304 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSJudah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, also all the nobles of Judah and
Jerusalem:^21 Indeed, thus said Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, con-
cerning the vessels remaining in the house of Yahweh, and the house
of the king of Judah, and Jerusalem:(^22) To Babylon they shall be brought, and there they shall be until the
day I attend to them-oracle of Yahweh-and I bring them out and
bring them back to this place.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
MT 27:1-22 = LXX 34:2-22. Chapters 27-29 have been read together at least
since the time of Hitzig ( 1841 ), there being in all three 1) distinctive linguistic
features (Giesebrecht); and 2) a common background of Jeremiah in conflict
with the optimistic prophets, the latter resulting from Judah's humiliation at
the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. Linguistic peculiarities include a
preference for ya rather than yahU spellings of names compounded with "Yah-
weh," i.e.,"Jeremiah,'' "Jeconiah,'' "Zedekiah,'' and "Hananiah,'' although the
long forms also occur. The short form of "Jeremiah" occurs nowhere else in
the book. Also are unusual spellings of "Josiah" and "Jehoiakim" in the prob-
lematic superscription of 27: 1, and the only spelling in the book of "Nebu-
chadnezzar" with an "n,'' although one spelling with "r" does occur in 29:21.
Added to these are a frequency of titles following proper names: "Jeremiah, the
prophet" (28:5, 10, 11, 12, 15; 29:1, 29); "Hananiah, the prophet" (28:1, 5, 12,
15, 17); "Jeremiah, the Anathothite (29:27); and Shemaiah, the Nehelamite
(29:24, 31, 32). "Jeremiah, the prophet" occurs sporadically elsewhere, most of-
ten in superscriptions (45:1; 46:1, 13; 47:1; 49:34; 50:1; 51:59; see Appendix
VI). Jeremiah's conflict with other prophets-both those in Jerusalem (chaps.
27-28) and in Babylon (chap. 29)-centers around the predictions these indi-
viduals are making that the humiliation of 597 B.C. will be speedily reversed;
i.e., the exiles and Temple treasures taken away to Babylon will soon be
returned to Jerusalem.
To chaps. 27-29 must also be added chap. 24, forming what I have called a
"Zedekiah Cluster" of narrative prose. Whereas chaps. 27-28 combine to re-
port the "yoke" prophecy of 594-593 B.C., chaps. 24 and 29 unite in reporting
prophecies soon after the exile of 597 B.C., their common theme being a Juda-
hite community divided into good and bad remnants (see Rhetoric and Com-
position for 24:1-10). Chapters 24, 27, and 28 include first-person narrations;
chap. 29 is all third-person.
There has been no agreement on assigning chap. 27 to one of the so-called
Jeremianic sources. Mowinckel (1914: 40) assigned the chapter to Source C,
Giesebrecht (p. xxi) and Weiser to Source B, and Rudolph to Source A, lead-
ing H.-J. Kraus (1964: 59-60) to wonder if any of the sources really fit. Kraus
correctly noted that the characteristic "Deuteronomistic mintings" of Source
C were not present, a conclusion reached by Rudolph earlier. Rudolph said
the only Source C phrase was "with my great strength and with my out-