488 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSFor audiences hearing the present oracles after the oracles on the new
covenant, Yahweh's continued care over Israel will be assured. The Mosaic
covenant was broken, and the new covenant must await a fulfillment in the
future. What sustains Israel until the new covenant is realized? Answer: the
covenant made with Abraham, which is eternal and cannot be broken.
These oracles probably postdate the new covenant oracles, which would put
them after the fall of Jerusalem. There is no reason to assign them a postexilic
date, although it goes without saying that the postexilic community will be
sustained by them, just as survivors of the 586 B.C. disaster were.e) Rebuilt City, Reconsecrated Valley (31:38-40)
31 38 Look, days are coming"-oracle of Yahweh-when the city shall be
rebuilt for Yahweh from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.^39 And
the measuring line shall go out again, straight over Gareb Hill and turn to
Goah.^40 And all the valley land, the corpses and the ashes, and all the ter-
racesb up to the Brook Kidron, up to the corner of the Horse Gate toward
the east, shall be holy for Yahweh. It shall not be uprooted, and it shall not
again be overthrown -forever.RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION
MT 31:38-40 = LXX 38:38-40. This concluding oracle in the first Book of
Restoration is delimited at the top by a setumah in M\ ML, and MP before v 38.
Delimitation at the bottom is by a setumah in ML and MP and a petul;wh in MA
after v 40, which is also the chapter division.
Commentators generally deny this oracle to Jeremiah, dating it in the post-
exilic period where it is said to support Nehemiah's rebuilding program and
parallel the topographical survey of Zech 14:10. This precludes it from being
a prediction, despite the "look, days are coming" introduction. McKane, who
thinks a Jerusalem rebuilding program is already in progress, views the pre-
diction as contrived. Since the city to be rebuilt is Jerusalem, Volz and Ru-
dolph also date the passage late; for them it stands apart from the genuine
"Ephraim" prophecies within chaps. 30-31. The consensus then regarding
this oracle is much the same as with Yahweh's promise of Jerusalem's restora-
tion in 31 :23-26. Here the expression "holy for Yahweh" is also said to breathe
a priestly spirit foreign to Jeremiah (Weiser).
Another argument heard in support of a late date, which applies also to the
oracles in vv 35-37, is that an oracle on rebuilding Jerusalem comes as an anti-
climax after the "new covenant" promise of vv 31-34 (Peake; Hyatt). McKane
says it is unskillfully "tagged on." Yet how could anything coming after the new
covenant oracles help but be anticlimactic? More important, statements such
"Insert ba'fm ("are coming"), with Q; omission due to haplography (see Notes).
bReading the Q sedemot, "terraces"; Kt serem8t is of unknown meaning (see Notes).