Читать книгу Jeremiah 26-52 - Carolyn Sharp - Страница 31

At the opening of the second half of Jeremiah, in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (608 BCE),³ the prophet is charged with speaking to “all the cities of Judah—those who come to worship in the house of Yhwh.” Jeremiah is called a prophet (נביא) 32 times in the book that bears his name, including in his commissioning in 1:5, rightly considered by Jonathan Stökl and many to be a postexilic introduction to Jeremiah.⁴ The historical conception of the role of the prophet is expansive here, and strikingly different from the chief role of prophets in the DtrH, whose function is to serve as political advisors to monarchs.⁵ Jeremiah’s task is to warn the people so that they might repent—each person to “turn from their evil way”—and the fate of the people as a whole depends on the choice of each member of the covenant community to choose obedience to Yhwh.

This story of Jeremiah’s prophetic performance in the court of Yhwh’s house is closely related to 7:1–8:3, a block of material that reads as if it were a single prophetic performance of several oracles, but which has certainly been redacted; Maier sees in Jer 7 an exilic redaction and postexilic additions.⁶ Literary connections between Jeremiah’s temple sermon in ch. 7 and the confrontation with officials and people here in ch. 26 invite the implied audience to consider carefully their own reception of Jeremiah’s preaching. Kathleen O’Connor has styled ch. 26 a “midrashic elaboration” of 7:1–15 that “dramatically underscores the decision facing the community which this text places before them anew—to accept or reject the prophetic word.”⁷ Prominent among the linkages between Jer 7 and 26 are the mention of Yhwh’s “servants the proph­ets,” sent tirelessly by the deity to catalyze repentance but to no avail (7:25–26; 26:5) and the threatened destruction of Jerusalem as cultic center just as Shiloh had been destroyed (7:14; 26:6).

The prophet had delivered in the court of the Jerusalem temple an oracle that would have chilled his audience to their core. In 7:12, Yhwh says, “Just go to my house which had been at Shiloh, where formerly I had caused my name to dwell, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel!” Now Yhwh would “do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh” (7:14). ­“I will make this place like Shiloh” This threat is dire: it means nothing less than divine abandonment of the Jerusalem temple (see Ps 78:60). There is a more sustained, narrativized reflection of the motif of divine abandonment in Ezekiel, which shows the implied audience the divine Presence departing from Jerusalem because of the sins of the people: Yhwh’s chariot moves in stages eastward toward Babylonia (see the trajectory traced by Ezek 9:3; 10:4, 18–19; 11:16, 22–23). Such divine abandonment, threatened in Jer 7:12–14 and 26:4–6, would leave Jerusalem unprotected by its God and at the mercy of its enemies. Hermann-Josef Stipp links Jer 26 and 36 due to their shared and transparent critique of elite officials, assigning both texts to a post-Dtr stratum of tradition.⁸ Mark Leuchter has argued that Jer 26 and other Jeremiah passages in which the narratives characterize priests as antagonists of the prophet are critical of “priestly circles in Jerusalem,” constituting “a scribal assault on Zadokite exclusivity,” and should be interpreted in the context of a struggle for authority between Deuteronomists and Zadokites in the late preexilic period and on into the exile.⁹

­Shiloh in ­historical ­memory Shiloh, located in the hill country of Ephraim between Bethel to the south and Shechem to the north, had once been important in Israel’s cultic and political life. Several narratives in the Deuteronomistic History feature Shiloh. In material that expresses cultural memories of Israel’s forcible dispossession of Canaanite indigenes, Joshua had gathered all Israel to Shiloh, ordered the surveying of territory that had not yet been apportioned, and given allotments to Benjamin (Jeremiah’s tribe), Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan, and the town of Timnath-serah to Joshua himself (Josh 18:1–19:51). That a matter of such moment would have been narratively sited at Shiloh indicates the importance of the city in the memory of later scribes.

The shrine at Shiloh is remembered also in the cycle of stories about the fearsome judge Samuel, the priest Eli, and Eli’s malfeasant sons Hophni and Phineas (1 Sam 1:3; 2:12–14) as a place of theophany (1 Sam 3:21). The ark of the covenant is housed at Shiloh until the military threat posed by the Philistines spurs the Israelite elders to relocate it, a futile move because the Philistines capture the ark and keep it for seven months (1 Sam 4–6). Shiloh’s destruction as such is not narrated in the books of Samuel. In a story set in the divided monarchy, Shiloh is remembered as still existing in some recognizable form, because an elderly prophet, Ahijah, is said to be resident there during the reign of Jeroboam, thus in the late tenth century BCE (1 Kgs 14:2). The question of whether that narratological move can be mapped accurately onto history cannot be resolved. Some scholars, from William F. Albright (1891–1971) to Aharon Kempinski (1939–1994) and Israel Finkelstein today, aver that Shiloh was destroyed by the Philistines. ­The battle of Aphek Kempinski writes of archaeological evidence at Shiloh, “At the battle of Aphek the tribes of Israel suffered a severe defeat, and in consequence the Philistines conquered Shiloh…. Traces of this destruction were discovered in the excavations,” for in Middle Bronze strata were found “sherds of juglets, lamps, bowls, and other potsherds,” along with “a stone oven” and “six collared-rim storage jars…. in the destruction level [that] dates the Philistine conquest of Shiloh to the mid-eleventh century BCE.”¹⁰

The threat Jeremiah pronounces is that if Judah continues to ignore covenant stipulations, Yhwh will “make this house like Shiloh.” The warning is aimed directly at the political infrastructure. Any threat to the Jerusalem temple would constitute a threat to dismantle the pragmatic center of Jerusalem’s theopolitical life, as well as its most enduring symbol. The prophet’s words are stark: if the people fail to repent, the temple will become no more than an abandoned shrine.

­Signal of ­conditional ­possibility But “perhaps” Judah will repent. The adverb אולי (“perhaps”) occurs in Jeremiah only at 20:10; 21:2; 26:3; 36:3, 7; 51:8. Much hangs in the balance in these verses that flag moments of conditional possibility. In 20:10, the poet imagines the foes of Jeremiah speculating that “perhaps” he will be overcome by them, a central concern of Jeremiah signaled in the prophet’s commissioning (1:8) and dramatized in the laments of Jeremiah (11:18–20; 12:1–6; 15:10–21; 17:14–18; 18:18–23; 20:7–18). In 21:2, with Jerusalem under assault from Babylonian troops, Zedekiah sends a message to Jeremiah by priestly envoys to learn whether “perhaps” Yhwh will perform a miraculous deliverance for the covenant people. Here in 26:3, the possibility that repentance could stay the execution of Judah’s theopolitical life is presented in clear terms, heard by the priests, the (other) prophets, and all the people (v. 7): none would be able to object that they had not known they should repent. In 36:3, 7, “perhaps” is used to signal the potential efficacy of a written scroll of the prophet’s oracles, every word of Yhwh spoken to Jeremiah from his commissioning until that moment in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Baruch is to read this scroll aloud to all the Judeans who are coming to Jerusalem (36:6), something that might have spurred Judah to turn back to Yhwh. Finally, in 51:8 is an ironic “perhaps” about the possibility of archenemy Babylon being healed of the wounds that Yhwh will inflict. The series of moments of אולי, “perhaps,” serves to highlight that none of the flagged possibilities had come to fruition. Jeremiah’s adversaries did not prevail against the heroic prophet; Yhwh did not deliver Jerusalem; the leaders and people of Judah did not repent; Jerusalem did not avoid destruction; and the Neo-Babylonian Empire would face inexorable judgment at the hand of Yhwh. The historical consciousness of the postexilic scribes may be glimpsed at each of these אולי moments as they wrestle with what had happened to their country, their temple, and the lives of their families.

That Judah has not paid heed to the law of Yhwh is the undergirding assumption throughout the Jeremiah poetic oracles and prose narratives. The “perhaps” to which the prophet gestures—“perhaps they will pay heed,” v. 3—is a rhetorical gesture intended to dramatize the possibilities for survival and flourishing that the people themselves have foreclosed by their sin. The divine threat is further amplified in the second clause of v. 6. ­Ancient Near Eastern cursesNot only will the temple be destroyed and abandoned; Yhwh will make the entire city of Jerusalem “an execrated thing” (קללה) in the sight of “all the nations of the earth,” including, of course, Judah’s sworn enemies. Onlookers—both actual passersby and the implied audience imagining this scene—will be repulsed and horrified by the fate of Jerusalem as a city abjected, cast out, rendered an appalling heap of ruins. This horrifying cursed state is inseparable from the divine purpose of Yhwh, in whose name Jeremiah speaks. Anne Marie Kitz affirms that linkage in what she says about cursing in the ancient Near East more generally:

So close is the connection between curses and their heavenly derivation that curses can become deities themselves. They separate the dead from the living. They are disease, calamity, ailment, and misadventure. They are the agents of death. They are the personification of divine weapons, the instruments used in the execution of the evil embedded in every malediction. They are executioner deities, dispatched by their divine lord and master to do his will.¹¹

The language of 26:4–6 expresses that the horror to befall Jerusalem will have been dispatched by Yhwh as the material execution of divine displeasure. In the ancient Near Eastern cultural milieu would have been knowledge of the possible consequences of various curses uttered by a deity, as Kitz describes them:

They alter their targets. They are distorting and disfiguring. Deformation is therefore a divine malediction’s most distinguishing characteristic…. Dissolution is yet another consequence of heavenly curses. In this case, godly imprecations seek to reverse the soundness of a composite object. They undo the parts that give an item its identity and destroy it by sending its various [constitutive] elements back to their respective sources.¹²

Hearing Yhwh’s threat, the Judean people, understandably alarmed, throng Jeremiah in what is best understood as a scene of looming mob violence that threatens to result in extrajudicial execution (vv. 7–9).

­Adjudication in the ­city ­gateJudean officials arrive (v. 10), taking up their seats in the New Gate as a signal that they are prepared to adjudicate the dispute. Walled cities in ancient Judah included passageways and chambers within the double-walled fortifications. Gates in the inner and outer walls could be guarded or opened to facilitate entry; the space between inner and outer gates, protected from the sun and perhaps cooled by breezes when both gates were open, would be used as a meeting place for elders and others who wished to meet their neighbors and monitor what was going on. That there was ample space in city gates for gathering is clear from Josh 2, in which the Canaanite Rahab is said to reside within the Jericho city wall (2:15). Narrative and poetics texts in the Hebrew Bible represent the public space of the city gate as a place for observation of social and political developments affecting the community, adjudication of informal disputes, disposition of legal transactions, and arbitration of juridical cases, including the carrying out of the death penalty. Among many allusions to judicial and quasi-judicial arbitration in a city gate, the reader may see Gen 23:17–18; Deut 22:15, 24; 25:7; Josh 20:4; Ruth 4:1–6; 2 Sam 15:2–6; 1 Kgs 22:10; Job 29:7–17; 31:21; Isa 29:21; Amos 5:10, 15; Prov 31:23.

The charge laid against the prophet is that he has committed treason against the Jerusalem establishment, a capital offense (the phrase משפט־מות occurs twice in Jer 26 and only otherwise in the Hebrew Bible in Deut 19:6; 21:22). Rebutting this charge, the prophet claims his authorization from none other than Yhwh. ­Blood of the innocent Jeremiah then reverses the liability, arguing that because he has been divinely appointed to proclaim judgment, those who would seek to have him executed will themselves be guilty of a capital offense, viz., shedding innocent blood. To bring upon oneself “innocent blood” (דם נקי, in Jeremiah only at 26:15) was understood to be a grievous matter. In Deut 19:10, cities of refuge are to be established to provide sanctuary for perpetrators of accidental manslaughter so they will not be killed in revenge and thereby their “innocent blood” would be spilled. In Deut 21:8, the phrase occurs in conjunction with the discovery of the body of a homicide victim whose killer is unknown. In Deut 27:25, the phrase occurs in a series of curses leveled against “anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.” Manasseh is excoriated in 2 Kgs 21 not only for having rebuilt illicit shrines, erected altars to other gods, and practiced sorcery, but for having “shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to [the other]” (v. 16; see also 24:4). In Ps 106:37–38, the sacrifice of children to demons is characterized as “pour[ing] out innocent blood”; in Prov 6:17 and Isa 59:7, shedding “innocent blood” is listed in a cascade of immoral behaviors that anger Yhwh. Here in Jer 26:15, the prophet’s warning must be understood as dire: if the angry mob lynches him, they will be “bringing innocent blood” not only upon themselves but upon all Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s painting of their behavior with the colors of such repellent immorality has an immediate sobering effect in the narrative: the officials and all the people defend the prophet and reverse the tide of violence.

This narrative gives us a view into an unfolding juridical process in which witnesses for the prosecution (“the priests and the prophets”) argue with witnesses for the defense, presenting different dimensions of the case against Jeremiah. The shifting position of the people—originally against the prophet, but subsequently persuaded by Jeremiah—may have little to do with the historical role of angry mobs in judicial processes in ancient Jerusalem, but it does express the ways in which public sentiment can be fluid in times of political conflict.

­Juridical ­precedentIn Jeremiah’s defense is mustered a case from generations earlier—that of Micah of Moresheth, another prophet who delivered blistering words of judgment—and a counter-case from the time of Jehoiakim involving a prophet named Uriah son of Shemaiah, said to be from Kiriath-jearim. This Uriah is otherwise known. Lundbom offers that the individual’s name and patronymic were common, “both showing up on the Arad ostraca,” and adding, “‘Uriah’ has also appeared on the ‘Ophel Ostracon,’ a Khirbet el-Qom tomb inscription, and numerous seals,” while “Shemaiah” has been found “on the Lachish ostraca, the Wadi Murabba‘at Papyrus, and other contemporary seals and bullae.”¹³ In connection with the Uriah incident, Elnathan son of Achbor is mentioned in Jer^MT 26:22 (the name is absent from Jer^LXX here) and in 36:12, 25. The ruler Jehoiachin is said to be the grandson of one “Elnathan of Jerusalem” (2 Kgs 24:8), but the name “Elnathan” is known in other eras as well (see, e.g., Ezra 8:16). Scholars have debated whether the portrayal of Elnathan in 26:22, where he leads a team sent by Jehoiakim forcibly to extradite the prophet Uriah from Egypt, can be read as congruent with the portrayal of Elnathan in 36:25, where he and others plead with Jehoiakim to cease his wanton obliteration of the scroll of Jeremiah.¹⁴ There can be no adjudication of the character of Elnathan in historical terms. In literary terms, though, the astute reader might discern a subtle point about the authority of Jeremiah: even the ruthless Elnathan son of Achbor, who had been loyal to Jehoiakim with fatal consequences for an earlier true prophet (the hapless Uriah), balks at Jehoiakim’s destruction of Jeremiah’s oracles in Jer 36.

­Corpse ­defilement The penultimate verse of this chapter is chilling: Uriah had been executed and his corpse treated with disrespect. Jürgen Kegler rightly observes, “The manner of burial shows that … intimidation is intended: the mistreatment of corpses or their treatment in ways clearly meant to dishonor them symbolizes victory over the slain person and … serves to intimidate his sympathizers.”¹⁵ Through this image in v. 23 of Jehoiakim’s dishonoring of the corpse of Uriah, the dramatic tension is heightened anew for the implied audience standing with Jeremiah.

At the end of the tumultuous narrative of Jer 26, Ahikam son of Shaphan protects Jeremiah from the danger of summary execution via mob violence. The verse strikes the reader’s ear as unusual, for its blunt articulation and because this is the first mention of Ahikam in Jeremiah. Many read it as a redactional addition, and that may well be its historical provenance. But in keeping with the narratological dynamics, it also reads as a strong signal of support for Jeremiah in this dramatic scene in which the volatility of sentiment against the prophet continues to surge. See further in the Synchronic Analysis below for the significance of Ahikam in this highly literary portrayal of threat against Jeremiah.

­The ­lineage of ­Shaphan The Shaphanides are represented in the Deuteronomistic History and in Jeremiah as a politically influential scribal family. Shaphan son of Azaliah son of Meshullam is said to have held an authoritative position in the royal administration of Josiah. According to 2 Kgs 22, it is the scribe Shaphan who, in the course of fulfilling his duty to oversee the accounting for and disbursement of monies gathered at the Jerusalem temple, learns from the high priest Hilkiah that he has found a scroll of the law (or Torah, or “teaching”: ספר התורה, 2 Kgs 22:8) in the temple. Shaphan reads the scroll himself, then reads it to Josiah. In this dramatic narrative, the king’s shocked realization that the people of Judah have failed to observe Torah stipulations spurs Josiah to send a delegation—including Shaphan and his son Ahikam—to consult the prophet Huldah. The stricken king learns that Yhwh plans to bring disaster on Judah because the Judeans and their ancestors “have abandoned me and made offerings to other gods” (2 Kgs 22:17). This is the impetus behind the Josianic reforms narrated in 2 Kgs 23. Shaphanides in 2 Kgs and in the Dtr-Jer prose are portrayed as faithful, Torah-observant officials, as are two other scribal lineages, those of Achbor (Jer 26:22; 36:12) and Mahseiah (32:12; 51:59), whose son Neriah is the father of Baruch and Seraiah.¹⁶ However the political disputes may have unfolded historically during the Babylonian crisis, these kinship groups have been remembered in the Jeremiah traditions as heroes. As Christl Maier observes, members of the Judean aristocracy—the שׂרים, translated in these pages as “officials”—clearly were invested in claiming a role in the postexilic community as those who had supported Jeremiah.¹⁷ By late exilic and postexilic times, the beleaguered Jeremiah had been vindicated as a true prophet.