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

Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 395

your sins were numerous

Catchwords connecting to the companion poem in w 16-17 (Condamin):

v 12 blow v 17 I will bring up... 'a'aleh

v 13 healing scar repil'ot te'ala from your blows

v 14 you, they care not about I will heal you 'arilka Zak

blow ... I have struck you Whom No One Cares About

NOTES

30:12. Your brokenness is desperate, your blow incurable. Hebrew 'anus

lesibrek nablfi. makkatek. Hebrew 'anus ("desperate") is a Jeremiah word

(15:18; 17:9, 16), occurring here and in v 15 with reference to a terminal med-

ical condition. The LXX misunderstood it (LXX: anestesa suntrimma, "I have

brought about a fracture"), as it did earlier in 17:9 and 16 (Becking l 994a: 154).

The lamed on lesibrek is emphatic: "your brokenness is desperate" (Haupt

1894; 1907; Ni:itscher 1953: 380; cf. GKC § l 43e). These two expressions com-

pare with those in 10: 19 and 14: 17, where seber ("brokenness, break, shatter")

and makkfi. ("blow, stroke") are again paired. The phrase "your blow (is) incur-

able" occurs also in Nah 3:19 with reference to the demise of Assyria. Jere-

miah bewails his own brokenness in 10: 19; in 14: 17 it is the brokenness of his

people. For him the two are inseparable; in 8:21 he says, "For the brokenness

of my dear people, I am broken." In 15: 18, Jeremiah complains again about on-

going sickness and pain, asking, "Why has my pain become continual and my

blow desperate, refusing to be healed?" (see Note there). The imagery in all

these texts is strong, indeed violent, portraying one who has sustained a vi-

cious-perhaps mortal-blow and lies in a helpless state. It is not the ordinary

hurt or injury, because recovery is very much in doubt. Yahweh is addressing

his faithless wife, Zion (feminine pronouns), who lies battered, helpless, and

alone on the ground. One-time lovers have forgotton her, and Yahweh, her

husband and friend, is now the enemy (v 14). In today's world such a woman

would be seen as an abused wife, but in the ancient world she is a faithless wife

getting her due-shame, physical abuse, and death.

13. There is none to diagnose your case of a sore. Hebrew 'en dan dfnek (lit.,
    "there is none to judge your judgment") contains a wordplay and a cognate ac-
    cusative construction, of which there are many in Jeremiah (see again v 14 and
    Note on 22: 16). The same verb + cognate accusative appears in 5:28: "They
    would not prosecute a case" (dfn lo'-danu), and in 22: 16: "He prosecuted the
    case (dan dfn) of the poor and needy." Here, however, the phrase requires a
    medical equivalent. The AV's "there is none to plead thy cause," which is car-
    ried over into the RSV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, and NJB, cannot be right. The NEB
    and REB omit the phrase, as do some commentators (Duhm; Peake; Cor-
    nill; Volz; Weiser; Bright; Thompson). But it can be translated if dfn is simply