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

382 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

Jeremiah is the speaker of this poem, articulating as elsewhere the deep an-

guish of a defeated people before its enemy (Giesebrecht; Peake; Volz; Ru-

dolph; Weiser; Bright; Thompson). The speaker is not Yahweh, as claimed by

Calvin and more recently Holladay. The messenger formula in v 5 is responsi-

ble for the confusion (see Notes). The verses are in the style of a lament (Giese-

brecht); they are not a divine oracle (Duhm).

The poem is linked to the inserted prose oracle in vv 8-10 by these key words

(Condamin):

v 7 that day v 8 in that day

Catchwords connecting to the companion poems in vv 10-11 are the follow-

mg:

v 5 fright barada v I 0 frighten mabarfd

and no wi!'en Jacob (2x)

v 7 Jacob look I will save you

shall he be saved and none we>en

v 11 to save you

NOTES

30:4. And these are the words that Yahweh spoke to Israel and to Judah. This su-

perscription introduces all the prophetic utterances in chaps. 30-31, not just

the one following or a select number of utterances within the chapters. In form

it is similar to the superscriptions in Deut 1: 1 ("These are the words that Moses

spoke to all Israel ... "); Deut 28:69[Eng 29: l] ("These are the words of the

covenant that Yahweh commanded Moses ... "); and Jer 29: 1 ("And these are

the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent ... "). If Baruch com-

posed it, we see continuity not only with the report of Jeremiah's letters to the

exiles in chap. 29 but also with the first edition of the book of Deuteronomy

(chaps. 1-28), which was a completed book in Jeremiah's time (Lundbom

l 996a: 314-15). Again, some commentators (Volz; Rudolph; Weiser; McKane)

want to eliminate "Judah" here, but as we said earlier, the Book of Restoration

is intended for both Israel and Judah (30:3). The Versions all have both Israel

and Judah.

5. For thus said Yahweh. The LXX omits kf ("For"), but Aq, Symm, and
   Theod all have hoti houtos. The omission could be attributed to haplography
   in the Hebrew Vorlage (homoeoarcton: k ... k) or be an inner-Greek haplog-
   raphy (homoeoarcton: ho ... ho). More problematic is the formula itself,
   which is ill suited for the poem following. The beginning "we have heard" has
   to be Jeremiah speaking for himself and the people (cf. 6:24). The speaker
   here, and throughout the poem, cannot be Yahweh (pace Calvin; Holladay).
   Rudolph takes the formula as a later redactional element; Weiser deletes.
   There are other instances in the book where messenger formulas introduce