158 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS4QJer", Aq, and Theod (eteran). The LXX also fails to translate the article on
ha> are$ ("the land"), which makes more sense because one would expect >ere$
> aberet. Some scholars (Ehrlich 1912: 300; Rudolph; Bright; Holladay) simply
rldete the article, but one wonders if a repetition might not be intended, with
ha> are$ occurring again in v 27 (see Rhetoric and Composition).
and there you shall die. Dying in an unclean land is a curse (Kim]:ii; see Note
on 20:6).- So to the land where they will carry their great desire to return, there they
shall not return. These same words, with only minor changes, were later spo-
ken to Judahite exiles in Egypt ( 44: 14). The expression, hem menassiPfm >et-
napsam, is lit., "they are lifting up their soul/desire." Rashi says it means "they
are longing for," being an expression of consolation to one's inner soul that one
will return again to one's land. For another use of nepes meaning "desire," see
34: 16. The LXX omits lasub sam samma, "to return there, there," which Janzen
( 1973: 119) notes can be attributed to haplography (homoeoarcton: l ... l).
4QJerc (by reconstruction) supports the reading of MT. The message then of
these two final verses, unimpaired and maybe even enriched by a shift in audi-
ence, is this: "You will get what you don't want, and what you do want you
won't get." King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, to their great horror, will
be violently thrown into a strange land, and the land to which they long to re-
turn, they shall not return.
MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
Yahweh begins this oracle by swearing an oath that Coniah, king of Judah,
though he be Yahweh's signet ring, will nevertheless be torn off The oath is
spoken to an unspecified audience, the words of rejection to the king directly.
Yahweh makes his words to the king even more severe by saying that the king
will be given into the hand of his enemies. Four times this is repeated. Violent
action will continue. The king and the queen mother will be thrown into a
land where they were not born, and there they will die. An unmitigated curse.
Turning in conclusion to the audience listening in, Yahweh says that the land
to which they yearn to return, they shall not return.
The oracle can be confidently dated to 597 B.C., before Jehoiachin, the
queen mother, and other Jerusalem citizens of note were exiled to Babylon.
When heard following the divine utterance in vv 20-23, the mountain wailing
will be followed by Yahweh's rejection of his king, which will be the cause for
more wailing.
The "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" in Verdi's opera, Nabucco (1842), at-
tempts to capture later longings of Jewish exiles in Babylon for home and the
joys they once knew there:
Del Giordano le rive saluta
Di Sionne le torri atterrate
Oh, mia patria si bella e perduta!
Oh, membranza si cara e fatal!To the waters of Jordan bear greeting
To the down-fallen temples of Zion
Oh, my country so fair and so wretched
Oh, remembrance of joy and of woe!