450 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
because of the parallelism with "road-markers" in the line, is now generally
accepted.
Fix your mind on the highway, the way you have gone. Hebrew libbek (lit.
"your heart") is best translated "your mind" (see Note on 11:20). The "high-
way" (mesilld) is a built-up road (18:15) on which the exiles will go to Babylon
and will one day come back (Isa 35:8; 40:3; 49:11; 62:10).
Return virgin Israel, return to these your cities. Here and in the verse follow-
ing, Jeremiah again rings the changes on the verb sub ("return"), which one
might well call a leitmotif for the poetic core, focusing as it does on the
people's return to the land and resettlement there. In the expanded Book of
Restoration (chaps. 30-3 3) the leitmotif is the nation's "restoration (sub) of for-
tunes" (see Rhetoric and Composition for 30:1-3). This poetry exhibits more
"stairlike parallelism," on which see 31:15 and Note for 4: 13. A recognition of
this particular type of parallelism is credited now to the twelfth-century Jewish
exegete, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam), who explained it in his commen-
tary on Ecc 1:2 (Japhet and Salters 1985: 23-24, 39 n. 97, 90-93).
virgin Israel. As in 18: 13, this metaphor denotes the remnant of old Israel, or
Judah, which is now leaving for exile in 597 or 586 B.C. Reference is not to
"Northern Israel," as in 31 :4 (pace Holladay), or to the old Northern capital of
Samaria (pace Schmitt 1991: 385-86). Jeremiah is addressing Judahites; North-
ern Israelites left for exile more than 125 years ago. The balancing of this meta-
phor with "turnable daughter" in v 22 supports the view that "virgin Israel" is
used here in an ironic sense.
return to these your cities. I.e., the cities of Judah. Jeremiah is speaking in
Judah. For MT )elleh ("these") the LXX has penthousa ("mourning"), which
appears to (mis)read Heb Jbl(h) (cf. Becking l 994a: 158). In any case, the de-
monstrative should not be deleted with Giesebrecht (metri causa) and Volz; it
is present in 4QJerc. For the omission of the article on "these," see GKC § l 26y.
- How long? Hebrew 'ad-matay. A term of lament (see Notes for 4:21 and
23:26), which must be read if not as full-blown irony at least as gentle chiding.
In my view, commentators have commonly made two mistakes in the interpre-
tation of this verse. First, the words are taken as if they were spoken in total se-
riousness or with unmitigated sympathy, which they are not. Second, they are
thought to refer to a distant future, when in fact they address a lamentable and
incongruous present.
will you waver. Hebrew titbammaqfn. The verb bmq is uncommon, but its
meaning is not in doubt. This one OT occurrence of the Hithpael means
"turn here and there, waver" (Qal: "turn away" in Song 5:6). Again irony. Je-
remiah is saying to exile-bound Judahites: "How long must your wandering
go on?" Compare 13:27, which in its larger context anticipates the exile of
597 B.C.: "Woe to you, Jerusalem; you are not clean-for how much longer
(matay 'ad)?"
0 turnable daughter. The article on habbat is a vocative. Hebrew habbat
hassobeba plays on the two occurrences of sub in v 21 and embellishes the idea
