The Cost of Prophetic Preaching (26:1-24) 281scattered to God knows where. All will fall like a precious china vase, broken
forever. Chances for the shepherds and nobles to escape will vanish. Jeremiah
then says he hears the screaming and the wailing. Yahweh is now devastating
the flocks. The work is complete. Once-peaceful pastures lie deathly silent be-
fore the burning anger of Yahweh. Like a lion, Yahweh left his lair, and the
land became desolate before the divine anger.
This poem could have originally been spoken against the kings and nobility
of Judah, but in its present context is a climactic word to the kings and nobil-
ity of nations, calling them to lament their people and their lands. It is unclear
when such a poem could have been spoken to Judah. Against the nations, it
fits in with other utterances of the chapter, which are dated to 605 B.C.; other-
wise to 604 or 597-594 B.C., when Jeremiah is preaching his Foreign Nations
Oracles.
When this poem is heard in tandem with what precedes, Jeremiah will be
supplementing the divine word that accompanies the passing of the cup of
wrath; and it will be the word one might expect to hear at the end of a judg-
ment, a word about wailing, crying out, and rolling in the dirt. These will be
the final sounds before the land becomes silent. The image of a lion coming
against a pasture in vv 30-31 will also be broadened. The attack now is not on
a few sheep, not even a larger flock. Shepherds, too, will be attacked and
killed, which is what one can infer from the vision of Yahweh's cup of wrath,
where, at a banquet table all the kings of the nations sat as invited guests.
C. The Cost of Prophetic Preaching (26:1-24)
1. The Temple Oracles and Jeremiah's Day in Court (26:1-19)
26 1 In the beginning of the reign of J ehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah,
this word came from Yahweh:^2 Thus said Yahweh: Stand in the courtyard
of the house of Yahweh, and you shall speak concerning all the cities of
Judah who come to worship in the house of Yahweh all the words that I
command you to speak to them. Do not hold back a word.^3 Perhaps they
will listen and return each person from his evil way and I will repent con-
cerninga the evil that I am planning to do to them on account of their evil
doings.^4 And you shall say to them:
Thus said Yahweh:
If you do not listen to me to walk in my law that I have set before you,(^5) to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I am sending
"Reading 'al ("concerning"), with many MSS; MT has 'el ("to"); cf. v 13.