(2) Original place of chs. 46 ft. — It is quite evident that prophecies of the compass of chs. 46-49 as they now exist could not have l)een con- tained in Haruch's roll. If only a genuine nucleus of them existed they might have followed ch. 25 in its original form and position, though the am[ditication of them would be more intelligible if they had existed in a sejiarate form. If the prophecies were extant in their present compass when the book was redacted, we might suppose that, according to the analogy of Is and Kzk, tlicy would be placed in the middle of the book after ch. 25. And this would have been their natural place, following the symbol in 25"''- and the enumeration of nations in 25""**, the nations named being in the main those to which the prophecies refer. The supposition that this Avas the original place of 46-49 is at least plausible, if nothing more. When the extensive jiassage chs. 50. 51 was introduced into the book at a later time, chs. 46 tf. were connected with it and trans- ferred to the end of the book. The place of chs. 46-51 in LXX between 25" and 25" is quite unnatural, for the chapters should certainly iiave followed and not preceded the enumeration of nations in 25"°* to which they refer. It is prob- able that 46-51 occupied a place at the end of the book, as in Heb., even in the MS used by the LXX translator. Simultaneously with the reception of chs. 50. 51 or in consequence of it, various glosses were introduced, e.g. 25"*'"'^ or at least v.'''"- (50"'; cf. 51*""). In 25" 'even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations,' LXX translator took the last clause to be independent, rendering, T/utt which Jeremiah prophe-ned against the nations. The words thus became a title, and chs. 46 tf. were transferred from their former place and made to follow it. Neither is the oriler of the pro])heciea in LXX original ; the order in Heb. corres]rond8 in the main to that of the nations enumerated in 25""-'*, and has all the marks of originality.
Tlie translator from Heb. had many difficulties to cent-end with : the text h.id no vowels ; the letters do not appear to have been divided (in all cases at least) itito words: the vowel letters were sparsel.v written, and thus Ihe plur. and sing, forms of the verb were identical ; MSS were b;uil,v written, simitar letters like rf and r being often confused ; there were contractions liable to be misunderstood ; Heb. was a dead langiiage, the lining Shemitic ton'.iie being Aramaic ; and much else. The translator of Jer shows the usual faults of the Gr. version in an ai;:),'ravatcd form, (n) He divides words wron);l_v (r.8 Sl« 9' 209 22* 318 461^). (h) Ho vocalizes wronclv (223. 34 ;■)] in» :iil3). (c) When letters like d and r are confused in his MS, he has not sufficient knowledge to perceive the error (218 3" 1512 315 4922). (rf)ne renders projier names as appellatives and vice veitd, S> 21" 3l2i 4616- « 49"- «•«« 6127 (46" 60i8 ann njvn, ^cax«4px iA>n»'«*i)- ic) His knowledge of the language ii very deficient : an archaic suffix puzzles him (n?r is read nV^ 88 1510 207) ; much in the Heb. vocabulary is unfamiliar to him (3'5^P liJC is rendered differently each time that it occurs, and generally referred to the root g&r, 'to sojourn'); and in p.'i-ntax he supposes an adj. may stand before its noun (2230 46ii?). (/) He makes arbitrary changes in person and number to a greater extent than usual in LA.V (230 3I8. 20 4I7 67 725 gl'* etc.). (g) He is loose and hasty and without a sense of res|>onsibility, often thinking it enough to give an average or approximate rendering of the original (Tiff-)- H be has wrongly put a sense on a word which will not harmonize with the rest of the verse he modifies the other words, or, if thev be wholly intractable, omits them (2i6 4"- '2 626 glS). in 2921 23 the sense is entirely missed. (A) It is scarcely due to purpose, but rather to his easy-going st.vle of operation, that when a passage is repeated veroatitn, his rendering of it in the second instance differs much from that in the first- (0 He shares the curious fancy of LXX translators for rendering by a word similar in
JEREMIAH
JEREMIAH
575
•ound to the Heb. (OS T;in; T;ri isic) ■!i;ic; it) t«««., 311 ninen Tiu«j>.«> (4S»i ? SIS'?). Whether in 40i» ■jn (infj) was rendered 'Aiit is rather uncertain).
LrxKUATURB ON TIIK Tkxt. — .Spohn, Jrr^miaa vates 0 vert. Jvdirorum Alex, einfiulalus, 1824 ; Kue|ier. Jerrtn. tibrorum M. inten/re* atijue vindex, 1837 ; -Movers. IJe utriiisatu recetix. vati<:. Jerrin. indole et orifjitu, 1837 ; Wichelhaus, he Jerem. verKtoiie Alexandr.na, 1847; Scholz, Dfr Slaiu. Tfxl u. die LXX tleben. det Knchet Jer. 187S; Kiihl, Dat V rrhult nUi drr MuKKirra lUT Sept. im Jerrmia, 1882 ; Workman, Tin' Text 0/ Jeremiah, 1889; Streane, The Double Text 0/ Jeremiah, 18011; »i80 the C'omm. of Graf, p. xl ff.. and Giescbreclit, p. xixff. ; Kuen,, Onderz. i !<S ; cf. also Comill'g critical edition 01 the Ueb. te> t in Uaupt'8 SBOT.
iv. Redaction of the Book. — In the absence of all direct information, anything better than a more or le.ss plausible hypotlicsis concerning tlie redaction of the book is not attainable. Perhaps three stages in its history can be traced. (1) The second roll of Banich, belonging to the 5th year of Jehoiakiiri. There is every rea.son to suppose that this roll has in the main been preserved in the early jiart of the book. The contents of the roll were chs. 1-6. 7-10 (except lO'""), U'-12», probably 1-4. 15. I6'-17", 25 in its original form, po.ssibly 45; whether 18. 20"- belonged to the roll may be uncertain ; and the same must be said of 22"'"' and of any parts of 46-49 that may be sup- po.sed genuine. The roll, liowever, was in some ca.sea broken up, and some p.arts certainly belong- ing to it (ch. 2,")) are now found after elements of a much later date, while elements of a later date appear inserted before or among parts belonging to It (12"'-). The roll was only one of the elements used in the redac^tion of the book, and it was not regarded as inviolalilc. We should hardly be right if we regarded our present book as a growth, the roll being the fundamental writing to which other prophecies were added as they successively came into existence, or if we supposed a series of successive rcdacticms (Kautzsch, Ahriss, p. 75; cf. Driver, p. 270). The present order of the contents of the book forbids such .suppositions, e.g. 21"-23' as a collection is later than the fall of the city, while cb. 24 is of the beginning of the reign of Zetlekiah : chs. 30-3:{ as a collection also belongs to the Exile, while ch. 35 is of the reign of Jehoiakira. Such a shuflling of the contents, supposing them to have had originally a historical order, is quite improbable.