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

More on Restoration and Covenants (33:1-26) 531

The term "this city" also makes an inclusio for the expanded messenger formula:

... concerning the houses of this city (ha'fr hazzo't)

... I hid my face from this city (meha'fr hazzo't)

NOTES

v4

v5

33:4. concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of

Judah that were broken down toward the siege ramps and toward the sword.

Houses near or attached to the wall of the city had to be torn down to defend

against siege ramps and enemy swords outside the wall (the two prepositions 'el

must be translated "toward" or "in the direction of"). The inside of the city

wall had to be fortified (LXX, T; Rashi; cf. Isa 22:10). Those tearing down the

houses are the Judahite defenders. The siege is mentioned earlier, in 21:4, and

the siege ramps in 32:24. "The sword" is a metonymy for the Chaldeans wield-

ing the sword. The LXX reads eis charakas kai promachonas ("for palisades and

ramparts"), apparently misunderstanding the usage of "sword." Emendation of

the Hebrew is unnecessary (pace Volz; Holladay). On siege warfare, see further

Note for 6:6.

the houses of the kings ofludah. The royal palace consisted of multiple build-

ings. The LXX and Vg have "king" singular, but a plural is acceptable (cf. 19: 13

and Note on 17: 19).

5. those coming to fight the Chaldeans. Hebrew ba'fm lehillabem 'et-
   hakkasdfm. This phrase has caused difficulty from earliest times, largely be-
   cause of a sudden shift from the ho11ses of Jerusalem (without conjunctive waw)
   to the defenders of the city. See a similar mebl'fm ("those bringing") in v 11,
   which also lacks the conjunctive waw. The LXX perhaps for this reason omits
   ba'fm ("those coming"), and Symm and Theod translate 4b-5a as "the sword of
   those coming" (ten machairan ton erchomenon), which cannot be right. As v 6 of
   the oracle makes clear, both Jerusalem the city and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
   are being spoken of (see Rhetoric and Composition); here in the background
   notice the same is true. The oracle is in response to 1) houses being torn down;
   and 2) Judahite men fighting the Chaldeans and filling the demolished houses
   with dead bodies. The participle should therefore be given its normal transla-
   tion of "those coming," where reference is to Judahites defending the city. "The
   Chaldeans" are the object (T; AV; and most modern Versions), not the subject
   (pace Cornill; RSV; NEB; NRSV; REB). The Judahites are fighting against the
   Chaldeans (Giesebrecht).
   only to fill them with the corpses of men whom I struck down in my anger and
   my wrath. The conjunctive waw on ulemal'am has to be translated as an adver-

sative: "but" or "only"; thus, "only to fill them .... " The Judahites have torn

down houses to better defend the inner wall of the city, but the demolished
houses have ended up being depositories for bodies of Judahite war victims
(Rashi). For the expression "in my anger and my wrath," see 32:31, 37, and
Note for 21:5.