Jeremiah 49

Jeremiah 49 is the forty-ninth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains prophecies attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This chapter is part of a series of "oracles against foreign nations", consisting of chapters 46 to 51.[1] In particular, chapters 46-49 focus on Judah's neighbors.[2]

For Jeremiah 49 in the Septuagint, see Jeremiah 42.
Jeremiah 49
A high resolution scan of the Aleppo Codex showing the Book of Jeremiah (the sixth book in Nevi'im).
BookBook of Jeremiah
Hebrew Bible partNevi'im
Order in the Hebrew part6
CategoryLatter Prophets
Christian Bible partOld Testament
Order in the Christian part24

This chapter contains the poetic oracles against Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, and Elam.[3][4]

Text

The original text was written in Hebrew. This chapter is divided into 39 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis (895), the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (916), Aleppo Codex (10th century), Codex Leningradensis (1008).[5] Some fragments containing parts of this chapter were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, i.e., 2QJer (2Q13; 1st century CE[6]), with extant verses 10.[7]

There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint (with a different chapter and verse numbering), made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B; B; 4th century), Codex Sinaiticus (S; BHK: S; 4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (A; A; 5th century) and Codex Marchalianus (Q; Q; 6th century).[8]

Verse numbering

The order of chapters and verses of the Book of Jeremiah in the English Bibles, Masoretic Text (Hebrew), and Vulgate (Latin), in some places differs from that in the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek Bible used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and others) according to Rahlfs or Brenton. The following table is taken with minor adjustments from Brenton's Septuagint, page 971.[9]

The order of Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study (CATSS) based on Alfred Rahlfs' Septuaginta (1935) differs in some details from Joseph Ziegler's critical edition (1957) in Göttingen LXX. Swete's Introduction mostly agrees with Rahlfs' edition (=CATSS).[9]

Hebrew, Vulgate, EnglishRahlfs' LXX (CATSS)Brenton's LXX
49:1-5,23-27,28-33 30:1-5,29-33,23-28 30:1-5,23-27,28-33
49:7-22 n/a 29:7b-22
49:34 25:20 26:1
49:35-39 25:15-19 25:35-39
42:1-22 49:1-22

Parashot

The parashah sections listed here are based on the Aleppo Codex.[10] Jeremiah 49 is a part of the prophecies in Jeremiah 46-49 in the section of Prophecies against the nations (Jeremiah 46-51). {P}: open parashah; {S}: closed parashah.

{S} 49:1-6 {P} 49:7-11 {S} 49:12-19 {S} 49:20-22 {P} 49:23-27 {P} 49:28-33 {S} 49:34-39 {P}

Structure

This chapter is divided as follows:[11]

Verses 1–6: Against the Ammonites
The land belonging to the tribe of Gad (green) in the Trans-Jordan bordering the land of the Ammonites ("Amon") to the east.

The punishment of the Ammonites is mainly due to land-grabbing or wrongful land-acquisition, as if Israel is without heir.[12] Therefore, Yahweh will destroy Rabbah, Ammon's capital city, and give the annexed land back to Israel.[12]

Verse 1
Against the Ammonites.
Thus says the Lord:
"Has Israel no sons?
Has he no heir?
Why then does Milcom inherit Gad,
And his people dwell in its cities?[13]

Verses 7-22: Against Edom

Two poems (verses 7-11 and 14-16) and two prose comments (verses 12-13 and 17-22) [12] are addressed to Edom. The Jerusalem Bible dates this oracle to around 605 BCE.[15] Like the section against Ammon (verse 1), these oracles begin with a series of rhetorical questions:

Verse 7
Is wisdom no more in Teman?
Has counsel perished from the prudent?
Has their wisdom vanished?[16]

The reference to wisdom is "perhaps a reference to Edom (Esau)'s ancestral connection with Jacob".[12]

Verse 8
Flee, turn back, dwell in the depths, O inhabitants of Dedan!
For I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him,
The time that I will punish him.[17]

Eventually Yahweh is the one to punish the Edomites.[12]

Verses 14-16 announce in poetry the sending of an unnamed messenger among the nations (including Edom). O'Connor argues that "by implication, Jeremiah is the messenger", although Obadiah 1:1 has very similar wording attributed to the prophet Obadiah:

Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom:
We have heard a report from the Lord,
And a messenger has been sent among the nations, saying,
“Arise, and let us rise up against her for battle”.[18]

Verses 23-27: Against Damascus
Damascus
Hamath
Arpad
Location of Damascus, Hamath and Arpad
Hamath and Arpad are shamed
For they have heard bad news.
They are fainthearted;
There is trouble on the sea;
It cannot be quiet.[19]

These cities are "worried and troubled" in the Good News Translation.[20] The reference is to the northern cities of the kingdom of Damascus: Hamath is located 213 km (132 mi) and Arpad 396 km (246 mi) north of Damascus. As they are all inland cities, biblical commentator A. W. Streane argues that the wording There is trouble [or anxiety] on the sea "is quite unsuitable topographically to this context", preferring to translate this line as "because of care, like the sea, they cannot rest" (S. R. Driver's translation).[21][22] Similarly, the Good News Translation has "anxiety rolls over them like a sea, and they cannot rest".[20]

Verses 28-33: Against Kedar and against the kingdoms of Hazor

Verse 28
"Arise, go up to Kedar,
And devastate the men of the East!"[23]

Verse 30
"Flee, get far away! Dwell in the depths,
O inhabitants of Hazor!"[24]

Nebuchadrezzar is the addressee of the poem's command to attack.[25] The attack would be directed at the Arab tribes: Kedar signifies the Bedouin who lived in tents: "Take their tents and their flocks".[26] The kingdoms of Hazor were likely to have been a confederation of Arab tribes "who have never been attacked, and therefore live securely without walls or ramparts for their defence".[27] Hazor is not the city called Hazor mentioned in Joshua 11:10, "which was in the land of Canaan, whereas the kingdoms of Hazor, here mentioned, were evidently in Arabia, in the neighbourhood, at least, of Kedar".[27] O'Connor notes that "no reasons for their fate appear in the poem, unless being at ease (verse 31) implies a profligate arrogance."[25]

Verses 34-38: Against Elam
The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying ...
Behold, I will break the bow of Elam,
The foremost of their might.[28]

Zedekiah was installed by Nebuchadnezzar as the king of Judah when Jehoiachin was deposed in March 597 BCE. Nebuchadnezzar evidently attacked Elam (east of Babylon), in the winter of 596 BCE; it may have been a fulfillment of this prophecy.[29] Elam's devastation is described in cosmic and meteorological terms. Susa, the ancient capital of Elam, now Shush, is 1,566 kilometres (973 miles) east of Jerusalem on modern roads,[30] a measure of the vast dimensions of the "international turmoil created by Babylon's imperialism".[25]

Verse 39: Elam restored
'But it shall come to pass in the latter days:
"I will bring back the captives of Elam", says the Lord.[31]

Streane (1913) notes that '"Elamites" are mentioned among the persons present on the great "day of Pentecost" (Acts 2:9). His opinion is that "both in the narrative in the Acts and in this prophecy, the Elamites are chiefly mentioned as representatives of the distant and less civilized Gentile nations".[22]

See also

References
  1. Coogan 2007, pp. 1148 Hebrew Bible.
  2. O'Connor 2007, p. 522.
  3. O'Connor 2007, pp. 523-524.
  4. Coogan 2007, pp. 1154-1157 Hebrew Bible.
  5. Würthwein 1995, pp. 35-37.
  6. Sweeney, Marvin A. (2010). Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature. Forschungen zum Alten Testament. 45 (reprint ed.). Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 66. ISBN 9781608994182. ISSN 0940-4155.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  7. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. (2008). A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 26. ISBN 9780802862419. Retrieved February 15, 2019.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  8. Würthwein 1995, pp. 73-74.
  9. "Table of Order of Jeremiah in Hebrew and Septuagint". www.ccel.org.
  10. As reflected in the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 edition of the Hebrew Bible in English.
  11. Coogan 2007, pp. 1154-1157.
  12. O'Connor 2007, p. 523.
  13. Jeremiah 49:1 NKJV
  14. Note [a] on Jeremiah 49:1 in NKJV
  15. Jerusalem Bible (1966), footnote g at Jeremiah 49:7
  16. Jeremiah 49:7 NKJV
  17. Jeremiah 49:8 NKJV
  18. Obadiah 1:1 NKJV
  19. Jeremiah 49:23: NKJV
  20. Jeremiah 49:23: GNT
  21. Driver, S. R. (1906), The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, p.296
  22. Streane, A. W., Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on Jeremiah 49, accessed 18 April 2019
  23. Jeremiah 49:28 NKJV
  24. Jeremiah 49:30 NKJV
  25. O'Connor 2007, pp. 524.
  26. Jeremiah 49:29
  27. Benson, J., Benson's Commentary on Jeremiah 49, accessed 19 April 2019
  28. Jeremiah 49:34–35: NKJV
  29. Coogan 2007, pp. 1156-1157 Hebrew Bible.
  30. Google Maps, accessed 20 April 2019
  31. Jeremiah 49:39: NKJV

Sources

Jewish

Christian
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