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

390 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS

has "his straps." Nothing much is at stake. A day will come when Israel's servi-

tude to Babylon will end. Becking ( l 994a: 159) says that, it the oracle ends with

"I will burst," then the MT's shift of person at Sb can be explained. The LXX

translation, in his view, is a later accommodation to facilitate audience under-

standing. Recognizing a break after Sb is important, but in my view the shift of

person there is due to the oracle's having embodied a bicolon of poetry (see

Rhetoric and Composition).

So strangers shall not again make him serve. Hebrew <bd + be in the Qal

means "make serve, enslave" (see Note for 25:14). The LXX's "and they shall

no longer serve strangers" misses the causative meaning in the Qal and elimi-

nates the indirect object "him" (b6) entirely. The omission of the indirect ob-

ject can be attributed to haplography (homoeoteleuton: w ... w). The promise

given here reverses the judgment in 5:19; 25:14; and 27:7. "Strangers" (zarfm)

are "foreigners," as in 5: 19; 51 :2, 51; and Ezek 7 :21; 11:9; 2S: 7, 1 O; 30: I 2. In Jer

2:25 and 3:I3 they are the "strange gods."

9. instead they shall serve Yahweh their God and David, their king, whom I will
   raise up for them. This verse or something like it is required after what pre-
   cedes, since being freed from one's enemies is not enough. Calvin says order
   must be established; but more to the point, a new servitude must replace the
   old. Liberation in the biblical view is a change of masters (Daube I963). Yah-
   weh therefore breaks the yoke of foreign nations so that the people will once
   again serve him (cf. Exod 23:25; Deut IO:l2), and here, also, a Davidic king
   whom Yahweh will raise up.
   David, their king, whom I will raise up for them. This king will not simply be
   like David or be a king in the Davidic line; he will be a David redivivus (G. F.
   Moore I 927 II: 325-26). Beginning here and elsewhere in the OT are the
   messianic ideas seen flowering in later Judaism (Hos 3: 5; Amos 9: I I; J er 2 3: 5-
   6; 33:I5-I6, I7, 2I-22; Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Isa 55:3-4; cf. BT Sanhedrin
   9Sa), when there also emerged the idea of an Elijah redivivus (Mal 4:5; cf.
   Matt I I: I I-I 5). Romantic longings for a "king like David" are present already
   in the Deuteronomic History (2 Kgs I4:3; I6:2; IS:3; 22:2). The reference in
   Hos 3:5 to people's seeking Yahweh and David, their king, is important back-
   ground for the present verse and need not be dismissed as later Judahite in-
   terpolation (Andersen and Freedman I9SO: 30I; Emmerson I9S4: IOI-13).
   Emmerson points out that while Hosea opposed the Northern institution of
   kingship, he did not oppose kingship per se, and a future Davidic kingship in
   this prophet's thought was certainly possible. Jeremiah, too, appears to have
   supported the idea of a future Davidic king for Israel (23:5-6; 33:I5-16), and
   the same is true for Second Isaiah (Isa 5 5 :3-4).
   IO-I I. But you, do not you be afraid, Jacob my servant ... Israel .... I will

save you from afar .... I am with you. Begrich (I934) argued that "do not be

afraid" was the typical beginning of a "salvation oracle" spoken by priests in
public worship (cf. Lam 3:57; Ps 35:3) and that the prophets, Second Isaiah in
particular, borrowed the style in their preaching (Isa 4l:S, 10, I3-I4; 43:I, 5;
44:I-2). If Jeremiah appropriated such a genre, he definitely made it his own