Good Figs Gone for Export (24:1-10) 225
went with Johanan son of Kareah to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem
(43:5-7), which may build on Midrash Song of Songs (7:14), where the
bad figs already anticipate the captivity of Zedekiah. But a Jewish emigra-
tion to Egypt is placed during the reign of Jehoiakim (see Notes) by many
scholars (Cornill; Rudolph; Bright; Jones), which means that in 597 B.C.
Jews would have been living in Egypt. So the reference does not require a
post-586 B.C. date for the passage, much less a later date.
- This passage is to be compared to the Sabbath Day Oracles in 17: 19-27,
which are thought to be postexilic in date (May; Hyatt). The Sabbath
Day Oracles, however, are not postexilic, but are rather early Jeremianic
preaching after 622 B.C. (see Rhetoric and Composition for 17: 19-27).
•The reading of et-galut yehUda in v 5 as "exiled Judahites" is interpreted
by McKane to mean that the Jehoiachin group of exiles was the entire
community of Jewish exiles in Babylon and that deportees of 586 B.C.
were not part of the reckoning. Those remaining in Jerusalem, and per-
haps those emigrating to Egypt, were doomed to extinction. This adven-
ture in fantasy assumes then that chap. 24 does not record Jeremiah's
activity between 597 and 586 B.C. Such an interpretation of et-galut
yehuda cannot be taken seriously.
- The passage has the vocabulary and phraseology of a postexilic "Deuter-
onomist" (Duhm; May; Thiel). Mowinckel (1914: 21) put chap. 24 in his
Source A (= Jeremianic) material, although he did so with a question
mark. Rudolph says the material is Source A. There are, after all, the same
first-person superscriptions, "And Yahweh said to me" along with "And the
word of Yahweh came to me," that appear in 1:4, 7, 9, 11-12, 13-14, about
which questions of authenticity seldom, if ever, arise. Examples of diction
in chap. 24 cited by May ( 1942: 154-5 5) in support of his late "Deutero-
nomic" biographer, for which no parallels outside Jeremiah are given,
bear no resemblance to S. R. Driver's list of D phrases ( 1902: lxxviii-
lxxxiii). Also, as the Notes below indicate, the vocabulary and phraseology
of the chapter are precisely what one finds characterizing the Jeremiah
prose and in some cases the Jeremiah poetry; e.g., "for good" in vv 5-6;
"build up, overthrow, plant, uproot" in v 6; "to know me" in v 7; "in all the
places where I shall disperse them" in v 9; and "the sword, the famine,
and the pestilence" in v I 0 (cf. H. Weippert 1973: 191). The covenant for-
mula in v 7 occurs six other times in the book, twice in poetic contexts
(30:22; 31:1 ); all the curse words of v 9, except two, are common stock in
Jeremiah prose (H. Weippert 1973: 185); and "fathers" used in v 10 as an
embellishing term is found often in the Jeremiah prose. The D phrase is
"the God of your I our I their fathers" (S. R. Driver 1902: lxxx). This is not
"Deuteronomic" prose early or late but, rather, prose indigenous to the
book of Jeremiah.
•A conflict is said to exist between Jeremiah's round condemnation of the
Jerusalem population in 5: 1-8 and his positive view of those now going
into Babylonian exile (May; Hyatt). This hardly needs comment, because
