemic against lying
dreams (vv 25-28a), in support of which six brief oracles follow-two contrast-
ing these dreams with Yahweh's true and all-powerful word (vv 28b-29) and
four pronouncing judgment on prophets not in possession of Yahweh's word
(vv 30-32). This unit is to be set apart from the three preceding oracles on the
omnipresent Yahweh (vv 23-24) and from the polemic following, opposing the
expression "the burden of Yahweh" (vv 33-40). Delimitation of the present
verses is not by section markings but by content. Also v 32, after which all mod-
ern commentators and modern Versions break (also BHS), is a summary con-
clusion (Thiel 1973: 252-53). The MA and ML have a setumah after v 29 and
MP has a setumah after v 30, but neither v _29 nor v 30 gives any indication of
being a break in the text.
The beginning speech (vv 25-28a), in highly repetitive prose and without a
messenger formula, appears to develop from Oracle V (v 32a). Both censure
prophets who are prophesying lying dreams. Oracle III (v 30) begins with a
judgmental "therefore" (laken), which is discussed in Rhetoric and Composi-
tion for 22: 18-19. This term occurs again (in duplicate) at the close of the po-
lemic in vv 38-39, where it performs an even more condemnatory function
than here. The six oracles in the present cluster are nicely structured, having
the following repetitions and balancing key terms:

I What ..........................?

II Is it not so .......................?

III .... look I am against the prophets .....

IV Look I am against the prophets ....

V Look I am against those prophesying .... my people

VI ................................. this people

mah

halO' koh

v 28b

v 29

v 30

v 31

v 32

Volz takes all of vv 25-32 as poetry, although he concedes that the meter is
not very clear. Holladay at one time also took vv 25-27 to be poetry ( l 966b:
424-32), but this is given up in his commentary, where he now agrees with H.
Weippert (1973) that it is Kunstprosa ("structured prose"). This is perhaps as
good a definition as can be given, although the stereotyped prose of vv 25-28a