558 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSnarrative summary in w 8-11 has been carefully constructed to introduce
w 12-22. While his structural scheme may have some merit, it is still open to
question. Certain key words are selected for inclusion in the structure, while
other occurrences are left out. For example, where does qr' drwr ("to proclaim
liberty") in v 15 fit in, which appears in both MT and LXX? Even if the scheme
be accepted, it is no sure indicator of primary and secondary sources. The main
difference between w 8-11 and 12-22 is that the former is narrative and the lat-
ter a cluster of divine oracles, and nothing precludes both of them being written
up at the same time. Wijesinghe also has not demonstrated that the shorter text
represented by the LXX is expanded by a later redactor. His conclusion (p. 324)
that the narrative need have no connection with the reign of Zedekiah and the
Babylonian invasion goes far beyond the evidence he himself adduces. Rudolph
takes the verses as Source C (also Mowinckel 1914: 31) but says they provide ac-
cess to preexilic events. Hyatt's position is similar. Thiel (1981: 39) finds in the
verses more Deuteronomic editing than in w 1-7, while McKane and Carroll re-
vert to Duhm's radical assessment: McKane finds nothing in w 12-22 attribut-
able to Jeremiah, and Carroll calls everything midrash from the Persian period.
The reasons for a late dating, exilic or postexilic authorship, and doubts
about historicity are the same here as elsewhere: 1) the existence of heavy prose
in w 12-22, which Duhm and older source critics attributed to later ("Deuter-
onomic") editors; and 2) a longer MT text, thought by many to contain
expanded readings of late date. However, Holladay points out that the stereo-
typed vocabulary and phraseology of the oracles are precisely what one finds
elsewhere in the prose of Jeremiah, agreeing with H. Weippert (1973: 86-106)
that the verses represent an authentic Jeremiah tradition, and are not to be at-
tributed to later "Deuteronomists." As far as the longer MT is concerned, it is
not glossed to the extent that Janzen (1973), Holladay, and McKane allege.
There are ten arguable cases of LXX haplography in the verses (Duhm, Janzen
[ 1973: 118-19], Holladay, and McKane find none), and as Giesebrecht pointed
out long ago, other ancient Greek witnesses, e.g., CL, Aq, Symm, and Theod,
along with the S, T, and Vg, support in a number of cases, not the shorter text
of LXX, but the longer MT Here, then, as elsewhere, the LXX has to be con-
sidered a defective and inferior text.
NOTES
34:8. The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh. On this superscription,
which occurs also in 34: 1, see Notes for 7: 1 and 21: 1. The T expands to "word
of prophecy."
8-9. after King Zedekiah cut a covenant with all the people who were in Jeru-
salem to proclaim liberty to them, to send away free each person his male slave
and each person his female slave, Hebrew and Hebrewess, so that no person
should make them serve a Judahite, his kin. The king initiates this covenant
with the people of Jerusalem; the action, so far as we know, was not in re-
sponse to any prophetic word from Jeremiah. The ceremony, which included