Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 459however, supports a date for either one in the Persian period (pace Carroll;
Holladay), when these would no longer be a promise for the future.b) Planting, Building, and Accountability (31:27-30)
31 27 Look, days are coming-oracle of Yahweh-when I will sow the house
of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of human and the seed of
beast.(^28) And it will be, as I have watched over them to uproot and to break down
and to overthrow and to destroy, also to bring evil, so I will watch over them
to build and to plant-oracle of Yahweh.
(^29) In those days they shall not again say:
Fathers have eaten sour grapes
and children's teeth become set on edge
(^30) But each person in his iniquity shall die. Every human who eats the sour
grapes, his teeth shall become set on edge.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
MT 31:27-30 = LXX 38:27-30. The present verses contain three future-ori-
ented prophecies: 1) an oracle promising the repopulation of a united Israel
and Judah (v 27); 2) an oracle promising rebuilding and replanting in the
land; and 3) a promise that in future days the retribution doctrine of Yahweh
will be based on individual accountability (vv 29-30). These prophecies con-
stitute a rhetorical unit in the first Book of Restoration, where they are made
to balance the covenant promises in vv 35-37 (see Rhetoric and Composition
for 31:23-26). The "latter day" promise of vv 29-30 may also be a divine or-
acle; however, it lacks a messenger formula. The unit is delimited at the top
end by a petubah in 4QJerc and a setumah in ML and MP before v 27. Delimi-
tation at the bottom end is by a setumah in ML and what appears to be a
petubah in MP after v 30. In MP an omitted v 30 has been inserted into the
open section in small writing.
The oracles in vv 27-28 are generally attributed-by a few scholars, cau-
tiously-to Jeremiah (Giesebrecht; Weiser; Hyatt; Bright; Holladay), although
Duhm assigned them to his postexilic editor. Volz preserves for Jeremiah only
v 27b, and Rudolph says that v 27 can be saved for the prophet if "and the
house of Judah" is deleted. Such a deletion is to be rejected, since the present
expansion is directed to Judah or a united Israel and Judah. Verses 29-30 are
more often assigned a later date, since commentators (Duhm; Peake; Cornill;
Volz; Rudolph; Hyatt; Holladay) see in the discrediting of the "sour grapes"
proverb a dependence upon Ezekiel 18. This, however, is at best uncertain. All
three prophecies can be attributed to Jeremiah (Giesebrecht; Weiser; Bright)
or taken to reflect an authentic Jeremiah tradition (Jones).