The prophecy of Jeremiah in Esr 1,1

Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Volumn 116, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 595-601

  Frolov, Serge ^a  

^a SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 61249414938     PISSN: 00442526     EISSN: 16130103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/zatw.2004.116.4.595     Document Type: Review

References (25)

1. II Chr 36,22 has 〉by the mouth of〈 in this phrase; cf. also I Esr 2,1. Insofar as instrumental with in construct state occurs elsewhere only in II Chr 36,21 and looks clumsy without a preceding verb, I prefer, with H.G.M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1985, 4
2. and contra J. Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary, 1989, 74, to refrain from emending the Hebrew text of Esr 1,1
3. Cf. also M. Haran, Book Size and the Device of Catch-Lines in the Biblical Canon, JJS 36 (1985) 1-11, who argues that Esr 1,1-3aα is a primary text from which II Chr 36,22f. was copied
4. Note that in Esr 1,2 and in Esr 1,5 echo and in Jer 29,10
5. Esr 1,1 calls Cyrus »king of Persia« but there is little doubt that here »the first year of Cyrus« is the first year of his rule in Babylon, i.e. 538/7 BCE
6. Cf. e.g. Deut 18,21f.: »And if you say in your heart, How may we know the word which Yhwh has not spoken? - when a prophet speaks in the name of Yhwh, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which Yhwh has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.«
7. The most celebrated Jewish commentator of the Hebrew Bible, Rashi, seems to follow a similar interpretational path but his reasoning is not entirely clear
8. D.J.A. Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 1984, 34f., is definitely wrong when he claims that Jer 25,11 constitutes the negative aspect of Jeremiah's prophecy while Jer 29,10 represents its bright side
9. Both pronouncements envision the end of the exile, but describe it from different perspectives. P.R. Ackroyd, I and II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1973, 212
10. and H. Schneider, Die Bücher Esra und Nehemia übersetzt und erklärt, 1959, 88, are much closer to the point when they argue that Jeremiah's role as a prophet of doom ends in II Chr 36,21
11. Cf. also M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 1985, 480f
12. GKC 114f; A. Even-Shoshan (ed.), A New Concordance of the Bible, 1993, 569 (Hebrew)
13. GKC 119r, 129; Even-Shoshan, Op. cit., 569
14. In modern translations of this verse, the sequence is treated as a clumsy parenthetic insertion, and the whole phrase is rendered »in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month ...« (RSV). For my arguments, this is irrelevant
15. Cf. Schneider, Op. cit., 88
16. Since Jeremiah never mentions Cyrus, many commentators feel that the reference to this prophet in Esr 1,1 is unwarranted and that Isaiah would have been more in place here; others view the verse as a result of conflation of Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah. See, for example, Blenkinsopp, Op. cit., 74
17. A.H.J. Gunneweg, Esra, 1985, 41
18. Williamson, Op. cit., 9f. (with serious reservations)
19. R.J. Coggins, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 1976, 11
20. Ackroyd, Op. cit., 213f
21. L.H. Brockington, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, 1969, 48
22. F. Michaeli, Les livres des Chroniques, d'Esdras et de Néhémie, 1967, 252
23. and especially L.W. Batten, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 1913, 56f., who confidently declares that »Jeremiah« in Esr 1,1 is a »textual error.«
24. These exegetes seem to overlook the simple fact that in Esr 1,1 the action of Cyrus is a prerequisite for fulfillment of the prophecy, not its subject. Accordingly, the author of the book was free to refer to any prophet that had predicted the fall of Babylon and Israel's return from the exile, even in the most general terms. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah deal with these issues; the latter could be preferred because of his prominence in the concluding chapters of II Chronicles, or perhaps, due to the author's reluctance to subscribe to the unrestrained triumphalism of Isaiah's exilic chapters (so J.G. McConville, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, 1985, 9f.)
25. G. Gerleman, in: E. Jenni/C. Westermann (eds.), Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1997, 616f