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

Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 413

So understood, Jeremiah begins the oracle by remembering that Israel in the

past, and now also more recently, found grace in the wilderness. He concludes

by anticipating the day when watchmen will call people from the northern ter-

ritories to make their pilgrimage to Zion. The words of the watchmen close the

oracle, which is a common feature in J eremianic discourse ( 4: 31; 9: 18 [Eng

9:19]; 20:10; 30:17; 46:17). Yahweh in the center directly addresses virgin

Israel, professing his eternal love for her and promising a renewal of commu-

nity life in the northern homeland.

Oracle II is generally taken (except by Carroll and McKane) as a genuine

Jeremiah utterance, a number of commentators and others dating it to the

reign of Josiah and viewing it as early preaching to Northern Israel. People

once again will be planting vineyards on the mountains of Samaria (v 5), and

watchmen on Mount Ephraim will be calling people to make the pilgrimage

to Zion (v 6), which make a northern focus for the oracle clear. The call for

Northern Israel's restoration was already seen by Calvin, with early critical

commentators (Giesebrecht; Duhm; Peake; Cornill) going on to connect it with

the early Jeremianic preaching in 3:12-18. Influence from Hosea in vv 2-3 is

also evident (K. Gross 1930: 5, 14; 1931: 245, 336, 343), pointing once more to

early preaching. Scholars more recently (Volz; Rudolph; Hertzberg 1952: 597;

Eissfeldt 1965: 361; Bright) have seen this early preaching against the back-

ground of Josiah's reform and the centralization of worship in Jerusalem. Some,

however, date the passage after the fall of Jerusalem, in the period of Ge-

daliah's governorship (Skinner 1926: 303; Hyatt; Lindars 1979: 50-52). Carroll

and McKane date the oracle considerably later: Carroll (like N. Schmidt

190lb: 2391), in the Persian period, and McKane, "deep in the post-exilic

period." Neither can imagine a sour and isolated Jeremiah, elsewhere so criti-

cal of the cult, speaking here joyously in its support (so also Cornill on v 6).

McKane's low chronology is another reason for his ruling out an early Jere-

miah career in Josiah's reign, and he is unwilling also to assign any salvation

preaching to the prophet. Such interpretations are flat and rightly rejected by a

majority of today's Jeremiah scholars.

Catchwords connecting to the prior poem in 30:23-24:

v 4 and go forth

dance

weya$a>t

meb6l

v 23 goes forth

whirls

ya$e'a

yabul

Catchwords connecting to the poem following (cf. Condamin):

v 2 a people

v 6 Ephraim

v 7 your people

v 9 Ephraim

NOTES

31:1. At that time. On this phrase in the book of Jeremiah, see Note for 3: 17.
I will be God to all the tribes of Israel, and they, they will be a people to me.
An expanded version of the covenant formula found throughout the OT (see