Jeremiah 21-36 A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by (Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries)

112 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

In the ANE generally, the king was both lawgiver and judge. In Israel, how-

ever, laws were not promulgated by the king but by Yahweh (de Vaux 1965b:

150-52; Boecker 1980: 41 ). But the king did possess judicial powers, as de Vaux

points out, and was, in fact, a judge. In the capacity of judge, he had a solemn

obligation to see that justice reigned in the land and was himself expected to

execute justice (Psalm 72). Needless to say, this could only be carried out with

help from royal officials (Hammershaimb 1966: 36). King David rendered

judgments in the city gate (2 Sam 15:2; cf. Ps 101 :8), his most famous decision

being one that brought justice to himself (2 Sam 12:5-6). King Solomon is

remembered for an even more famous judgment that determined the true

mother of a baby claimed by feuding harlots (1 Kgs 3: 16-28). Filled with di-

vine wisdom, Solomon was acclaimed by all Israel "to have done justice"

(la'as6t mispat; v 28). Jeremiah was spared death in a dreadful pit because

Ebed-melech brought his plight to King Zedekiah, who, at the time was sitting

as judge in the Benjamin Gate (Jer 38:7). The fact that Jehoiakim is scored by

Jeremiah for not doing justice and righteousness as his father did (22: 13-17)

may indicate that he did not bother to sit as judge in the gate, as he should

have. The present admonition to "execute justice" is doubtless spoken to Jeho-

iakim and his royal house. Because of a general breakdown in societal justice

during Judah's last years, there arose the belief that justice and righteousness

would characterize the reign of the Messiah (23:5-6; Isa 9:5-6[Eng 9:6-7);

11:1-4). Justice was also expected from kings in neighboring cultures. The

Prologue to the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1700 B.C.) begins by stating that

Hammurabi had been named by the gods Anum and Enlil

to cause justice to prevail in the land

to destroy the wicked and the evil

that the strong might not oppress the weak ...

At the end, Hammurabi states that he did precisely this (i 30-39; v 10-20;
ANET^3 164-65; CS II 336-37). A Neo-Babylonian text tells similarly of a king
contemporary with Jeremiah who restored justice when the social order was in
complete collapse (see Note for 2:34). For further discussion of "justice" in the
OT, also other relevant extrabiblical texts on societal justice, see Note for 5:28.
Execute justice ... and rescue. Hebrew dfnil ... mispat weha§§flil. The LXX
has krinate ... krima kai kateuthunate kai exelesthe, "Judge a judgment ...
and act rightly and deliver,'' which adds a second verb (so Rahlfs). This verb
could possibly translate a missing il§edaqa, since the parallel clause in 22:3
reads mispat il§edaqa ("justice and righteousness"), although there the LXX
translates krisin kai dikaiosunen. If il§edaqa was originally in the text here, as it
may well have been since "justice and righteousness" often occur together, its
absence in MT could be due to haplography (homoeoarcton: w ... w). Janzen
(1973: 28) takes kai kateuthunate as a (variant) reading or misreading of Heb
weha§§flil ("and rescue"), which it does not appear to be. McKane follows Zie-
gler (1957: 255), who omits kai exelesthe as a secondary reading.