What Is Israel's God up to Among the Nations? Jeremiah 46, 48, and 49

chapter 12 What is Israel’s God Up To among the Nations? Jeremiah 46, 48, and 49

Paul R. Raabe

1 Introduction

It is well known that the book of Jeremiah offers promises for Israel’s future to follow the judgment of exile. What is not so familiar is the promise for the future of Egypt, Moab, the Ammonites, and Elam. The God of Israel announces that he will “restore” these foreign nations after he enacts judgment against them. Here I want to focus on these four sections (Jer 46, 48, 49:1–6, 34–39). But first some observations on their written context. The writing prophets of ancient Israel typically made proclamations concerning non-Israelite nations. That was part of the job description. Since many of these proclamations are grouped together, it is not surprising that the book of Jeremiah has such a collection as well. In fact, it is to be expected given that the book speaks of Jeremiah announcing divine judgment against all the nations.1 In the lxx Jeremiah’s proclamations concerning foreign nations are located in the middle of the book after 25:13a but are at the book’s end in the MT. In light of Qumran texts scholars generally hold that there were two differ- ent Vorlagen for the MT and lxx.2 The lxx order of the nations differs from the MT: Elam, Egypt, Babylon, Philistines, Edom, Ammon, Kedar, Damascus, and Moab. The rationale for the lxx sequence of nations is unknown, but one can make sense of the MT’s sequence (see below). By word count chs. 46–51 in the MT comprise 15% of the book.3

1 See, for example, 1:9–10; 4:16; 9:25–26; 25:13–33; 36:2. 2 For discussions of the question of the MT and lxx with respect to Jeremiah, see James W. Watts, “Text and Redaction in Jeremiah’s Oracles Against the Nations,” CBQ 54 (1992): 432–47; Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 21A (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 57–63; Julie Woods, Jeremiah 48 as Christian Scripture, PTMS 144 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011), 10–11. 3 For the statistics, see Paul R. Raabe, “Why Prophetic Oracles against the Nations?,” in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Astrid B. Beck, et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 236–57, here at 236–37. Word counts are based on Francis I. Andersen and A. Dean Forbes, “‘Prose Particle’ Counts of the Hebrew Bible,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David

2 The Order of the Nations

In the MT ch. 45 has a swing function. It concludes the so-called Baruch biogra- phy and prepares for the following proclamations concerning foreign nations. Here the divine speech says to Baruch in the fourth year of Jehoiakim:

Look! That which I have built I am breaking down, and that which I have planted I am plucking up, and that is all the earth …. Look! I am about to bring misfortune upon all flesh (45:4–5).4

The God of Israel states his intention, and it is one that concerns “all the earth” and “all flesh.” Chapters 46–51 then particularize that universal intention to individual nations and cities. The logic of judgment moves from the universal to the particular, from “all the earth//all flesh” to the specific places named in the following chapters. The same logic occurs in the cup-of-wrath passage of Jer 25:15–29, from “all the nations” to the specific places and rulers named.5 According to the headings in chs. 46–51 (MT), there are ten sections. Two of them deal with Egypt, while one section focuses on two names, “Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor” (49:28). Thereby according to the headings, there are ten national names explicitly targeted:

46:2 Egypt 46:13 Egypt 47:1 Philistines 48:1 Moab 49:1 Ammonites 49:7 Edom 49:23 Damascus 49:28 Kedar and Hazor 49:34 Elam 50–51 Babylon

Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 165–83. 4 All translations are by the author. On the phrase “all the earth,” see Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 37–52: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 21C (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 176. 5 See Paul R. Raabe, “The Particularizing of Universal Judgment in Prophetic Discourse,” CBQ 64 (2002): 652–74.