Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40)e) Rebuilt City, Return to Joy (30:18-22)
30 18 Thus said Yahweh:
Look I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents
and on his dwellings l will have pity
A city shall be built on its tell
and a citadel on its rightful place shall sit(^19) And from them thanksgiving shall go forth
and the sound of merrymakers
And I will multiply them, and they shall not decrease
I will give them honor, and they shall not be insignificant
(^20) His sons shall be as of old
and his congregation before me established
I will reckon with all who oppress him
(^21) and his noble one shall be one of his own
And his ruler from his midst shall go forth
and I will bring him near, and he will approach me
For who is he that would risk his life
to approach me?
-oracle of Yahweh.
(^22) And you will be a people to me
and I, I will be God to you.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
403
MT 30:18-22 = LXX 37:18-21. The present verses consist of a salvation oracle
(vv 18-2 l ), to which has been appended a covenant formula by the compiler of
the poetic core (v 22). There is a "thus said Yahweh" messenger formula at the
beginning of v 18 and an "oracle of Yahweh" formula at the end of v 21. Some
early Jeremiah oracles have formulas at beginning and end, for example, 2:2-
3, 5-9, and there are double formulas in the oracles of 31: 31-34 and 3 5-3 7, but
as a rule only one formula per oracle occurs. My preference here is to take the
present verses as one oracle, although it is possible that two smaller oracles
have been combined into one. The covenant formula is omitted in the LXX,
but that can be attributed to haplography (see Notes).
The unit as a whole is delimited at the top end by the messenger formula in
v 18, before which comes a petu~ah in MP and 4QJerc and a setumah in ML. At
the bottom end, delimitation is by a petu~ah in 4QJerc and MP and a setumah
in ML after v 22. The oracle concludes with a messenger formula at the end of
v 21, which is present in 4QJerc. 4QJer°, in addition, has a long space after the
first word in v 19, but this cannot be a section, even though Tov ( 1997: 196)