322 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS- Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this
city become a ruin? The LXX omits the entire verse plus the waw beginning
v 18, which can be attributed to haplography (homoeoarcton: >aleph ... >aleph).
The T and Vg have v 17. Many commentators delete with Hitzig. Weiser and
Holladay retain. The rhetorical question has the ring of authenticity (cf. v 13).
a ruin. Hebrew borba. A common curse word in Jeremiah (see Note for
25:9), included often in stereotyped curse-word strings (see Note for 24:9). - do let them pressure Yahweh of hosts. Hebrew yipge'u na> bayhwh ?i!ba>at.
The verb pg' (Qal) here and in 7: 16 denotes strident intercession, where plead-
ing and other desperate acts are occurring. The LXX's apantesatosan moi ("let
them meet me") may have the correct verb but does not give a proper reading
and is rightly rejected by Hitzig and Giesebrecht. The LXX adds the same verb
in v 3. H.-J. Kraus (1964: 80) points out that v 18 has an unmistakable ironic
tone, "because it would be obvious that the principal duty of the nebiim
[prophets J is to be worried about and to pray for the life of the people." Jere-
miah is mocking them, just as Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal as they were
calling upon their god to bring rain, telling them to cry louder (1Kgs18:28).
so that the vessels remaining in the house of Yahweh and the house of the king
of Judah and in Jerusalem not go to Babylon. These words are omitted in the
LXX, but present in Theod, T, and Vg. They should be retained (Giesebrecht;
Peake).
so that ... not go. Hebrew lebiltf-bo>u is problematic because a perfect form
of the verb appears to have been pointed by the Masoretes as an imperfect, the
form one would expect ( GKC § 720; 7 6g). But see lebiltf-sabU in 23:14. If the
verb is an original imperfect, the yod on yb>w has likely been lost because of
haplography (prior word ends in yod).
19-20. For thus said Yahweh of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning
the sea, and concerning the stands, and concerning the rest of the vessels remain-
ing in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take when he
exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon.
These are the Temple treasures that were not taken by Nebuchadnezzar in 597
B.C. but were taken in 586 B.C. (cf. 52: 17-23 ).
of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the
stands. The LXX omits, and commentators again divide on whether to retain
or delete. Giesebrecht retains; Duhm (following Hitzig, Movers, and Kuenen)
deletes. The lack of ?i!ba>ot ("of hosts") can be explained separately, since the
LXX commonly omits the term (see Appendix VI). If ?eba>ot was present in the
Vorlage, the loss of the remaining words could be due to haplography (homo-
eoteleuton: wt ... wt). Theodotion has everything, including ton dunameon
("of hosts"); T and Vg also have the words.
remaining in this city. Lacking in LXX but extant in the the other Versions.
Giesebrecht retains. Stipp (1997: 197) argues that the verb ytr N-stem ("re-
main") occurs only in MT and that phrases containing this verb (see also v 18,
21; and 34:7) are proto-MT additions. The large omission in v 21, however, is
due to haplography.