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

274 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION

MT 25:32-33 = LXX 32:32-33. These verses contain a brief oracle in poetry

(v 32), followed by a supplementary comment in prose (v 33). The oracle is at

the center of a three-poem cluster of judgmental utterances against the na-

tions that concludes the chapter (see Rhetoric and Composition for 25:30-

31 ). The upper limit of the unit is marked by a messenger formula at the be-

ginning of v 32, before which comes a setumah in MA, ML, and MP. The lower

limit is marked by the prose comment in v 33.

The oracle recasts a stanza from an earlier Judah oracle in 6:22. The prose

comment is linked to the final bicolon of the oracle by catchphrases:

from remote parts of the earth

from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth

The prose comment taken as a whole contains this inclusio:

And they shall be ...

... they shall be.

wehayu

yihyu

Catchwords connecting to the previous oracle:

v 32 nation to nation

from remote parts of the earth

v 31 to the end of the earth

the nations

v 32b

v 33a

v 33

Catchwords connecting to the oracle following are of similar sound, not

meanmg:

v 32 evil

v 3 3 the slain

ra<a

balle

v 34 Wail helflU

shepherds hare/Im

NOTES

25:32. Yahweh of hosts. The LXX omits "of hosts," as elsewhere (see Appendix

VI). Aquila, Symm, and Theo have ton dunamei5n.

Look, evil shall go forth from nation to nation. In 6:22 a people from the

north was said to be coming against Judah. Now the word from Yahweh is that

evil shall go forth from nation to nation. Duhm imagined one nation attacking

another here, an interpretation rejected earlier by Calvin. The idea seems,

rather, to be that Yahweh will bring judgment upon one nation, then another.

The more usual Jeremiah phrase, where Yahweh is the speaker, is "(Look) I am

bringing evil ... " (see Note for 6: 19). So far as the march of nations is con-

cerned, Babylon for the present will continue to be Yahweh's agent of destruc-
tion, but in the end another evil will bring it down.
A great tempest is roused. The "great tempest" (sa<ar gadol) is Yahweh's de-
stroying wind (cf. 23:19 = 30:23). It is not the east wind off the desert (cf. 4:11)