Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 401
poetic core. If the oracle in vv 16-17 stood by itself, laken could simply mean
"after this" or "hereafter," as in the "Look, hereafter, days are coming" intro-
duction (see Note on 16:14). Blayney gives laken that meaning here, which
should be accepted.
and all your foes-all of them-into captivity shall go. Some commentators
(Giesebrecht; Rudolph; Weiser; Bright; Holladay; McKane) eliminate "all of
them," with one LXX MS (G^198 ), S, and Vg, but the repetition can stand. The T
has it. Dahood ( l 977b) repaints kullam to a defectively written participle of >kt,
kolim ("consumed"), assuming a wordplay here with the previous kol ("all"). His
translation: "and all your adversaries consumed." But this makes it necessary to
posit a delayed subject ("all who despoil you") in the next line for "into captivity
(they) shall go," which yields a less than satisfactory rendering. The LXX has:
"they shall eat their own flesh" instead of "into captivity (they) shall go," which
Becking ( l 994a: 160; 1998: 8) says is a deviation from MT, influenced perhaps
by Isa 49:26: "And I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh." The MT
should be read. Babylon is promised its own captivity in Isa 46:2.
Those who plunder you shall be for plunder. Hebrew so>sayik ("Those who
plunder you") is an Aramaic form of sosesayik (GKC §67s). Some MSS have a
Q reading of sosayik (from ssh= SSS, "to plunder"; BOB; KB^3 ). Babylon is por-
trayed as the happy plunderer in 50:11, but in 50: 15 the cry goes up that Yah-
weh should do to her as she has done (cf. 50:29). Van Selms (1971) cites a
fourteenth-century B.C. Ugaritic text (CTA 32), which he calls a "prophecy of
salvation," where a similar "turning of the tables" occurs. It states that when the
people of Ugarit throw off their Hittite overlords, the Hittites will be the ones
bringing tribute to Ugarit.
and all who despoil you I will give for spoil. Hebrew wekol-bozezayik >etten
labaz. The verb bzz means "despoil, take as booty." Booty is national treasure
(15:13; 17:3; 49:32; 50:37). In 50:37 this curse on Babylon appears: ''A.sword to
her treasures, that they become booty (buzzazu)."
- For I will bring up new fl.esh for you, and from your blows I will heal you.
The bicolon is a syntactic chiasmus in Hebrew. The LXX has apo pleges
oduneras, "from your grievous blow" (cf. 14: 17). This is a stunning reversal of
what before was taken to be a hopeless case (v 13 and 8:22). Yahweh, the "great
healer" in Hosea and Jeremiah (K. Gross 1931: 246-47), is the only one who
can heal his broken people (see Note on 30: 13). Now he promises to do just
that (cf. 33:6).
For they have called you an outcast: 'That Zion Whom No One Cares About.'
"Zion" is not quite a vocative, as suggested by Ehrlich ( 1912: 318), but his in-
sight helps clear up a muddle in the earlier interpretation of this line. It is now
clear that detractors passing by the ruined city have coined a derisive name for
Zion. Compare the derisive name given to Pharaoh in 46:7: "Loud Noise,
Who Lets the Deadline Pass." The problematic words are ~fyyon hf' ("That
Zion" or "she is Zion"), where the LXX equivalent (Rahlfs; Field 1875: 656),
thereuma hymon estin ("she is your prey"), makes no sense in the context.
Giesebrecht left his translation blank; Duhm omitted the Hebrew words as a
