514 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
and with great terror. Hebrew ilbemora) gadol. The LXX (kai en opamasin
megalois, "and with great sights"), T ("and with the great vision"), and Symm
(en tois phainomenois, "with the revelations") all appear to have read mora) as
"sight" or "revelation" (Rosenberg says Tread mora) like mar)eh). But Aq has
(kai) ev phobemati megalo, "(and) with great terror," and Vg et in terrore magno,
"and in great terror," both supporting MT
- this land that you swore to their fathers to give to them. On Yahweh's
promise of the land to the fathers, i.e., Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, see Note for
11: 5. The LXX omits "to give to them," which can be attributed to haplography
(homoeoteleuton: m ... m). See also Migsch 1996: 355.
2 3. And they came in and took possession of it, but they did not obey your voice
and in your law did not walk; everything that you commanded them to do, they
did not do, so you made them meet up with all this evil. Jeremiah's 35 years of
preaching is summed up in this one verse. In his view, things began to go bad
after Israel's settlement in the land (see Note for 2:7).
but they did not obey your voice and in your law did not walk. A syntactic
chiasmus with the verbs at the extremes. For people not walking in Yahweh's
law (tord), see 6: 16 ( = "ancient paths"), 19; 8:8; 9: 12[Eng 9: 13]; 26:4-6; 44: 10,
23; also 2 Kgs 10:31.
everything that you commanded them to do, they did not do. The LXX omits "to
do" (la'asot), which can be attributed to haplography (homoeoarcton: l ... l).
so you made them meet up with all this evil. A fulfillment of what is stated in
Deut 31:29 and repeated to the exiles in Egypt in Jer 44:23.
- Look, the siege ramps have come to the city to take it. A metonymy (the
army will take the city). This is lost in the translation of the LXX, which substi-
tutes "a thtong" (ochlos) for "the siege ramps" (hassolelOt). On siege warfare,
see Note for 6:6. The verb ba)il ("have come") is a prophetic perfect (Giesebre-
cht): Jeremiah is certain that the siege will be successful (v 25).
because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence. On this stereotyped
triad in Jeremiah, see Note for 5:12. The LXX omits "and the pestilence," as it
does occasionally (see Note for 38:2), although the omission here could also be
due to haplography (homoeoarcton: w ... w).
So look, you are watching! Hebrew wehinneka ro)eh. The form hinneka with
the participle is a continual present. Jeremiah is saying to Yahweh: "Look! you
see it happening before your very eyes!" The LXX omits, which some com-
mentators (Giesebrecht; Rudolph; Holladay) think may be due to the anthropo-
morphism. But the loss can also be attributed to haplography (homoeoarcton:
w ... w, or homoeoteleuton: h ... h), as Migsch (1996: 358 n. 118) has noted.
The phrase is translated in CL, S, T, and Vg (Giesebrecht).
- Yet you, you have said to me, 0 Lord Yahweh, 'Buy for yourself the field
with silver and call for witnesses,' but the city has been given into the hand of the
Chaldeans! Here at the end of the prayer Jeremiah gets around to stating what
is really on his mind, and it comes forth with a sense of urgency. The Chal-
deans are outside the city, soon to take it, so why then has Yahweh told him
to buy the field? We learn only here that Yahweh had actually instructed him
