Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40)Over the grain and over the wine and over the oil
and over the young of the flocks and the herds
And their soul shall become like a saturated garden
and they shall no longer languish any more(^13) Then shall the maiden be glad in the dance
yes, young men and old men together
And I will turn their mourning into joy
and I will comfort them
and I will make them glad from their sorrow
(^14) And I will saturate the soul of the priests with abundance
and my people with my goodness will be sated
-oracle of Yahweh.
RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
427
MT 31:10-14 = LXX 38:10-14. These verses are delimited at the top end by a
setumah in ML and a petubah in MP and 4QJerc before v IO. At the bottom end
delimitation is by a setumah in ML and a petubah in MP and 4QJd after v 14.
Prior to the latter markings is a concluding "oracle of Yahweh" formula. This
oracle is the third of three hope oracles that form a unit in the poetic core (see
Rhetoric and Composition for 30:4-7 and 31:1-6). The LXX lacks the messen-
ger formula and some commentators delete, but it should be retained. It is
present in 4QJerc. With reconstruction, 4QJerc has a setumah after v IO (Tov
I 997: I 97-98), which neither MLnor MP has. This could indicate that v 10 was
at one time independent, since the verse does not figure in the rhetorical
structure (see below), and lOb has a parallel in 23:3-4 with its successive "gath-
ering" and "shepherding" images. Otherwise, v IO fits well with the rest of the
oracle, announcing Yahweh's redeeming work to the nations.
Judgments about date, authorship, and provenance are much the same
here as for vv 7-9, with some commentators taking vv 7-I 4 as a single unit
(see Rhetoric and Composition for 3I:7-9). At issue once again is a similarity
of ideas and phraseology to Second Isaiah, to which is added here the refer-
ence in v I 4 to good times awaiting the priests, which some commentators
(Giesebrecht; Volz; Rudolph; Hyatt; and others) find difficult to attribute to
Jeremiah. Volz deletes all of v I 4. But the verses contain parallels in vocabu-
lary and phraseology to other Jeremianic preaching, with the result that com-
mentators are divided on interpretation, much as they are regarding vv 7-9,
except Holladay, who uncharacteristically dates this oracle to the Persian
period.
The oracle has three stanzas, with Stanzas II and III inverting their balanc-
ing key words:
II the goodness of Yahweh tub yhwh v 12
... their soul ... saturated .... napsam ... raweh