550 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
kings and soldiers from other nations were fighting alongside Nebuchadrezzar
in his war against Judah. Edom may have been one such nation, since it was
later gleeful at the destruction of Jerusalem (Ps 13 7: 7) and appears to have es-
caped punitive action by Nebuchadrezzar when he campaigned in the area in
588-586 and 582 B.C. (see Note for 49:10).
- Go, and you shall say to Zedekiah, king ofludah, and you shall say to him.
The LXX omits the first "and you shall say," which should be retained since it
belongs to the command formula (the infinitive absolute halok paired with a
perfect verb) occurring often in Jeremiah (see Note for 28:13). The verb is
present in S, T, and Vg. The second we>amartfi ("and you shall say") is better
omitted since it is redundant, but it could also be original. Duhm did not think
that Jeremiah had ready access to the king, but others (Giesebrecht; Peake;
Volz) assume that he did. If he did go to see Zedekiah, he must have been at
liberty to move about, although he could have approached the king from the
court of the guard, which was in the royal palace. From there he went to see
Ebed-melech (39: 15-18), and there people visited him to carry on business
and hear him preach (32: 1-15; 38: 1-4). Volz is impressed that Jeremiah went,
not to a public place, but to the palace to speak with the king alone.
Look I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will
take it and will burn it with fire. The MT lacks "and he will take it" ( ulekadah ),
which is probably a loss due to haplography (homoeoarcton: w ... w), since
the term fills out a standard idiom in royal inscriptions of the ANE. The LXX
has the term. This same prophecy, reported elsewhere (21:10; 32:3, 28-29;
"H22; 37:8-10; 38:3, 18, 23), was fulfilled (39:1-3, 8; 52:12-14). The words are
repeated almost verbatim in 32:3, vvith the one difference that instead of "and
he will burn it with fire," the prediction concludes with "and he will take it."
Rudolph and Holladay want to delete "and he shall burn it with fire" as proph-
ecy after the event (cf. 39:8), but this is unnecessary and there is no textual war-
rant for doing so. If N ebuchadrezzar is coming to put down resistance for good,
he will undoubtedly burn Jerusalem, as he did other cities.
- And you, you will not escape from his hand, but you will surely be captured
and into his hand you will be given. Zedekiah was given the same word about
his own fate on other occasions (21:7; 32:4; 34:21; 37: 17; 38:21-23 ), and it too
was fulfilled (39:5; 52:8-9; 2 Kgs 25:5-6).
And your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and his mouth shall
speak to your mouth, and to Babylon you shall go. The Hebrew has a syntactic
chiasmus: your eyes I the eyes of the king of Babylon // his mouth I your
mouth. Ezekiel, too, predicted Zedekiah's capture and exile to Babylon (Ezek
12: 13 ), but added ironically that the king would never "see" the faraway land.
The words even here may have an ominous tone, for as things turned out,
Zedekiah was blinded after his capture (39:7), and the last thing he saw before
being carted away was the eyes of the Babylonian king, and with cruel finality
was made to witness the extirpation of his dynastic line (his sons were killed).
This prophecy, then, was fulfilled: Zedekiah did meet the king of Babylon
face to face, and did go to Babylon where, in prison, he died (39:5-7; 52:9-11;
