jer 27:0
The Yoke of Babylon upon Judah and the Neighbouring Peoples - Jeremiah 27-29
These three chapters are closely connected with one another. They all belong to the earlier period of Zedekiah's reign, and contain words of Jeremiah by means of which he confirms and vindicates against the opposition of false prophets his announcement of the seventy years' duration of the Chaldean supremacy over Judah and the nations, and warns king and people patiently to bear the yoke laid on them by Nebuchadnezzar. The three chapters have besides an external connection. For Jer 28 is attached to the event of Jer 27 by its introductory formula: And it came to pass in that year, at the beginning, etc., as Jer 29 is to Jer 28 by ואלּה. To this, it is true, the heading handed down in the Masoretic text is in contradiction. The date: In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king of Judah, came this word to Jeremiah (Jer 27:1), is irreconcilable with the date: And it came to pass in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month. The name "Jehoiakim the son of Josiah" in Jer 27:1 is erroneous. It is without doubt the blunder of a copyist who had in his mind the heading of the 26th chapter, and should have been "Zedekiah;" for the contents of Jer 27 carry us into Zedekiah's time, as plainly appears from Jer 27:3, Jer 27:12, and Jer 27:20. Hence the Syr. translation and one of Kennicott's codd. have substituted the latter name.
(Note: Following the example of ancient comm., Haevernick in his Introd. (ii. 2) has endeavoured to defend the date: "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah." To this end he ventures the hypothesis, that in Jer 27 there are placed beside one another three discourses agreeing in their subject-matter: "one addressed to Jehoiakim (Jer 27:2-11), a second to Zedekiah (Jer 27:12-15), a third to the priests and people;" and that the words: "by the hand of the ambassador that came to Zedekiah the king of Judah," are appended to show how Zedekiah ought to have obeyed the older prophecy of Jehoiakim's time, and how he should have borne himself towards the nations with which he was in alliance. but this does not solve the difficulty. The prophecy, Jer 27:4-11, is addressed to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon; but since the envoys of these kings did not come to Jerusalem till Zedekiah's time, we are bound, if the prophecy dates from the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, to assume that this prophecy was communicated to Jeremiah and published by him eleven years before the event, upon occasion of which it was to be conveyed to the kings concerned. An assumption that would require unusually cogent reasons to render it credible. Vv. 4b-21 contain nothing whatever that points to Jehoiakim's time, or give countenance to the hypothesis that the three sections of this chapter contain three discourses of different dates, which have been put together on account merely of the similarity of their contents.
Beyond this one error of transcription, these three chapters contain nothing that could throw any doubt on the integrity of the text. There are no traces of a later supplementary revision by another hand, such as Mov., Hitz., and de W. profess to have discovered. The occurrence of Jeremiah's name in the contracted form ירמיה, as also of other names compounded with Jahu in the form Jah, does not prove later retouching; for, as Graf has shown, we find alongside of it the fuller form also (Jer 28:12; Jer 29:27-30), and have frequently both longer and shorter forms in the same verse (so in Jer 27:1; Jer 28:12; Jer 29:29-31). And so long as other means for distinguishing are wanting, it will not do to discriminate the manner of expression in the original text from that of the reviser by means of these forms alone. Again, as we have shown at p. 194, note, there is a good practical reason for Jeremiah's being called "the prophet" (הנּביא); so that this too is not the reviser's work. Finally, we cannot argue later addition from the fact that the name of the king of Babylon is written Nebuchadnezzar in Jer 27:6, Jer 27:8,Jer 27:20; Jer 28:3, Jer 28:11, Jer 28:14; Jer 29:1, Jer 29:3; for the same form appears again in Jer 34:1 and Jer 39:5, and with it we have also Nebuchadrezzar in Jer 29:21 and Jer 39:1. Elsewhere, it is true, we find only the one form Nebuchadnezzar, and this is the unvarying spelling in the books of Kings, Chron., Ezra, Dan., and in Est 2:6; whereas Ezekiel uniformly writes Nebuchadrezzar (Eze 26:7; Eze 29:18-19, and Eze 30:10), and this form Jeremiah uses twenty-seven times (Jer 21:2, Jer 21:7; Jer 22:25; Jer 24:1; Jer 25:1, Jer 25:9; Jer 29:21; Jer 32:1, Jer 32:28; Jer 35:11; Jer 37:1; Jer 39:1, Jer 39:11; Jer 43:10; Jer 44:30; Jer 46:2, Jer 46:13, Jer 46:26; Jer 49:28, 40; Jer 50:17; Jer 51:34; Jer 52:4, Jer 52:12, Jer 52:28-30 - not merely in the discourses, but in the headings and historical parts as well). But though the case is so, we are not entitled to conclude that Nebuchadnezzar was a way of pronouncing the name that came into use at a later time; the conclusion rather is, as we have remarked at p. 203, and on Dan 1:1, that the writing with n represents the Jewish-Aramaean pronunciation, whereas the form Nebuchadrezzar, according to the testimony of such inscriptions as have been preserved, expresses more fairly Assyrian pronunciation. The Jewish way of pronouncing would naturally not arise till after the king of Babylon had appeared in Palestine, from which time the Jews would have this name often on their lips. Hence it is in the book of Jeremiah alone that we find both forms of the name (that with r 27 times, that with n 10 times). How it has come about that the latter form is used just three times in each of Jer 27 and 28 cannot with certainty be made out. But note, (1) that the form with n occurs twice in 28 (Jer 28:3 and Jer 28:11) in the speech of the false prophet Hananiah, and then, Jer 28:14, in Jeremiah's answer to that speech; (2) that the prophecy of Jer 27 was addressed partly to the envoys of the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Phoenicia, while it is partly a warning to the people against the lying speeches of the false prophets, and that it is just in these portions, Jer 27:6, Jer 27:8, and Jer 27:20, that the name so written occurs. If we consider this, we cannot avoid the conjecture, that by changing the r for n, the Jewish people had accommodated to their own mode of utterance the strange-sounding name Nabucudurusur, and that Jeremiah made use of the popular pronunciation in these two discourses, whereas elsewhere in all his discourses he uses Nebucahdrezzar alone; for the remaining cases in which we find Nebuchadnezzar in this book are contained in historical notices.) Jeremiah 27:1