The New Covenant in Jeremiah XXXI 31-34 Author(s): H. D. Potter Source: Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 33, Fasc. 3 (Jul.

, 1983), pp. 347-357 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1517549 Accessed: 11/09/2008 13:34
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des (1924), S. 46-131, hier S. 81; 44(1925), S. 63-122; A. Weiser, Die Prophetie Amos 2 (Leipzig, .:1929), S. 213; (Giefien, 1929), S. 125; E. Sellin, Das Zwolfprophetenbuch H. W. Wolff, Dodekapropheton undAmos(Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1969), S. 218; E. 2Joel Hammershaimb, TheBookof Amos(Oxford, 1970), S. 57. 2 L. Kohler, "Amos", SThZ 34 (1917), S. 10-21, 68-79, 145-57, 190-208, hier 1933), S. 55; V. Maag, 21921), S. 339f.; C. van Gelderen, Het boekAmos(Kampen, schagne, "Amos' conception of God and the popular theology of his time", OTWSA.P 7/8 (1964/65), S. 122-33, hier S. 126; M. Bic, Das BuchAmos(Berlin, 1969), S. 67. 3 G. Fohrer, Die Prophetendes Alten TestamentsI (Giitersloh, 1974), S. 50; D. K.
4 So die meisten Kommentare, zuletzt W. Rudolph, Joel-Amos-Obadja-Jona (Gitersloh, 1971), S. 157. 5 Wolff, S. 220. 6 Vgl. Rudolph, S. 154. 7Z.B. Kohler, S. 70; Gregfmann,S. 339. 8 Vgl. H. Gese, "Kleine Beitrage zum Verstandnis des Amosbuches", VT 12 (1962), S. 417-38, hier S. 427. Doch kann man nicht von einer "Tat-FolgeEinheit" reden. 9 J. A. Motyer, TheDay of the Lion(London, 1974), S. 69.

I So u.a. K. Budde, "Zu Text und Auslegung des Buches Amos", JBL 43

und S. 69; H. Gregfmann, Die alteste Geschichtsschreibung ProphetieIsraels (G6ttingen,

Text, Wortschatzund Begriffsweltdes BuchesAmos (Leiden, 1951), S. 14; C. J. Labu-

Stuart, Studies in Early Hebrew Meter (Missoula, 1976), S. 201; L. Markert, Struktur und Bezeichnungdes Scheltworts (Berlin, 1977), S. 89.

10 Vgl. Rudolph, S. 155. 1 Vgl. wtrp )n lw ?", BetM 12,2 (1966/67), S. 12-6. J. Braslabi, "hys'g )ryhbyCr

12

151.

So aber die meisten Kommentare. Fur die Beibehaltung zuletzt Rudolph, S.

13 Vgl. C. von Orelli, Die zwolf kleinen Propheten(Munchen, 1908), S. 70; H. Junker, "Leo rugit, quis non timebit? Deus locutus est, quis non prophetabit?", TThZ 59 (1950), S. 4-13, hier S. 7. 14 Vgl. G. Pfeifer, "Denkformenanalyse als exegetische Methode, erlautert an Amos 12-2J'", ZAW 88 (1976), S. 56-71.

THE NEW COVENANT

IN JEREMIAH

XXXI 31-34

The New Covenant passage in Jeremiah is set in a series of chapters (xxx-xxxiii) known as the Book of Consolation, so called because they present a picture of hope for the future in a work which the rabbis characterized as being "all disaster" (B. Baba Bathra 14b). Opinions vary as to the redaction of these chapters, the attribution of the various components toJeremiah, and the relationship of these components to each other. For our present purpose we shall restrict ourselves to the further delimited portion xxx-xxxi. Most scholars agree that here we have a composite collection of material, a Jeremianic core round which has accumulated much later material.1 The relationship of xxxi 31-34 to the rest of these
Vetus TestamentumXXXIII, 3 (1983)

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chapters has an important bearing on its authority, date, and reference. On this, however, there is no consensus. Volz and Rudolph, for instance, both believe that the genuine oracles refer to the Norther Kingdom, but the former places them between 594 and 588, the latter between 621 and 609 B.C.2 Rudolph goes on to associate the New Covenant passage with xxxi 18-22 as fulfilling Ephraim's request in v. 18, "Bring me back that I may be restored", and finds here proof that the promise of the New Covenant is Jeremianic, is early, and refers to the North. This, of course, depends on the dating of vv. 18-22, for, although most scholars think them early, some, like Lindars, hold them to be from after 587.3 Weiser demurs with Rudolph on other grounds. He believes that v.21, "Return O virgin Israel, return to your cities", fulfils the request of v. 18.4 To this Rudolph replies that v. 21 is the response to Yahweh's mercy in v. 20, while v. 18 does not speak of a physical return home at all, and so remains unanswered. I am not convinced. It is by no means clear that any of the verses requires a response, that v. 18 does not relate to the other verses as an appeal to physical return, or that vv.31-34 are an "answer" to it at all. So hypothetical are the proposed relationships between the verses that little can be built on them for an understanding of the New Covenant. We have to look more widely atJeremiah's thought if we are to understand the contents of xxxi 31-34. It is these verses which have aroused the most controversy in the whole ofJeremiah, for they mention the New Covenant, a concept hallowed by Christian adoption. The division exists between those who accept them as the crown of Jeremiah's authentic preaching, and those who consider them to be post-Jeremianic and who belittle them. The first and most vigorous opponent of their authenticity, Duhm, tried "for a long time to understand the passage" as coming from Jeremiah's hand", he conceded that "the sentence is certainly beautiful and has induced many (including myself) to seek something deep in it", but he could find "only the effusion of a scribe who holds as the highest ideal that everyone among the Jewish people shall know by heart and understand the Law, that all Jews shall be scribes". It offered no new law nor conception of religion, and promised the individual no more than Deuteronomy had done.5 As we shall see, this is precisely the opposite of the case. What these verses do is not to make everyone scribes but to render scribes superfluous.

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Cornill, Moulton and others were quick to reject this approach, and most scholars would agree with them. Bright, for example, thinks that the case need no longer be argued - "It ought never to have been questioned" - although he admits that the words are not the ipsissima verba of the prophet but are part of the Deuteronomic redaction.6 This problem of the language of the passage and its markedly "Deuteronomic style" is one of the main difficulties in attributing it to the prophet himself. Consequently, Herrmann and Nicholson have taken a mediating position, accepting the value of the passage, but denying its ascription to Jeremiah.7 As Duhm had pointed out, the notion of the Law being in the heart is found in Deut. vi 6, xxx 14, and has its basis in the Deuteronomic exhortation to "love Yahweh with all your heart". This new covenant conforms to the pattern of a series of covenant renewal ceremonies in the Deuteronomic History (Deut. xxvi 16; Jos. xxiv; 1 Sam. xii; 2 Kings xxiii). Like them it comes at a crisis, and like them it ushers in a new phase in Yahweh's relationship with Israel. Like them it involves a response in terms of observance of the Law, but now the ability to observe the Law is placed in the heart: "It is in this sense that the covenant ... is to be new, and in this it undoubtedly represents one of the high points of the entire Old Testament" (Nicholson, p. 83). Even so, it is Deuteronomic in style and language, and says no more than Deut. xxx 6 orJer. xxxii 38-41 which they also consider to be Deuteronomic. Finally the New Covenant is no eschatological notion, but answers an immediate problem posed to the Deuteronomists confronted with the end of the Kingdom. I shall take issue with such opinions. Buis, on the other hand, has argued that Jer. xxxi 31-34 is the oldest text referring to the New Covenant and that the other passages of similar theme show a development of this conception during and after the Exile (Ez. xxxii 37-41, xxxvii 21-28, xxxvi 22-35, xvi 59-63; Zech. vii 7,8,17; Jer. xxiv 5ff., Deut. xxx 1-10; Baruch ii 29-35), while Coppens believes that none of the supposed parallels means quite the same as our passage.8 Von Rad distinguishes between the attempt of the Deuteronomists to reestablish Israel on the old basis and the new conception here. With this Martin-Achard agrees. While admitting the link with the Deuteronomic school, he believes thgt our pericope has an originality which needs to be explained. There is a hiatus between it and these theologians:

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a) the basis of the New Covenant is divine pardon, while the Deuteronomists demand repentance; b) Jer. xxxi looks to the future while the Deuteronomists meditate on the past; c) it renders obedience to the Torah possible; d) it says more than that Israel must love Yahweh: it reveals how God will impart knowledge of himself to the people. Jeremiah composed the passage, probably after 587, and addressed it to both North and South. It is not eschatological since it is addressed to an immediate need.9 Finally, M. Weinfeld'? would agree that Jeremiah's conception is distinctly different from that of Deuteronomy and reflects "a certain disappointment with the literary-religious activity which failed to improve the spiritual attitude of the people". The covenant would no longer "be enforced from without through learning and indoctrination which could be forgotten and put out of mind (cf. Dtn 4 9-10...) ... but would be implanted in a man's heart so that it would not depart from the heart and would not be forgotten" (p. 26). It arose as a reaction to the failure of Josiah's reform and is probably partially inspired by the teaching of Hosea since our passage is parallel in structure to Hos. ii 21f. (pp. 43ff.). It is along such lines as these that I believe we must go if we are to arrive at a proper understanding of Jer. xxxi 31-34. The whole point of these verses is that they are a deliberate contrast to Deuteronomy, not a complement to it, or a restatement of it. As Duhm said, if the words were Jeremiah's they would be of the greatest importance as setting forth the contrast between the prophetic and the Deuteronomic conception of religion. That is precisely what they do. The question of Jeremiah's relation to the Deuteronomic reform under Josiah is vexed,1I but it seems likely that even had he been initially in favour of it he would have become rapidly disillusioned by its failure radically to change his people. Many scholars have seen Jer. viii 8 as a direct attack on the agents of the reform,12 but I would also consider xxxi 31-34 to be directly opposed to the mode of that code's implementation which had in fact compounded Israel's sins. It should first of all be noticed that these verses are different from their three closest parallels, namely Jer. xxiv 7; Deut. xxx 6, vi 4-9.13 Jer. xxiv 7 reads "I will give them a heart to know that I am

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Yahweh", and Deut. xxx 6 "Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul." There is no guarantee that this will be successful since v. 17 of the same chapter can admit the possibility of the heart turning away. In neither passage is there any mention of God writing on the heart. Nor is there in Deut. vi 6 which provides the most interesting contrast to our passage: These words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart, andyou shall teachthem diligently to your child, and shall talk of them ... and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, andyou shall write them uponyour doorposts. In Jer. xxxi 31-34 God will write his Law upon their hearts, "and no longershall each man teach his neighbour". This is either a direct attack on the limitations of the Deuteronomic procedure or a considerable development from it. But how did this arise? After this passage, in v.34, God says "I will forgive their iniquity (adwon)and I will remember their sin (ha!.tdt) no more". As Weippert has and hat.tadt appear in the same order inJer. v 25. pointed out, adwon It is sin and iniquity which have turned away God's bounty and kept good from his people. In this the role of the heart is crucial. leb occurs three times in v. 20-25. In v. 21 the people are senseless ( n leb parallels sdkdl "foolish"). Without leb the organs of sense (eyes and ears) are useless. In v. 24 the fact of Yahweh's munificence does not penetrate people's consciousness (leb), while in v.23 the reason for the people's apostasy is their stubborn and rebellious heart (leb sorer umoreh). The picture of the New Covenant written on the heart seems the answer to this problem of human nature as here outlined. 14 Elsewhere, we find that sin is "written into" the people's character. They have never been "wholeheartedly" loyal to Yahweh, only superficially so (iii 10). Their sin is ingrained: "Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap the stain of your guilt is still before me" (ii 21f.). "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil (limmudelhareac)(xiii 23). The point of comparison is not that sin is built in like skin, but that once acquired it is impossible to escape.'5 Jer. xvii 1 provides a link

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between the above quoted texts indicating the ineradicability of sin and the concept of the New Covenant which Yahweh will write on men's hearts: The sin (hattdat)ofJudah is written with a pen ('.t) of iron, with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet (ludai) of their heart, and on the horns of their altars. It seems clear that here we have a reference to the act of atonement involving the sacrifice of an animal some of whose blood was smeared on the horns of the altar. So deep-seated was the nation's sin that it had become engraved on the very horns of the altar where the blood of the sin offering which was supposed to wipe away sin was smeared.16 The sin is also engraved on the tablet, luah, of their heart. Of the forty-three occurrences of luah in the Old Testament twenty-nine refer to the tables of the Mosaic Law. The thought ofJeremiah may well have been as follows: as long as the Law is written merely on tablets of stone, so long will sin be written on the tablets of the heart, and so long will forgiveness be impossible. Man's offerings cannot compensate for his sin. In order for God to forgive he must erase the sin written on the heart and replace it with the Law. The notion of God writing on the heart was in response to what the prophet saw written there already; only so radical an intervention as one by God himself would suffice. The Israelite could not circumcise the foreskin of his own heart, nor the Nubian change his skin: God alone could operate on his corrupted creature. The occurrence in the undoubtedly genuine xvii 1 of the rare word e.t(two out of its four occurrences in the Old Testament are in Jeremiah) suggests a connection with viii 8: For behold the false pen (c'.t seqer) of the scribes has wrought
falsely (lasseqer Cdsdh).

The RSV and others insert a mappiq into the he of asadh get the to notion of scribes wilfully falsifying a law code, which is normally supposed to be Deuteronomy ("made it into a lie"), and this passage is taken as evidence that Jeremiah repudiated a reform which had been corrupted by its custodians. Such an interpretation is possible even without the insertion of a mappiq. The scribes are of possibly the same group as the topsehattordh ii 8 who in turn are a sub-division of the priesthood which may well have used possibly the Reform for its own end.17 However, a more general meaning is just as likely, that those who boast of their knowledge of the Law,

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and are its custodians, by their official actions belie their office ("How can you say 'we are the wise and the Law of Yahweh is with us'?", viii 8). When sin is written upon the heart with a pen of iron, no claim to know or understand the Law can prevent a man from breaking or corrupting or misusing it. Jeremiah saw the fall of Israel and especially of Judah as primarily the responsibility of the leadership and of the ruling classes. Prophets, priests, kings and courtiers, those who failed to use the responsibility they had been given, were at the root of the nation's fall. Upper-class "professionals", those who reserved for themselves the right of interpreting the law or God's will, those who used their position and learning to foist falsehood on their people, stand condemned. They are as false as their teaching.18 They claim to be learned in the law, whereas they are learned only in evil (xiii 5).19 Those who handle the law do not know Yahweh (ii 8). Those who lie and deceive and commit iniquity refuse to know Yahweh (ix 4-6). That precious gift, knowledge of God, which its bearers fail to transmit to others, they are denied themselves.20 Jeremiah predicts that elitism will now cease. God will give direct, intuitive knowledge of his law; he will himself write it upon men's hearts, and no longer will others be able to falsify it. No one will teach it, no one will be able, by his superior expertise, to use it to his own advantage, no one will be able to claim mitigation through ignorance. They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest of them wecadgedoldm(xxxi 34). (lemiqtanndm This latter phrase is a favourite in the book ofJeremiah. Of the nine occurrences of the phrase with min or leminwith a form of qd.tan,and of 'ad with a form of gddol, representing inclusion, six occur in Jeremiah (xxxi 34, xlii 1,8, xliv 12 being prose, but vi 13 = viii 10 being verse; the others are 1 Sam. v 9, xxx 2, 2 Kings xxv 26). It is possible that vi 13 (= viii 10),gave rise to the others.21 Significantly, its parallel occurrence in viii 10, which is in the same pericope as the above-mentioned viii 8, provides another link with this passage. This then is what is new about the covenant: it will no longer be mediated by scribes and the elite, but will be universally apprehended by one and all, from the greatest to the least. God and ordinary men are linked at last. This is not an "individualism", as Skinner would see it, nor is it universalistic as Lempp maintains.22 It still concerns only Yahweh's chosen people, those of the

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Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Even if, as is likely, the phrase "and with the House ofJudah" is a later interpolation into xxxi 31, it certainly seems to be a correct gloss on the meaning of "Israel" here. With the destruction of both of the Kingdoms there was no reason to differentiate between the remnant population in each. Both were simply "Israel", the term used before the advent of the monarchy and the stratified class system. No new law given, no new covenant. The covenant of Jeremiah was that given at Sinai,23 that which existed before the monarchy, and was preserved primarily in the North where anti-monarchism was stronger. In all his actions and words Jeremiah demonstrated an hostility to the complacency engendered by faith in city, Temple, or king, a faith fostered by the Davidic covenant.24 The older covenant and its (supposed) Law reimposed underJosiah had failed to make its implications felt or to destroy the complacent immorality of the state. The good intentions of the reforming monarch, and the covenant law of Yahweh were frustrated by an obstructive scribal bureaucracy, and open government based on a law to which everyone, including kings, was subject, was frustrated. In the light of this, Jeremiah predicts that "after those days" Yahweh will write his law on the hearts of the House of Israel, and that no one will mediate or teach that law, for all will know Yahweh. Knowledge of him will no longer be the preserve of the wise who say that they have the law with them (viii 8). This is no radical reversal of his earlier pronouncements of doom. That doom was precipitated by the evil of the upper classes and the doom which fell, exile and loss of property and position, primarily affected them. Hope lay not with the exiles but with those left behind, the new "Israel". Hope lies not in the purifying trials of exile but in the creative hand of God which will write on their hearts. It is to them that Jeremiah preaches, perhaps in the period of Gedaliah's governorship when hopes of revival at home were at their highest.25 If the passage is from earlier in his ministry, then Jeremiah is saying that neither God's Law nor his presence would cease even though the state apparatus would be destroyed. The passage would be one of doom as well as hope. If Jeremiah before the Exile is predicting a coming time of popular apprehension, he is preaching the overthrow of the present state system. With this we may compare von Rad's judgement that the adjective "new" in Jer. xxxi 31 "implies the complete negation of the saving events on

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which Israel had hitherto depended. Such a judgment was infinitely harsher than any previous one for it was an out and out challenge to the validity of the basis of salvation on which Israel relied" (E. tr., p. 271). Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah "consigned their audience, and all their contemporaries, to a kingdom of death" (p. 272). I would merely quarrel with the qualifying "all their contemporaries". If the prophecy is from before 586 its outcome may refer to the period immediately after the destruction; if it is from Gedaliah's time it refers to some unstated future. It has been held that the phrase )ahareA hayydmim hdhem is a technical term like be)aharlt hayydmim and refers to the eschaton, but this is by no means certain.26 Faced with the deep-seated problem of human evil, by its occurrence especially in the institutions of power, and by its corrupting and debilitating effect on others when laws and society itself were mishandled, corrupted, and falsified, Jeremiah saw that only by the removal of all the apparatus of secular mediation of divine truth could God speak to men, and men respond to him. All were corrupted, the poor by the rich and powerful, the rich and powerful by their riches and power. The latter were swept into exile where their loss of status and wealth could lay them open to the possibility of renewed divine concern and favour; the former were promised that their ingrained, habitual evil-doing would be expunged, and that the "knowledge of God", previously denied them by the "handlers of the Law" would be given to all, and given directly by God himself. London H. D. Potter

' Cf. O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament(3rd edn, Tibingen, 1964), p. 487 = E. tr. The Old Testament,An Introduction(Oxford, 1964), p. 361. 2 P. Volz, Der ProphetJeremia (Leipzig and Erlangen, 1922), p. xxiv; W. Rudolph, Jeremia (3rd edn, Tiibingen, 1968), p. 201. 3 B. Lindars, "'Rachel weeping for her children' - Jeremiah 31: 15-22", JSOT 12 (1979), pp. 47-62. 4 A. Weiser, Das Buch des Propheten Jeremia (4th edn, G6ttingen, 1960), p. 293 note. 5 B. Duhm, Das Buch Jeremiah (Tubingen and Leipzig, 1901), pp. 254f. The most recent and most trivializing follower of Duhm is Swetnam, who dates these verses to the exilic period and associates them with the rise of the synagogue. What makes the covenant new is the fact that copies are to be used in a liturgy in which knowledge of the covenant is to be directly communicated to all. See J. Swetnam, "Why was Jeremiah's new covenant new?", SVT 26 (1974), pp. 111-15.

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6 C. H. Cornill, Das BuchJeremiah(Leipzig, 1905), ad loc. W.J. Moulton, "The New Covenant in Jeremiah", The Expositor, Series 7,1 (1906), pp. 370-82; J. Bright, Jeremiah (Garden City, New York, 1965), p. 287; "An Exercise in Hermeneutics: Jeremiah 31: 31-34", Interpretation (1966), pp. 188-210; Covenant 20 and Promise (London, 1977), pp. 194ff. 7 S. Herrmann, Die Prophetischen Heilserwartungenin Alten Testament(Stuttgart, 1965); E. W. Nicholson, Preachingto the Exiles (Oxford, 1970), pp. 82ff. 8 P. Buis, "La Nouvelle Alliance", VT 18 (1968), pp. 1-15; J. Coppens, "La Nouvelle Alliance enJer 31, 31-34", CBQ 25 (1963), pp. 12-21. 9 G. von 2 Rad, Theologiedes Alten Testaments (Miinchen, 1962), pp. 224f. = E.tr. Old Testament Theology2 (Edinburgh and London, 1965), pp. 212ff.; R. MartinAchard, "Quelques Remarques sur La Nouvelle Alliance chez Jeremie", in C. Brekelmans (ed.), Questions Disputees d'Ancien Testament. Methode et Theologie, (Louvain, 1974), pp. 141-64. 10 "Jeremiah and the Spiritual Metamorphosis of Israel", ZA W 88 (1976), pp. 17-56, esp. pp. 28ff. 1 Cf. H. H. Rowley, "The ProphetJeremiah and the Book of Deuteronomy", in H. H. Rowley (ed.), Studies in Old TestamentProphecy(Edinburgh, 1950), pp. 157-74, reprinted in Rowley, From Moses to Qumran(London, 1963), pp. 187-208; "The Early Prophecies of Jeremiah in their Setting", BJRL 45 (1962-3), pp. 198-234, reprinted in Rowley, Men of God (London, etc., 1963), pp. 133-68. 12 So Duhm, p. 88; Cornill, p. 116; J. Skinner, Prophecyand Religion (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 163f.; A. C. Welch, Jeremiah, His Time and His Work(Oxford, 1928), p. 91. 13 Jer. xxxii 37-41 may be a later interpretative paraphrase of xxxi 31-34 or another statement by Jeremiah which has subsequently been worked over (so von Rad, p. 226 = E.tr., p. 214). It says no more than the passages quoted above. 14 H. Weippert, "Das Wort vom Neuen Bund inJeremia xxxi 31-34", VT 29 pp. 336-51, esp. p. 343. On the importance of the heart see H. W. Wolff, (1979), Anthropologie des Alten Testaments (2nd edn, Milnchen, 1974), pp. 77-84= E.tr. of Anthropology the Old Testament(London, 1977), pp. 46-51. Von Rad has a similar view on the anthropological emphasis in xxxi 31-34 (p. 226 = E.tr., p. 214). 15 Weippert, p. 344; Wolff, p. 79= E.tr., p. 48. 16 Weippert, p. 346; Rudolph, pp. 113f. 17 On the former possibility seeJ. P. Hyatt, "Torah in the Book of Jeremiah", JBL 66 (1941), pp. 381-96, esp. p. 386; on the latter see R. de Vaux, Les Institutions de I'Ancien Testament2 (Paris, 1957), p. 328 = E.tr. Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions (London, 1961), p. 376; A. Cody, A History of Old TestamentPriesthood (Rome, 1969), p. 136. A possible instance of such scribal manipulation of the Law may be that of the re-enslaving of the freed slaves in Jer. xxxiv. 18 On falsehood see T. W. Overholt, The Threat of Falsehood(London, 1970). 19 The hareac"those who are accustomed to do evil" may be a phrase limmuded sardonic reference to the scribes. This educated class were later called the talmide hakamim who from their superior education and consequently their supposed superior righteousness disdained the common folk. See G. F. Moore, Appendix E in F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake (ed.), The Beginningsof Christianity,Part I, The Acts of the Apostles 1 (London, 1920), pp. 439-45, esp. p. 439. 20 Similarly Hosea lays the chief responsibility for the destruction of Israel on the priests who had neglected their primary duty of transmitting and teaching the Law (Hos. iv 6). Cf. H. W. Wolff, Hosea (2nd edn, Neukirchen, 1965), p. 98 = E.tr. Hosea (Philadelphia, 1974), p. 79; and N. W. Porteous, "The Basis of the Ethical Prophecy Teaching of the Prophets", in H. H. Rowley (ed.), Studies in Old Testament (Edinburgh, 1950), pp. 47-60, esp. p. 53, reprinted in Porteous, Living the Mystery (Oxford, 1967), pp. 47-60.

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21 W. L. Holladay, "Prototype and Copies: a new approach to the poetry-prose problem of the Book of Jeremiah", JBL 79 (1960), pp. 351-67, p. 358. 22 bei Skinner, pp. 321ff., W. Lempp, Bund und Bundeserneurung Jeremia (Diss. Tiibingen, 1955), ThLZ 80 (1955) cols. 238-9. 23 Coppens, p. 15; W. B. Wallis, "Irony in Jeremiah's prophecy of the New Covenant", Journal of the Evangelical TheologicalSociety 12 (1969), pp. 107-10; W. C. Kaiser, "The Old Promise and the New Covenant: Jeremiah 31.31-34", JETS 15 (1972), pp. 11-23. 24 In this connection it is interesting to note that the Ark which was both the contained of the tables of the Law and a symbol of royal authority is rendered redundant in the book of Jeremiah. Jerusalem replaces it as the throne of Yahweh (er. iii 16f.), while a Law written on the heart needs to container other than a man's body. At one go Jeremiah withdraws the Law from the clutches of the scribes and renders a symbol of dynastic power impotent. Cf. T. E. Fretheim, "The Ark in Deuteronomy", CBQ 30 (1968), pp. 1-14; Weinfeld, pp. 20-6. 25 Jeremiah does not rely on the purifying power of exile but on the creative hand of God. Cf. A. B. Davidson, "Jeremiah the Prophet" inJ. Hastings (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible II (Edinburgh and New York, 1899), pp. 569-78. 26 Rudolph, p. 202, M. Sekine, "Davidsbund und Sinaibund beiJeremia", VT 9 (1959), pp. 47-59, p. 55; C. F. Keil, Biblischer Commentar iiberden ProphetenJeremia und die Klagelieder (Leipzig, 1872), p. 337= E.tr., The Prophecies of Jeremiah 2 (Edinburgh, 1874), p. 38.

HEBREW RHM = "RAIN" In his commentary on the Psalms and elsewhere, M. Dahood has convincingly demonstrated that Hebrew tob may occasionally have the meaning "rain" as well as its usual meaning "good".' From among the many passages he cites, we exemplify tob = "rain" with the following passages: Jer. v 24-25 And say not in their hearts "Let us fear Yahweh our God Who gives rain (gesem), the latter and the former, in its season, Who watches for us the weeks appointed for harvest". Your iniquities have diverted these things. Your sins have withheld the rain (ha.t tob) from you. Ps. Ixxxv 13 With a crash Yahweh will give forth rain (ha.t tb) And our land will give forth its produce. Dahood also cites one Ugaritic verse where tbn, the nominal form of tb, "good", may signify "rain". CTA 19 (1 Aqht) I. 45-46: bltbn ql bCl is perhaps to be translated "no rain with the voice of Baal (= thunder)" in accordance with the context.2
Vetus Testamentum XXXIII, 3 (1983)