JBL119/3 (2000) 421-438

THE CALL OF JEREMIAH

AND DIASPORA POLITICS

CAROLYN J. SHARP
carol)^sharp@yale.edu
Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT 06511

The problem of the significance of Jeremiah's call as a "prophet to the

nations" (Jer 1:5) is a singular one. It seems to challenge a self-evident premise
of biblical scholarship regarding the primary purpose and function of Israelite
prophecy, namely, that for weal or woe, the Israelite prophet was to convey the
divine word to Israel (Judah). Surprisingly little sustained scholarly work has
been done on the theological significance of the international aspect of Jeremiah's call within the context of the book of Jeremiah.1 Older commentaries
that did not emend the text of 1:5 outright tended to read the reference to "the
nations" as indicating that the political fate of Israel had consequences for the
political fortunes of its neighbors, or conversely, that what happened to surrounding principalities would necessarily have an effect on Israel.2 Even the
1

Exceptions include H Bardtke, "Jerema der Fremdvolkerprophet," ZAW 55 (1935)

209-39,56 (1936) 240-62, W Vischer, "The Vocation of the Prophet to the Nations An Exegesis of
Jeremiah 14-10," Int 9 (1955) 310-17, R Bach, "Bauen und Pflanzen," m Studien zur Theologe
der alttestamentltchen berlieferungen (ed R. Rendtorffand Koch, Neukirchen. Neukirchener
Verlag, 1961), 7-32, H. G Revenow, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jerema (Gtersloh
Mohn, 1963), 24-77, esp 41-46. Jeremiah's call has sometimes been placed in juxtaposition with
the mission of the servant of Second Isaiah, see Reventlow, Liturgie, 29-41, Vischer, "Vocation,"
313, Collins, The Mantle of Elijah The Redaction Criticism of the Prophetical Books (SheffieldJSOT Press, 1993), 166 The observation of E. Davis Lewin that "Jeremiah's prophetic ministry
makes him a symbol of God's holy war against Judah" ("Arguing for Authority A Rhetorical Study
of Jeremiah 14-19 and 20 7-18,"/SOT 32 [1985]. 105-19, esp 109) would suggest that Jeremiah is
directed to address other nations in their roles as instruments of the LORD'S punishment of Judah
While this may be true to a limited extent regarding Babylon (to a greater degree in the MT text
type than in the Old Greek; see 25 9; 27-6; 43 10), its applicability regarding other nations is ques
tionable.
2
B. Stade emends to " ("to my nation") on the basis of Zeph 2 9 ("Emendationen," ZAW
22 [1902] 328) Ancient interpreters were uncomfortable with the scope of Jeremiah's call as well

421

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Journal of Biblical Literature

most distinguished recent commentaries provide relatively brief and overgeneral observations. One popular suggestion is that Jeremiah's call to be a
3
prophet to the nations indicates the LORD'S sovereignty over the world.
Another proposal is that the call reflects an awareness on the part of the book's
editors that a collection of oracles against foreign nations (OAN) is part of the
book, an observation that has the merit of acknowledging literary issues but
that does not go far enough to explain the peculiar international scope of the
call here but in no other prophetic book containing OAN.4

Some LXX manuscripts show ("to a nation," presumably to Israel) for D'IS*? in 1.5. The
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan suggests a negative reading of Jeremiah's prophetic task with regard to
the nations in 1 5 ("[30 N'OOI oVn OD 'pBQ "33, "I make you a prophet who makes the nations
1
drink a cup of cursing") and applies the positive verbs in 1-10 to Israel alone (" ? *? 2 bui
1
?), "and over the house of Israel to build and to establish") D F Giesebrecht ends up denying
the plain sense of the text (Das Buch Jerema [Gottingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1894], 2)
C H Cornili takes 1 5 seriously, citing relevant passages such as 28.8 and 25-15-29, but he then
returns to the less compelling point that "alle wichtigeren Vernderungen m der Lage Judas nur
das Ergebniss grosser volkergeschichthcher Umwlzungen und Ereignisse sein konnten" (Das
Buch Jerema [Leipzig. Chr Herrn Tauchmtz, 1905], 5), cf. D. Volz, Der Prophet Jerema
(Leipzig A Deichert/D. Werner Scholl, 1928), 4-5. W. Rudolph Stresses the more general applicability of various individual referents in Jeremiah "0*13 heit mcht blo, da Jer den Heiden Jahwes
Wort verknden solle (was er zu Zeiten wirklich tat), sondern auch, da seine Prophtie 'fur die
Volker' (mit Einschlu Israels) Geltung habe.. er ist Volksprophet wie Arnos oder Jesaja, und
wenn er sich an einen einzelnen wendet (den Konig von Juda oder Chananja u a ), so aus Grnden,
die die Allgemeinheit angehen" (Jerema [2 Aufl, Tubingen Mohr-Siebeck), 1958], 5) S
Herrmann provides a graceful recent statement of the position that God's treatment of Israel is to
be a lesson to other nations. " was in Israel geschah, den Volkern zur Mahnung, zum Paradigma,
zur Wegweisung auch fr ihr Schicksal dienen sollte" (Jerema Der Prophet und das Buch [Darmstadt Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990], 198).
3
Also an older position, see Volz, "denn Jahwe ist Weltgott, Herr der Welt" (Jerema, 4). Cf.
S Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 352;
J. G. Plger, "Nach Jer 1,5b erffnet die Berufung neue Weiten der Heilsgeschichte" ("Zum
Propheten berufen. Jer 1,4-10 m Auslegung und Verkndigung," in Dynamik im Wort [Stuttgart:
Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1983], 110), R Carrn, Jeremiah (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster,
1986), 95-98, but compare also his important suggestion in the earlier From Chaos to Covenant.
Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 53-58, that Jeremiah's call as
prophet to the nations may have been directed by Dtr traditionists to the Diaspora community;
W L Hobday, Jeremiah (2 vols ; Philadelphia. Fortress, 1986, Minneapolis. Fortress, 1989), 1:27;
C Craigie et al Jeremiah 1-25 (Dallas: Word, 1991), 10-11 One sees occasionally a comparison
of Jeremiah's call with the international negotiations of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, or Jonah, see,
e g., . Habel, "The Form and Significance of the Call Narratives," ZAW 77 (1965): 308;, and Car
roll, From Chaos to Covenant, 47.
4
W. McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah (2 vols.; Edinburgh: &
Clark, 1986,1996), 1:14. Cf R. E. Clements's suggestion that in 25 15-29 and m the OAN "we find
justification for this particular part of Jeremiah's prophetic office" (Jeremiah [Atlanta John Knox,
1988], 149). Some interpreters do not make even that bnef a nod to the problem. J Blight's com
mentary avoids the matter entirely (Jeremiah [New York Doubleday, 1965], 6-7). W Brueggemann's article "The Book of Jeremiah Portrait of the Prophet" discusses Jeremiah's call at some

Sharp: The Cdl of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

423

The present essay provides a literary analysis of key passages in Jeremiah

that ring changes on the terminology of building/planting (rm/JJCM) and uproot
ing/pulling down/overthrowing (/f3/0) that permeates Jeremiah's call:
12:14^17; 18:7-10; 24:6; 31:28, 40; 42:10; and 45:4. Also to be considered are
three other passages treating foreign nations in the context of the function of
Jeremiah as prophet: 25:9-38; 27:1-11; and 28:8; and three passages in the
OAN that are pertinent to this discussion: 43:8-13; 49:12; and 51:59-64. My
thesis is that the concern in Jeremiah for the engagement of Israelite prophets
generally (28:8) and Jeremiah in particular with other nations has been devel
oped literarily in two different traditioning processes, the one reflecting the
vested political interests of the court officials and others deported to Babylon in
597, and the other traceable to an editorial group based in Palestine that resisted
the 597 gl's interpretations.5 Some of the political issues of the period 605-

length without mentioning the words "to the nations" or hinting at that dimension of the prophet's
commissioning (in Interpreting the Prophets [ed J L. Mays and P. J Achtemeier, PhiladelphiaFortress, 1987], 113-29)
5
See -F. Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch Em Beitrag zur Frage nach der Ent
stehung desjeremiabuches (FRLANT118; Gottingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), and C R.
Seite, Theobgy in Conflict Reaction to the Exile m the Book of Jeremiah (Berlin, de Gruyter, 1989).
The complex problem of the extent to which the prose m Jeremiah should be considered "Deuteronomistic," and what criteria may fairly be used to determine this, cannot be tackled here in depth.
Linguistic data have been mustered to demonstrate that much of the prose is Dtr (W Thiel, Die
deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jerema 1-25 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neuhrchener Verlag, 1973],
E W Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles A Study of the Prose Tradition in the Book of Jeremiah
[Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1970], and numerous others) and that it is not (J. Bright, T h e Date of the
Prose Sermons in Jeremiah," JBL 70 [1951]. 15-35; H Weippert, Die Prosareden desjeremiabuches [BZAW132, Berlin, de Gruyter, 1973]); see the collection of reprints in A Prophet to the
Nations. Essays in Jeremiah Studies (ed L. G. Perdue and W Kovacs, Winona Lake, IN. Eisenbrauns, 1984). Scholars who do not commit themselves on the linguistic evidence perse often con
tent themselves with noting that the contexts of various terms seem to be Dtr even if the terms
themselves may not be A representative example of this approach is provided by Herrmann. " . . .
die Kontexte, in denen die Wendungen [von 1,10] vorkommen, sind durchweg in Prosa verfat und
zeigen die Merkmale von D War also D nicht selbst der Erfinder dieser Begriffsreihe, so war er es
wohl, die sie kannte, bernahm und kontextbezogen einzusetzen wute" (Jerema, 76). Problems
with these positions have been pointed out (e.g., McKane, Jeremiah, l:x-l), and regarding the
insufficiency of linguistic data alone, the warning of H.-J. Stipp is apropos that "bei der Frage nach
sekundren Passagen m alteren Kontexten sowie umgekehrt der Frage nach lterem Gut in
sekundren Stucken die rein sprachstatistische Argumentation zu kurz greift" (Jerema im
Parteienstreit [Frankfurt Anton Hain, 1992], 287). It is becoming clear that to take the so-called C
prose in Jeremiah as a monolithic Dtr block is a mistake (cf. G. Brekelmans, "Jeremiah 18,1-12 and
Its Redaction," in Le livre dejrmie [ed P.-M. Bogaert, BETL 54; Leuven: Leuven University
Press, 1981], 348, R Coggins, "What Does 'Deuteronomistic' Mean?" in Words Remembered,
Texts Renewed [ed. J. Davies, G. Harvey, and W. G. E. Watson; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995],
135-48). On the relationship of the book of Jeremiah generally to Deuteronomism, among numerous studies should be noted Jerema und die "deuteronomistische Bewegung" (ed Walter Gro;
Weinheim Beltz Athenum, 1995), and the discussion in Herrmann, Jerema, 66-87.

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Journal of Biblical Literature

587 are fairly well understood, one of the more obvious points of contention
being the disagreement over Judean foreign policy between pro-Egyptian and
pro-Babylonian factions; but the impact of these political struggles on the
Jeremianic literature as a whole has not yet been fully explored. That is, while a
good deal of work has been done on the political background of chs. 36-45 and
selected other passages (e.g., ch. 24), not enough attention has been paid to
ways in which tropes and motifs in less obviously political passages in Jeremiah
may have been shaped toward particular ideological ends. The present analysis
of the literary development of the call of Jeremiah aims to help rectify that lack.
A brief word is in order regarding 1:4-10. The call of Jeremiah is probably
best understood as a part of the secondary editing of the book rather than early
poetry, but whether it is a unified piece or not remains an open question.6 It
seems clear that 1:8 presents the prophetic word as a threat to the nations: the
divine reassurance that Jeremiah need not fear his reception because the LORD
will protect him presupposes an unpopular message. Verse 10, however, suggests that the prophet may prophesy weal as well ("to build and to plant"). It
would seem probable that at least v. 10, and possibly v. 9, was added to elaborate on the call in w. 4-8. While certainty regarding the redactional history of
1:4-10 will doubtless remain elusive, it can at least be asserted that there is a
tension in thefinalform of the material between the presumption that the message will be unhappily received (v. 8) and the proposal that the prophet may
offer promise as well as doom (v. 10). I argue in what follows that this tension is
also discernible in divergent developments of the tradition of Jeremiah's call in
the Jeremianic prose.
Thefirstsection below deals with passages that closely follow the language
of 1:10 in promise, threat, or both. The second section analyzes passages that
discuss other nations using none of the language of 1:10. Redaction-critical
conclusions and implications for understanding the politics underlying these
texts follow.
I
Passages in Jeremiah that employ the language of promise and/or threat
found in 1:10 are 12:14-17; 18:7-10; 24:6; 31:28,40; 42:10; and 45:4. The first
of these follows a poetic passage in which Jeremiah laments the prospering of
"the guilty" who are "planted" by the LORD (12:1-2). The LORD responds that
6

Many interpreters consider the call secondary, including Thiel, Jerema 1-25, 62-79,
Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles, 114-15, Herrmann, Jerema, 199, Collins, Mantle ofElijah, 162
Weippert contests the assigning of the terminology of 110 to Dtr (Die Prosareden des Jeremtabuches, 193-202), her larger project of reclaiming such passages for the historical Jeremiah has
rightly been faulted by McKane (Jeremiah, 1 xki-xlvi) Among those who consider Jeremiah's call
to belong to an early stratum in the book is Bardtke ("Jerema der Fremdvolkerprophet," 217-18)

Sharp The Call of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

425

Israel has been given up to her enemies (v. 7). The prose comment on this pas
sage, 12:14-17, identifies those threatening Judah as "all my evil neighbors"
( OD *?D, v. 14) and declares that they shall be plucked up from their own
territory. But restoration is promised for any nation that learns to obey the
LORD in word and deed (mm - SOBBO > m rtefr nnb DR, V. 16)
devout foreigners will be "built up in the midst of my people." The essential
function of the prophetic word in offering the choice of restoration or destruc
tion is clear from the verb used in the final threat, "if any nation will not listen"
( Vb DK1, v. 17). The prophetic word must be heeded, by foreign nations no
less than by Israel. The scope of Israelite prophetic parnesis is not restricted to
the LORD'S own people.
In literary terms, 12:14-17 does not read easily as a unified composition.
The change of focus at the end of v. 14 (Judah is to be plucked up as well from
its exile among the nations) is probably best understood as a redactional addition aimed specifically at the 597 Babylonian gola: that Diaspora community
will not enjoy the privileged status free from judgment that they have claimed
over against the fate of those who remained in the land or fled to Egypt (cf.
24:1-10; 29:16-19; chs. 42-44). 7 The ostensible identity of the "evil neighbors"
as Canaanites ("as they taught my people to swear by the name of Bacal," v. 16)
is called into question by the editorial comment about the house of Judah, for
only the Babylonian deportations would have produced such a large-scale dislocation. 8 Verse 15 presents the next problem, an unmotivated promise of
restoration of the "evil neighbors" to their own land. This is followed by a
promise to build up any foreign nationals in Judah who learn to hew to the Yahwistic line and a threat against those who do not conform to Judahite religious
praxis. In 12:14, then, is an earlier layer threatening judgment for Judah s enemies, to which has been added a parenthetical comment regarding the coming
doom for the house of Judah in exile intended to counter the confidence of the
Babylonian Diaspora regarding its own security. Verses 15-17 look very much
like postexilic supplementation to deal with reconstruction issues (cf. Isa
56:1-8).
In 18:7-10, a didactic speech to Israel makes the point that any kingdom
or nation may be built up or destroyed depending on whether or not it heeds
the LORD'S voice, that is, attends to the prophetic word.9 In v. 6, the house of
7

The possibility that this plucking up of Judah should be read as a promise to rescue
Judamtes from exile in doomed countries (see McKane's discussion Jeremiah, 1280-81] citing
Ehrlich, Duhm, Calvin, and R. Lowth m this regard) should be rejected, given that the
connotations of TO are unambiguously negative m every other mstance m Jeremiah
8
See Carroll, Jeremiah, 291
9
Note that a similar rhetorical move is made in ch 27, in which a minatory statement
directed generally to "any nation or kingdom" (27.1-11) is then apphed specifically to Judah
(27-12-15). Many see in 18 1-12 an earlier layer composing w 1-6 and later commentary in w.

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Journal of Biblical Literature

Israel is compared to clay in the potter's hand, but the metaphor then shifts to
the more abstract terminology from 1:10 of plucking up/breaking down and
building/planting, with some theoretical other nation as the putative subject in
this didactic example. The Israelite addressees have enjoyed some distance
from the prophet's imagery through the shift of focus, but now they are convicted unexpectedly through a swift redirection of the prophet's attention to
themselves: "Say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem . . .
Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you!... Turn and amend your ways!" (v.
II). 10 While the overall motivation for the parnesis is the (theoretical) repentance of Israel, there is no question that the force of the prophetic word is portrayed as extending to any other nation on earth that the LORD might choose.
Each of the four remaining passages that play on the language of 1:10 uses
that language toward an end more specific to Israel than is the case in the call
proper. The earliest in narcological terms is 45:4, set in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim. Among the many problems involving text-critical and literary variants between the MT and the LXX in this oracle to Baruch is an issue concerning the MT plus in 45:4, OT ta .11 Does this gloss signify "the whole
7-10 (among recent commentators, see Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles, 80-81,138, Thiel,
Jerema 1-25, 210-17; Brekelmans, "Jer 18,1-12," 345-48; Holladay, Jeremiah, 1514; McKane,
Jeremiah, 1.423-24; Carroll, Jeremiah, 371-75). But this position misreads die rhetorical shift m
tone for evidence of different editorial hands and misunderstands the function of w 1-6, which
cannot have been intended to stand alone (with v. 11) but instead set up the oracle proper The
exhortation m v. 11 to "turn and amend your ways" makes little sense without the preparatory discussion of the initiative of the "clay" in w. 8-10 Likewise, the characterization of the LORD in v. 11
as "shaping evil against" and "devising a plan against" Israel is nonsensical if read only in light of w.
1-6, without the hermeneutical key provided by the references to the LORD'S intentions and mind
in w . 8 and 10. It is probably best to see all of 18.1-12 as a later interpolation. One may then understand the ambiguity in the initial verses about the potter as constitutive of the piece as a whole. That
is, whether the potter's remaking of the clay vessel is to be read as positive (signaling the hope of
reconstruction) or negative (signaling the threat of destruction) is meant to remain an open question. The perception of the potter's actions as revealing gracious flexibility or terrifying caprice
must in every case depend on whether the particular "clay" involved is malleable or not.
10
This rhetorical tactic has been described by E. Davis Lewin as "a rapid lowering of the
level of abstraction and an alarming specification of impending doom" ("Arguing for Authority,"
109). Cf. J Lundbom's discussion of what he calls Jeremiah's rhetonc of descent, manifested in
movements from the ironic to the straightforward, the figurative to the literal, the general to the
specific, and the abstract to the concrete (J. R Lundbom, Jeremiah. A Study in Ancient Hebrew
Rhetoric [2d ed.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997], 150^51).
11
On the position of the OAN in MT Jeremiah generally and with respect to Jer 45, among
numerous studies, see P.-M. Bogaert, "De Baruch A Jrmie: Les deux rdactions conserves du
livre de Jrmie," in Le livre de Jrmie (see . 5 above), 168-73; C. R. Seitz, "The Prophet Moses
and the Canonical Shape of Jeremiah," ZAW 101 (1989): 3-27, esp. 18-27; G. Fischer, "Jer 25 und
die Fremdvolkersprche: Unterschiede zwischen hebrischem und griechischem Text," Bib 72
(1991). 474r-99; J W. Watts, "Text and Redaction in Jeremiah's Oracles Against the Nations," CBQ
54 (1992): 432-47; Gosse, "Jrmie xlv et la place du recueil d'Oracles contre les Nations dans le
livre de Jrmie," VT 40 (1990): 145-51, idem, "La place primitive du recueil d'Oracles contre les

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12

land [of Israel]," as many modern translations would have it? The threat
against "all flesh" (*W2 *?D) in the following verse (which is represented in the
Old Greek) unquestionably signifies a worldwide scope and would therefore
stand in some tension with a reading of the threat in the v. 4 plus as concerning
13
only Israel. But v. 4 does in fact interrupt the focus of 45:1-3 + 5 on Baruch
(the awkwardness of the resumptive 1 in v. 5 is patent) specifically to draw
attention to the fate of Judah ("that which I have built/planted"). Within the
larger context of ch. 45, Baruch is told that he ought not expect to avoid suffer
ing, as all flesh will be destroyed (although he himself will at least survive [v.
5b]); but the insertion of v. 4 serves preemptively to redirect the judgment to
Judah only. Whether the MT plus KTT to was added by a different
hand to confirm the to of v. 5 against the sense of v. 4, or was simply added
to clarify the sense of v. 4, it would seem that here are clear traces of a redactional struggle over the scope of the destruction prophesied in this oracle. The
date of ch. 45 (v. 1) suggests that it originally belonged with earlier material (cf.
25:1; 36:1). The placing of the oracle (in both the MT and the LXX) in a posi
tion immediately following post-587 material in chs. 42-44 (LXX chs. 49-51)
presses for a subtle reinterpretation of "the whole land" as referring to post-587
Judah. This redactional move would have helped to neutralize the threat to
Babylon and the Judahite Diaspora in Babylon posed by the view that the
entire world was under judgment.14
In 31:28, the entire country is promised restoration and refructification.
The concepts of 1:10 are presented in chronological sequence rather than as
two options: a presumably exilic Israel has already been plucked up and
destroyed but will in the future be rebuilt and replanted. The rebuilding motif
is elaborated in some detail in 31:38-40 and an explicit reversal of the destruc
tion decreed in 7:30-8:3 is articulated.15
Nations dans le livre de Jrmie," BN 74 (1994): 28-30; and idem, "La terminologie de Jr
25,15-18 et l'histoire de la rdaction du recueil d'Oracles contre les Nations du livre de Jrmie,"
BN 85 (1996) 11-13.
12
So McKane, and see his discussion of the history of scholarship on the issue (Jeremiah,
2:1096-97); Bright, Jeremiah, 184; Carroll, Jeremiah, 744.
13
McKane contends that v. 5 "interprets v. 4 wrongly" (Jeremiah, 2:1097). On the v. 4 plus as
signifying "the whole world," see Carrjeremiah, 748; Holladay, Jeremiah, 2:310 (but then cf. his
puzzling comment on 12*12 that the phrase somehow lends "a larger-than-life connotation to the
population of Judah" (Jeremiah, 1388) While ch. 36 provides the setting in which the promise to
Baruch is made (for 45:1, cf. 36:1,4), it is the oracular content of ch. 25, also dated to the fourth
year of Jehoiakim, that should be considered determinative in prompting Baruch's complaint; and
25:15-38 indicts the whole world, not just Judah
14
Seitz's argument that 45.4 was intended in the MT text to connect the oracle with the OAN
that follow (via its use of language from 1-10 that evokes the nations, see "Prophet Moses," 21-22)
highlights one possible result of the editorial work on ch. 45, but it begs the crucial question of
exactly how that language from 1:10 is used with reference to Israel/fudah and the nations.
15
So also Carroll, Jeremiah, 618.

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Journal of Biblical Literature

The contexts of 24:6 and 42:10 have a point to make that is quite different
from those of preceding examples. These passages occur in material that has
been identified with the 597 gola by K.-F. Pohlmann.16 There is no question
that chs. 24 and 42 explicitly privilege the status of the 597 exiles in Babylon
over the status of those remaining in Palestine and those who flee to Egypt
after the fall of Jerusalem. According to ch. 24, the 597 exiles will be built up
and planted, and it is explicitly stated that they will not be torn down or plucked
up (v. 6). By way of contrast, brutal invective is hurled at those who remained in
Judah after 597 and those in Egypt (w. 8-10). Jeremiah 42 uses similar language to promise that those who do not flee to Egypt but stay in the land under
Babylon's control will be built up and planted (v. 10), while those who flee to
Egypt will be utterly destroyed (w. 16-17). The language of 1:10 has been
traded on here for the political purpose of advancing the authority claims of the
597 gola group, suggesting an accommodationist support of Babylon's control
of Palestine and rejection of Egypt as an alternative base of expatriate Judean
power.17 This latter claim would have been all the more important to press in
light of the implicit threat posed by the tradition that Jeremiah himself fled to
Egypt (43:6), for the Egyptian Diaspora community would then have enjoyed
the distinct advantage of the presence of the most authoritative prophet of their
generation.
II
Other passages important for understanding the function of prophetic
activity in the book of Jeremiah with regard to other nations are 25:9-38 and a
related passage in 49:12; 27:1-11; 28:8; 43:8-13; and 51:59-64. None of these
texts trades on the language of 1:10. The complex editorial history of ch. 25 has
long been recognized. The problem with the reference to "all these nations
around" in 25:9 and the similar reference in v. 11 is that the Begrndung that
precedes this announcement of punishment apparently applies only to Judah
(v. 2). There is a strange vagueness about the material in w. 8-14, effected in
particular by the referential ambiguity of the terms "this land" ( , v. 9),
"this whole land" ( ]to,v. 11), "that nation" (min , v. 12), and "that
16

Pohlmann, Studien zumjeremiabuch, esp 20-31 and 123-45

-J Stpp has argued that the unexpected wording of 42 12, "he [viz, the king of Babylon]
will have mercy on you and restore you to your native soil," is a clue that the original addressees of
this material were not Judeans in Palestine but the exiles m Babylon, who were being persuaded to
obey their Babylonian overlords in die early exilic period, before the defeat of Babylon by Persia
rendered the expectation of Babylon's clemency moot ("Zedekiah in the Book of Jeremiah- On the
Formation of a Biblical Character," CBQ 58 [1996] 627-48, esp 629-30) If Spp is correct
regarding the original provenance of this phrase, the passage may better be understood as parnesis aimed at dissuading members of the 597 gla group from allying themselves with the Judean
group in Egypt
17

Sharp: The Call of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

429

land" ( , v. 13), the first two references apparently referring to Judah,

and the latter two references presumably referring to Babylon. The literary
context does provide clues for interpreting the references, but as the context
shows signs of having been disturbed secondarily, scholars rightly worry about
whether some putative earlier stage of the text may have signified something
18
different. At this juncture, as is well known, the ordering of material in LXX
Jeremiah differs from that of MT Jeremiah, with the OAN following here in the
LXX in an internal order differing from that of the MT. In w. 15-29 is an unset
tling passage in which Jeremiah is commanded to give the nations to drink from
the cup of the LORD'S wrath. The form-critical and literary categories scholars
have developed to describe prophetic literature provide no assistance here:
whether this is a vision, a sign-act, or something else entirely is not clear. It is in
any case a metaphor that is carried through to its conclusion, for Jeremiah does
make the nations drink, in whatever way that statement may be interpreted
(D-Dil ta npwn mrr TD , v. 17). The list of nations in w. 18-26
has been expanded, not least through the addition of v. 18, whereby Jerusalem
and the towns of Judah are included among the nations, with some choice epi
thets following in a fashion anomalous for the rest of the list. "All the nations of
the world" are indicted (v. 26), including nations not treated in the OAN, which
confuses scholars' attempts to tie the variance in the ordering of the OAN in
the LXX and the MT to this list.
Verse 29 is the theological axis around which the preceding prose sections
and the following poetic material now revolve. Judah must be punished
because it has not heeded the LORD'S servants the prophets, and the other
nations of the world shall certainly not escape punishment if the very city that is
called by the LORD'S name must suffer (cf. 49:12). Poetic verses and a prose

18

One of the editorial changes that has been made involves the addition of "King Neb
uchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant" m the MT text type, one of several kinds of more precise
identifications attributable to MT expansion See J G Janzen, Studies in the Text of Jeremiah
(Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1973), 54-57 Janzen argues (p 55) against W.
Lemke's position ("Nebuchadrezzar, My Servant," CBQ 28 [1966] 45-50) that the mention of
Nebuchadrezzar in 27-6 (LXX 34 5, = TOSh, "to serve him") is original to the Old
Greek, seeing instead "a later infection m the large majority of Greek witnesses " On characteristics
of and differences between MT Jeremiah and LXX Jeremiah generally there is a huge literature,
see, e g, S Soderlund's cnbque of Janzen, The Greek Text of Jeremiah A Revised Hypothesis
(Sheffield- JSOT Press, 1985), 193-248, L Stulman, The Prose Sermons of the Book of Jeremiah A
Redescription of the Correspondences with the Deuteronomistic Literature in the Light of Recent
Text-critical Research (Atlanta Scholars Press, 1986); , "Some Aspects of the Textual and
Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah," m Le livre de Jrmie (see 5 above), 145-67; idem,
"The Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah m the Light of Its Textual History," in Empirical
Models for Biblical Criticism (ed. J. H Tigay, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1985), 211-37, and idem, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis Fortress, 1992),
319-27 and the bibliography there.

430

Journal of Biblical Literature

comment (v. 33) that describe the coming terrible judgment of the nations in
19
vivid metaphors follow.
In 27:1-11 is described a prophetic sign-act warning the kings of Edom,
Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon that Nebuchadnezzar, as the LORD'S "servant,"
is indomitablesubmission to him is the only possible way to avoid death. The
promise that those who submit will be left in peace on their own land (v. 11) is
not reiterated in the application of the message to Judah that follows in
27:12-22, Jeremiah having then spoken to King Zedekiah "in the same way"
(^ 3 *?DD, v. 12) without an explicit command from the LORD to do so.
Not only is there no promise that the citizens of Jerusalem will be allowed to
remain on their own land and till it; it is expressly prophesied that the temple
vessels and fixtures that had remained after the Babylonian incursion of 597 (cf.
2 Kgs 24:13) will be removed to Babylon. Thus there will be no chance of any
continuation of authoritative cultic life in Palestine. The pro-goZ slant of this
claim is obvious: if Israelite cultic life can continue at all, it must be under the
authority of the Judean priests and leaders in Babylon. Here then is an explicit
rejection of the possibility of continued communal viability in Judah. The "submit to Babylon and live" option cannot have indicated that those who submit
may continue to live in the land but rather that those who submit will be taken
captive to Babylon and may live under the aegis and authority of the gla community already there.20
In 28:8 we encounter a characterization of the prophetic vocation in the
mouth of Jeremiah himself, presented as his justification in the conflict with
Hananiah: "The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms."
Here we find neither a "series" of prophets nor a prophetic "office," but simply
mention of a number of prophets who have preceded Jeremiah and Hananiah
"from ancient times" (D^IOT ]D). Especially noteworthy is the generous "you
and me" ("ps1?! OS1?), a formulation that unquestionably includes Hananiah in
the group of prophetshe is not a false prophet in any ontological sense, but
merely a prophet who in this particular case has delivered himself of a word not
of the LORD and thus has spoken falsely. Of interest for our purposes is the
commission of the prophets Jeremiah mentions: since time immemorial, they
have spoken prophecies of doom against "many countries and great kingdoms."21 This characterization of the prophetic group to which Jeremiah and
19
If "his fold" (13, v. 30) is read as a reference to the LORD'S own people (see, among others,
Rudolph, Jerema, 153; Giesebrecht, jferemfa, 141, McKane, Jeremiah, 1:647; Holladay, Jeremiah,
1:680), then this poetic material presents an interesting combination of invective against both foreign nations and Israel, just as 25 8-14 does
20
Pace Seitz, Theology in Conflict, 207 and 224-25.
21
"War, famine, and pestilence," the problematic middle term ) probably to be emended
to 3. This is a variation on the merismatic triad "sword, famine, and pestilence" ("QT! 25 31),

Sharp: The Call of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

431

Hananiah belong takes for granted the directing of Israelite prophecy to other
nations, virtually skipping over that aspect in haste to make the point about true
versus false prophecy. Unless Jeremiah sees himself in a prophetic brotherhood
that includes Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian intermediaries, there can be
no other reading of 28:8 than that the Israelite prophetic vocation has always
concerned itself with other nations, and that for woe rather than weal.22 How
the message of v. 8 relates to the surrounding context, however, is not as clear as
many commentators seem to assume it is. Jeremiah says that prophets have
always prophesied doom to "many countries and great kingdoms." The kind of
false message this statement would implicitly be condemning, then, would be a
message of DV? (success, peace, well-being) to a great kingdom, in this case
Babylon. is, however, precisely what the 597 gola group is demanding for
Babylon: peaceful submission to Babylon's military hegemony, peaceful acqui
escence concerning the relocation of Judean cultic life to Babylon (27:18-22),
even prayer for Babylon's nft by Judeans in exile there (29:7).
If those who prophesy uf^D to foreign powers are false prophets, then it
would seem that a tradition preserved in 28:8 has been deliberately framed by
material that refocuses the false prophecy issue in order to protect the claims of
the Jehoiachin group. Hananiah, after all, is prophesying a speedy military
defeat of Babylon and restoration of the Judeans to their homeland within two
years. The correct response according to the pro-gof group is that the exile will
instead last seventy years rather than two. The issue has been reframed so that
it seems the problem is that Hananiah is illegitimately prophesying peace for
Judah too soon. It is entirely possible that 28:8 represents an alternative viewpoint that originally contested the Jehoiachin group's position, and that that
viewpoint in 28:8 has been subdued by its having been embedded in a narrative
that derails the original point.
Finally to be considered are two rather remarkable sign-acts in 43:8-13
and 51:59-64, performative prophecies directed against Egypt and Babylon
respectively. In 43:8-13, Jeremiah is directed to bury stones in front of the
pharaoh s palace to mark the spot where Nebuchadrezzar will establish his own
throne in the coming Babylonian occupation of Egypt. All those in Egypt will
be given up to pestilence, captivity, and the sword just as the people of Judah
were, a prophecy certainly directed against the Judahite Diaspora in Egypt as
which occurs in its full form or with minor permutations in Jer 5.12,1122,14*12,13,15,16,15-2,
16 4,18 21,217,9,24 10,27 8,13,29 17,18,32 24,36,34 17,38 2,42 16,17,22,43 11,44 12,13,
18,27.
22
The anomalous glimpses of mercy shown other nations m Jeremiah (46.26, 48 47, 49 6,
49 39) seem to function as rare exceptions that demonstrate the rule There is m any case nothing m
Jeremiah so shocking as the claim in Amos 9.7 that the LORD has initiated saving histories for the
Philistines and the Arameans, nor so elaborate as the promise made to Egypt and Assyria in Isa
19 18-25

432

Journal of Biblical Literature

23

well as Egyptian nationals. The oracle takes special care to note that Neb
uchadrezzar will devastate the cultic life of the Egyptians (w. 12-13) and then
depart DISCED, the DI^O of Babylon and its representatives clearly still of keen
interest to this editorial layer even after the narrated fall of Jerusalem.
By way of contrast, in 51:59-64 Jeremiah commands Seraiah to read aloud
in Babylon a scroll proclaiming that nation's doom, then to weight down the
scroll and hurl it into the Euphrates to enact Babylon's sinking. In the MT, this
is marked as the final word of the book of Jeremiah proper (liTDT n r 73IV,
"thus far the words of Jeremiah"), the oracle thus having been displaced in the
narcological sequence to a location after material treating the fall of Jeru
24
salem (ch. 3). The dating of this anti-Babylon sign-act to the fourth year of
Zedekiah (51:59) clearly indicates that the "serve Babylon and live" philosophy
had met with strong opposition in the years immediately following 597. Accord
ing to its date, 51:59-64 belongs in the narrative sequence between chs. 27-29
and ch. 32, and indeed, that material is found in ch. 28 in the LXX. Whatever
the editorial motivation may have been for relocating this oracle against Baby
lon to its current MT position after the OAN, one effect is the attenuation of its
immediate political force: in the MT, this oracle is now to be understood as
describing the ultimate end of Babylon's reign at the hands of the Persians (cf.
51:11b) rather than as a viable position to have taken before the fall of
Jerusalem. It has been argued above that a similar kind of editorial relocation of
material took place with ch. 45; the pro-gZ editors thus have managed to
blunt the force of two prophecies of doom that had been directed against Babylon, in a general way via the full-judgment view in the earlier layer of ch. 45 and
directly here.
23
Against the position that Judahite expatriates are not bemg threatened here (see McKane,
Jeremiah, 2 1058) can be mustered two points First, 42 22 ensures that the fate of Egypt in
43.8-13 can only be understood as being inseparably wedded to the fate of those Judeans who fled
to Egypt. Second, the editorial reuse m 43:11 of a variant of the tripartite threat in 15:2 and passim
directed against Judah presses home an identification of those to be punished in Egypt with the
renegade Judahites.
24
B. Gosse argues that this particular oracle of doom was originally against Jerusalem and
was only secondarily redirected against Babylon ("La maldiction contre Babylone de Jrmie
51,59-64 et les rdactions du livre de Jrmie," ZAW 98 [1986] 383-99, and his English summary,
"The Masoretic Redaction of Jeremiah An Explanaon,"/SOT 77 [1998] 75-80) The textual variant in the LXX at 5164, MT rurn/LXX ("the evil" versus "the Chaldeans"), might
support Gosse's position, but reconstruction of a putative original oracle against Jerusalem here
mustfinallyremain speculative. The fact of the parallel passage in 6-22-24 (against Zion)//50-41-43
(against Babylon) may signify that earlier traditions m Jeremiah were mined for material m the later
OAN, but this does not necessarily confirm Gosse's theory, especially given that the verses occur m
an immediate literary context nfe with other parallel passages from within the OAN (498//50.40,
49 19-21//50-44-46; see McKane, Jeremiah, 2.1292-93). D Reimer builds on Gosse to suggest
that the larger structure of the book has been rearranged to emphasize the judgment on Babylon
(The Oracles Against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51 A Horror Among the Nations [San Francisco.
Mellen Research University Press, 1993], 256-58,286-88)

Sharp: The Call ofJeremiah and Diaspora Politics

433

III
The evidence considered above indicates that the motif that Jeremiah
was called to be a "prophet to the nations" was developed in two distinct ways
in the editorial shaping of the Jeremiah traditions. The full-judgment view
casts Jeremiah in the prophetic role of prophesying doom for the entire world.
The point is made in a variety of ways: true prophets have since ancient times
prophesied doom against many nations and great kingdoms (28:8); if the
LORD'S beloved Judah and Jerusalem must suffer, no other nation may dare
expect exemption from punishment (25:29), and even Jeremiah's own amanuensis can hope for nothing more than survival as a fugitive (45:1-3,5); neither
the Judean Diaspora in Babylon nor Babylon herself will escape the LORD'S
wrath (12:14b; 51:59-64). This full-judgment view is countered in the
Jeremianic prose by an alternative interpretation of Jeremiah's function as a
"prophet to the nations," a view in which Jeremiah presents the option of disobedience versus obedience to other nations as well as to Judah. Any nation or
kingdom theoretically may heed the LORD'S voice and be "built" or "planted"
by the LORD or refuse to obey and be destroyed (12:14-17; 18:7-10;
27:1-11). This choice is then applied post factum to Judeans in and outside of
Palestine who are considered already to have rejected the option of obedience
(24:6; 42:10; 43:8-13; and 45:1-5 by virtue of the addition in v. 4 and its location after chs. 42-44). 25 More evidence for this clash of competing perspectives is suggested by the relocation of 51:59-64 to the end of the book in the
MT. The full-judgment view and the conditional view stand in a certain degree
of indissoluble literary tension in the final form of Jeremiah as hermeneutical
alternatives for understanding the significance of Jeremiah's call as a "prophet
to the nations."
The question then arises as to whether the evidence signifies development
over time of the view of a single editorial group or competing ideologies of two
different editorial groups. Is the view of the imminent destruction of Judah and
surrounding nations, including Babylon, reflected only in pre-597 texts, so that
it is possible to argue that what was to become the Jehoiachin group simply
reformulated its earlier views after 597, editing its own positions in the prose in
order to add a conditional element that supported the growth of a political base
under Jehoiachin in Babylon? In other words, having survived the events of
25
Pohlmann makes too much of perceived tensions between 24 6 and 42:10 when he asserts
that these two passages, despite their shared language, are intrinsically opposed m their concepts of
"den Gang der Heilsgeschichte" because in Jer 24 Judahites in the land are condemned and in Jer
42 those who flee the land are condemned (Studien zum Jeremtabuch, 130-36) Indictment of
those who have resisted the accommodationist "submit to the king of Babylon and live" platform is
precisely the point in both passages Jeremiah 42:11 provides a clear indication of this* "do not be
afraid of the king of Babylon, as you have been" (V]S0 UUCP DTI 1K *?33 "fTQ 1 *?K).

434

Journal of Biblical Literature

597, did the gola group then recast its views to accommodate their continued
viability and authority in the Diaspora, so that the literary tensions that we
encounter in Jeremiah reflect the diachronic development of a single, originally
monolithic editorial group? This seems unlikely, and not only because of the
inherently improbable model of compositional activity it presupposes. In its
essence, this position is of the same kind and caliber as any psychologizing position that dismisses apparent contradictions within the book of Jeremiah with
the explanation that the historical prophet Jeremiah simply "changed his mind"
regarding the particular issue at stake.26 Lack of verifiability is only one of the
problems besetting this kind of hermeneutical claim, which blurs (putative)
historical and literary categories and depoliticizes complex ideological literary
layers in polyvalent texts in a somewhat disingenuous fashion.
The severe redactional disruptions and additions to ch. 25 may yield
important clues for grappling with our problem. The phrase "Nebuchadrezzar
my servant" (25:9; 27:6; 43:10) would likely not have been predicated of the
Babylonian ruler before the accession of Zedekiah. Even if there were Babylonian sympathizers in Jerusalem prior to 597, this designation depends for its
semantic force on Nebuchadrezzar's having already performed a task that could
then be (re)interpreted theologically as having been on behalf of the LORD
and the earliest event that could have been so interpreted would have been the
deportations of 597. The original focus of 25:1-11 was the judgment and total
annihilation of Judah. This focus was expanded secondarily to include the total
destruction of other nations via additions in w. 9 and 11 and the appending of
the list of nations that are to drink the cup of wrath (w. 15-29). It would seem
that we have already one editorial layer in ch. 25, a layer in which the punishment of the nations was seen as imminent and not delayed (v. 17). According to
this layer of material, all the nations of the world were to fall (specifically
including "all the kings of the north" and "[CDC?, v. 26; w. 29,31,33). The threat
against other nations in 25:29 (how can any nation assume it will escape, if even
the city that is called by the LORD'S name must perish?) would have provided a
direct challenge to the "submit and live" platform of the Jehoiachin group (chs.
21; 27-29*; 38:17-23). The challenge of 25:29 could not be erased.27 The force
of this threat had to be contained in another way by the pro-goZ group: an
addition was made in 25:llb-14 specifying a seventy-year span during which
Babylon would continue to dominate (cf. 29:10-14). Babylon was not to fall
26

See, e.g, H. H Rowley* "We have no right to assume that Jeremiah's teaching was static
throughout his career" ("The Early Prophecies of Jeremiah in Their Setting," BJRL 45 [1962-63]
198-234, repr m A Prophet to the Nations [see n. 5 above], 33-61, esp 57), see die critical discussion of this kind of claim by J Hyatt in "Jeremiah and Deuteronomy," JNES 1 (1942). 156-73,
repr m A Prophet to the Nations, 113-27 It would seem that Seitz is arguing a form of this position
(Theohgy in Conflict, 207) insofar as he suggests that Jeremiah had to retool his preaching to
address the fact that there were survivors after 597 still m Judah.
27
Cf Seitz "There is only one way to account for the existence of seams in the present

Sharp: The Call of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

435

right away. The complete destruction prophesied in the earlier strand is transmuted in the Jehoiachin group's editorial work into servitude after a protracted
delay of judgment (w. 11-13). 28 That at least some of the pro-g<5Z editorial
work in this chapter was done in the exilic period is clear from the pro-gola
expansion in v. 18, wherein Jerusalem and its leaders are described as being
made "a desolation and a waste, an object of hissing and cursing, as they are
today," a description that could not have obtained before 587 and that stands in
close linguistic continuity with the other pro-go/ passages of invective against
post-597 Judah.29 Thus it is probable that the Jehoiachin group had not simply
changed its views but was in fact continuing to counter active resistance to its
views on the part of other tradents of Jeremiah traditions.
Some of the redactional development of these prose passages may have
happened over a protracted period of time, as is suggested by the exilic settings
of 31:28; 42:10; and 43:8-13. But in the main, the traditions regarding Jeremiah's prophesying to other nations seem to have been mustered in more
immediate response to each other in the period between 597 and 587 or shortly
thereafter. The clearest literary profile is presented by the 597 gola group
under Jehoiachin in Babylon. The perspective that obedience to the LORD on
the part of "any nation or kingdom" could forestall that state's destruction and
catalyze restoration constitutes a perspective that would have made a great deal
of sense for those in the early Babylonian Diaspora, who had only to grow in
political power and social cohesion, secure from military threat, under the
guidance of their own prophets (Ezekiel and probably others, 29:15) in anticipation of eventual repatriation. The view that wholesale punishment was both
imminent and inevitable not only for Judah but for all the nations of the earth,
including Babylon, was more likely the view of Judahite editors who needed to
make sense of the fate of Jerusalem (25:15-38; 49:12).30

Jeremiah narrative .. It must have been the case that the prior material could not be altered once
the authority of the prophet and the tradition associated with him was accepted All that could be
done by way of editorial comment had to proceed through supplementation, anticipatory remark,
or the rearrangement of material" (Theology m Conflict, 212-13).
28
Reimer considers anti-Babylon sentiment to have come to expression late in the development of the book of Jeremiah (Oracles Against Babylon, 263-64) He cites the absence of
25:12-13,26 and 277 in the LXX m support of his position, but die fact that 29 10 (= LXX 36.10)
and 51.59-64 (= LXX 28 59-64) are represented in the LXX would suggest that the above MT
pluses were simply further elaborations of and responses to an anti-Babylonian impulse already
present in the edited text.
29
For 3, see44-2,6,22 Forno, see 2918and44.12,22 For, see2918. For',
see 24.9,29 27,42 18, and 44 8,12,22
30
The position that Jeremianic texts demonstrating anti-Babylonian sentiment should be
understood as simple fervor for the land (cf. Reimer that "Jeremiah was not choosing between
Babylon and Judah" but instead always intended "to protect the land and its future" [Oracles
Against Babylon, 287]; see also Seitz, "The Crisis of Interpretation Over the Meaning and Purpose

436

Journal of Biblical Literature

The terminology of Jeremiah's call in 1:10 is reflected consistently in progoZ texts and is most compatible with the position of the Jehoiachin group. In
the view of that group, Jeremiah's prophetic authority extends to any other
nation that the LORD might choose, for building up or for destroying. The obvious, if tacit, example of the building up of a foreign nation in Jeremiah is the
flourishing of Babylon, acknowledged as directly as would have been possible
by the exhortation to Judeans to submit to Nebuchadrezzar, that unlikely servant of the LORD (25:9; 27:6; 43:10), and "seek the of*? of" Babylon, "for in it
will be your nfm" (29:7). The Judean Diaspora in Babylon is even to intercede
in prayer on behalf of Babylon, a remarkable command. The alternative view
that imminent and worldwide destruction would be wreaked on both Judah
and her enemies would seem to align well with the tradition of Jeremiah's call
preserved in 1:8: "do not be afraid of them" would make sense as a reassurance
to a prophet compelled to proclaim doom to powerful foes.
It is unlikely that the main redactions of these particular Jeremianic prose
traditions took place significantly later than the exilic period.31 The urgency of

of the Exile," VT 35 [1985]. 78-97) blurs the real diachronic tensions that exist within the Jeremianic prose regarding the authority claims of distinct political groups Jeremiah's purchase of land
(ch 32) and choice to remain under Gedaliah (401-6), clearly pragmatic extensions of the "serve
the lang of Babylon and live" policy, are easy enough to attribute to the pro-got group The 597
deportees had never wanted the destruction of their homeland, naturally they would wish to preserve it and return to it eventually (after seventy years, and no sooner) The dispute over authority
had to do with the locus of cultic and political power beginning m 597
31
See Bright, "Date of the Prose Sermons"; this against those who favor the Persian period as
the most likely time for the editorial work on the Jeremianic prose (e g, Carroll, Jeremiah, 65-80,
and idem, "Arguing About Jeremiah Recent Studies and the Nature of a Prophetic Book," m
Congress Volume, Leuven 1989 [ed. J A Emerton, Leiden. Brill, 1991], 222-35, esp 233) Analogues between the controversies depicted in Ezra-Nehemiah and the political programs of the
editors of the Jeremianic prose are not as transparent as Carroll suggests He may be right that the
rejection of Jehoiachin m Jer 22.24-30 may have stemmed from a political party opposed to Zerubbabel's authority claim (Jeremiah, 71) But he overreaches when he cites the difficult Zech 13 2-6
as evidence of the "bitter hostility against prophets m the fifth century (or later)" and proposes that
the material in Jeremiah about the Slom prophets "may well be part of the anti-prophec polemics
of the Persian period" (p. 75), when there are no traces of this in Ezra-Nehemiah (cf. Ezra 5.1-2
and 614). Students of Jeremiah are indebted to Carroll for his unflinching recognition of problems
in the text and his steady resistance to oversimplification, but here he moves too quickly to harmonize the political disputes in Jeremiah with the complex problem of opposition in Ezra-Nehemiah.
While the struggle between die returnees and the indigenous population may serve as a broad correspondence between Jeremiah and Ezra-Nehemiah, the political issues at stake do not appear
closely related in the two books (inter alia, the concerns in Ezra-Nehemiah regarding intermarriage and the status of the Lvites). The adversaries in Ezra-Nehemiah are identified not only as
the "people(s) of the land(s)" (Ezra 3-3,4:4,9:1-2,11,10 2,11; Neh 9 24,30,10-31-32, on the nontechnical and diverse semantic senses of the term, see E W Nicholson, "The Meaning of the
Expression p f t l in the Old Testament," JSS 10 [1965] 59-66) but also as (proto-)Samantans,

Sharp The Call of Jeremiah and Diaspora Politics

437

the disagreement over whether Babylon should be submitted to or resisted

would have been moot after the return. The claim that Babylon would fall only
after a reign of seventy years does not correspond well to known political dates
and is probably typological in nature rather than a vaticinium ex eventu reflecting Persia's eventual domination.32 But most important, factional wrestling over
the opportunity to provide the definitive interpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy
for the Judean communities would likely have left its mark on the Jeremianic
prose immediately following 597, when Jeremiah had still been present in
Jerusalem, and perhaps on through the early years following the fall of Jerusalem. With the disappearance of Jeremiah into Egypt after 587, the tradente in
the Babylonian Diaspora were able to move into a relatively undisputed position of authority as the guarantors and interpreters of the Jeremiah traditions,
as the relatively greater density of their views in the latter half of the book of
Jeremiah suggests. But vestiges of the interpretive tensions that had been
embedded already in texts shaped between 597 and 587 could not be eradicated.
The present study has attempted to trace the different interpretive directions in which the two groups pressed the motif of Jeremiah's call as a "prophet
to the nations" in service to their divergent political claims. The characterization of Jeremiah's prophetic commission in 1:5 is neither a realpolitisch acknowledgment of the intertwined political fortunes of various local nation-states and
Judah nor a simple reflection of the presence of OAN in the book of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 1:4-10 rather presents in nuce two profoundly theological perspectives on the fate of the nations as hinging precisely on the fate of Judah itself.
The full-judgment view of Palestine-based Judeans develops 1:5-8 to show that
the terrible fate looming over the LORD'S chosen city, Jerusalem, must threaten
no less acutely all the nations of the world, from the most insignificant of tribes
to the current dominant world power, Babylon. Counterposed to this is the
conditional view of Diaspora Judeans in Babylon that the LORD may build up
or destroy any nation at all based on that nation's obedience or disobedience to
the divine will, the implications of this being spelled out in no uncertain terms
in the pro-got prose: the Israelite Diaspora community in Babylon is to pray
for the building up of Babylon, secure in the confidence that the Judean remnant left in the land after 597 will be utterly obliterated. The divine will is thus
claimed in the dread of destruction and in the triumph of survival, in the desperate tunnel vision of Judeans who interpreted their own looming destruction
erstwhile deportees from other lands resettled in Israel by Assyrian fat (Ezra 4-1-2 [cf. 2 Kgs
17 24-41]) and as Arabs, Ammonites, and Ashdodites (Neh 4:7)
32
The only indisputable evidence of post-539 influence m Jeremiah is found m the oracle
against Babylon itself (51.11b, 28). Jeremiah 25*25 accords no place of privilege to the Persians,
who apparently are to line up for destruction along with everyone else

438

Journal of Biblica! Literature

as a harbinger of the doom menacing the entire world (ch. 25) and in the
aggressive self-justification of the post-597 exiles in Babylon (chs. 24; 42-44).
The book of Jeremiah presents other nations as already integrally bound up in
particular ways with Israel's destiny, a destiny recorded from two intractably
opposed perspectives.
Within the limited scope of the texts studied here, the results of this analysis provide support for Pohlmann s thesis of a gola redaction of the Jeremianic prose, in that diverse passages from different sections of Jeremiah have
been seen to have been shaped editorially toward the promulgation of an identifiable theopolitical viewpoint.33 In light of this, the positions of recent interpreters such as Carroll and McKane regarding the wholesale "untidiness" and
relatively random, piecemeal compositional growth of the book of Jeremiah
should perhaps be tempered. The evidence mustered here suggests that there
may be more editorial purpose underlying some of the tensions and inconsistencies within the Jeremianic prose than has heretofore been appreciated.
33
This would to some degree respond to critics of Pohlmann who have questioned whether
postulation of a full-fledged "redaction" is warranted by the evidence; see the reviews of W Holladay (CBQ 41 [1979] 316-17) and S Herrmann (TLZ106 [1981] 328-29) I agree with Pohlmann's
critics regarding lack of confidence in his late dating of die redaction, however, on that, see also the
review of J Bright,/BL 99 (1980). 142-44

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