396 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSrendered "exercise judgment." What is lacking, says Jeremiah, is someone to
diagnose Zion's case and bring about healing. The move at this point is from
crushing blows and gaping wounds to infectious body tissue. Hebrew mazor,
here and in Hos 5:13, is a boil, cyst, or other sore containing matter to be
pressed out (BOB; KB^3 ; Andersen and Freedman 1980: 413: "an oozing infec-
tion"; cf. Isa 1:6). It is not a "dressed wound" (from zur, "to press"), as assumed
by older commentators (Rashi; Blayney; Giesebrecht; Peake; Streane), who
made a connection with the next term, "healing." The Masoretic accent,
which some want to move forward, should remain under lemazor. Those who
place it under "healing" simply want to accommodate their deletion of "diag-
nose your case."
Although we may suppose that individuals with simple medical skills existed
in ancient Israel, there is nevertheless no evidence from the OT that Israel had
indigenous doctors. Ancient Hebrew, as far as we know, did not even have a
noun for "doctor"; it simply used the participial forms rope) and rope)fm
("healer/healers"). And when these terms refer to human healers, they are al-
ways foreigners (Gen 50:2; Jer 8:22; 2 Chr 16: 12; Job 13:4). Also, except for the
doctor-embalmer in Gen 50:2, such individuals are spoken of disparagingly.
The priest functions as a one-man health department when it comes to control-
ling the spread of maladies such as scale disease (leprosy); otherwise, he does
not function in the role of doctor (C. Weiss 1940). According to Weiss, only the
prophets practiced the art of healing, and then they did so only on occasion.
Neufeld (1970: 428-29) thinks that ancient Israel's medical practitioners were
apothecaries organized into guilds (cf. Neh 3:8). Actually, Yahweh is the only
real healer of his people (3:22; 17:14; 30:17; 33:6; Gen 20:17; Exod 15:26;
23:25; Num 12:13; Oeut 7:15; 32:39; 2 Kgs 20:5; Hos 6:1; 7:1; 11:3; 14:5[Eng
14:4]; Pss 103:2-3; 147:2-3), and not until the second century B.C. do we find
a passage in Jewish tradition extolling the virtues of the human doctor (Sir 38: 1-
15). In Lam 2:13, a ruined Zion is asked, "Who can heal you?" The answer
comes in v 17 of the following oracle, where Yahweh says, "and from your
blows I will heal you."
a healing scar there is not for you. This colon is repeated verbatim in 46:11,
supporting the MT's break in the present verse just before repu)ot, an abstract
plural noun meaning "healing" (GKC § 124d). The word te'ala occurs only
here and in 46: 11 and is usually taken to mean "a coating of new flesh and skin
over a wound" (BOB; KB^3 ). But since another noun with the same spelling
means "watercourse, canal," we may actually be talking here and in 46: 11
about a scar. In 8:22, Jeremiah asks why "healing" ('ii.ruka) had not arisen on
his wounded people, something Yahweh promises only later (30:17; 33:6). In
either case, what we have here is an incurable wound, which was a traditional
curse in the ancient world (Hillers 1964: 64-66). Hillers gives this example
from the Code of Hammurabi (rev. xxviii 50-69):
May Ninkarrak, daughter of Amum, who speaks well of me in Ekur, bring
on his limbs a severe malady, an evil plague, a festering wound, which does