Jeremiah Buys Land in Anathoth (32:1-44) 515
to buy the field and call for witnesses; it was not mentioned in v 7, which said
only that Hanamel would come and ask Jeremiah to make the purchase. But
Hanamel's word must have been for Jeremiah the word of Yahweh (cf. v 8).
The answer to the prophet's vexation, one would imagine, is containe<l in the
second oracle to Baruch (v 15), where the symbolism of the purchase is ex-
plained. This is not narrative from a later time; it is a reporting soon after the
event, at which time Jeremiah is still uncertain about what he has just done.
0 Lord Yahweh. The LXX omits, which Migsch ( 1996: 3 59 n. 119) explains
as an inner-Greek haplography (homoeoteleuton: m§_ ... kuri§_).
with silver. The LXX adds after this word, "and I wrote a deed, and I sealed
it, and I called witnesses" (kai egrapsa biblion kai esphragisamen kai epemar-
turamen marturas), which Janzen (1973: 64) thinks is expansion from v 10. But
the addition changes the meaning, because Jeremiah now tells Yahweh only
that he had directed him to buy the field with silver; after that, he carried this
directive out by writing up a deed, sealing it, and calling for witnesses. The T
and Vg support MT, which gives the better reading.
the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans. The verb nittena ("has
been given")-here and throughout the narrative-is a prophetic perfect, i.e.,
the city is as good as captured.
- And the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. On this third-person super-
scriptional form, see Note for 28: 12. The T expands to "the word of prophecy."
For MT's "to Jeremiah," the LXX has "to me," which G. R. Driver (1960: 121)
says is another misread abbreviation: '7N fjr' 7N (= 1i1'~1'-7N). The LXX has
the same reading in 35:12 and 36:1. The MT reading is preferable (so Aq,
Symm, T, Vg), since the superscription does not introduce first-person speech,
as in v 6, but divine oracles on through to the end of the chapter.
- Look I am Yahweh, God of all flesh. Yahweh is speaking now, and he pref-
aces his first oracle with a self-asseveration echoing Jeremiah's acclamation at
the beginning of his prayer ( v 17).
Is anything too difficult for me? On the different nuances of the verb pf> ("to
be wonderful, extraordinary, too difficult"), see v 17. The LXX and T again
translate the verb as "hidden," which may anticipate Yahweh's word in 33:3:
"Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great things and hidden
things (befilrot) you have not known."
- Therefore thus said Yahweh. Here the LXX adds "the God of Israel."
Look I am giving this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take it. Jeremiah has heard Yah-
weh say this before and has been preaching this message a long while (see Note
for 34:2). Perhaps now he needs to hear it again. In this oracle and the one fol-
lowing, which are the last recorded judgment oracles given to a Jerusalem au-
dience, we have what sounds like an aged Jeremiah compressing into single
oracles the preaching of 3 5 years, a fiorilegium, if you will, of quotations or
main points contained in earlier oracles.
Look I am giving. Hebrew hinenfnoten. A bona fide Jeremianic construction
(32:3; 34:2) not translated by the LXX, which omits hinenf and has dotheisa
