Juha Pakkala on Jeremiah 32:5 (MT) and 39:5 (LXX)

Jeremiah 32:5 (39:5 LXX)

 

Jer 32:3b-5 MT	Jer 39:3b-5 LXX
3 . . . ‎כה אמר יהוה ‎הנני נתן את־העיר הזאת ביד ‎מלך־בבל ולכדה 4 ‎וצדקיהו מלך יהודה לא ימלט מיד ‎הכשׂדים כי הנתן ינתן ‎ביד מלך־בבל ‎ודבר־פיו עם־פיו ועיניו את-עינ)י(ו ‎תראינה 5 ‎ובבל יולך את־צדקיהו ‎ושׁם יהיה ‎עד־פקדי אתו נאם־יהוה ‎כי תלחמו את־הכשׂדים לא תצליחו	3. . . Οὕτως εἶπεν κύριος ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ δίδωμι τὴν πόλιν ταύτην ἐν χερσὶν βασιλέως Βαβυλῶνος καὶ λήμψεται αὐτήν 4 καὶ Σεδεκιας οὐ μὴ σωθῇ ἐκ χειρὸς τῶν Χαλδαίων ὅτι παραδόσει παραδοθήσεται εἰς χεῖρας βασιλέως Βαβυλῶνος καὶ λαλήσει στόμα αὐτοῦ πρὸς στόμα αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ ὄψονται 5 καὶ εἰσελεύσεται Σεδεκιας εἰς Βαβυλῶνα καὶ ἐκεῖ καθιεῖται
3 . . . Thus says Yhwh: “I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; 4 Zedekiah King of Judah will not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but will surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will speaks with him mouth to mouth and his eyes will see his eye(s); 5 and he will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he will remain until I attend to him, word of Yhwh; although you fight again the Chaldeans, you will not succeed.”	3 . . . Thus says Yhwh: “I will give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; 4 Zedekiah will not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but will surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth and his eyes will see his eyes; 5 and will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he will remain.”

 

As for its general context, one is immediately struck by the contradiction between this passage and 2 Kgs 24:18-25:7. According to 2 Kgs 25:7, Zedekiah’s sons were killed in front of his eyes, after which he was blinded and sent to Babylon in shackles. His later whereabouts are not mentioned in 2 Kings, but it is implied that he was left imprisoned and forgotten. Jeremiah 32:4-5 gives a much more positive impression about the fate of the last king of Judah. Although it also deals with Zedekiah’s fate, there is no reference to his sons being killed and the imprisonment in shackles is also not mentioned. The lack of reference to the blinding is highlighted by the explicit reference to Zedekiah seeing the king of Babylonia eye to eye. It appears that the author of Jer 32:3bβ-5 was unfamiliar with 2 Kgs 24:18-25:7 or he intentionally contradicted this passage. . . . Our interest culminates in Jer 32:3bβ-5 (LXX 39:5) and its phrase עד-פקרי אחו. It is not immediately clear what is meant by פקר. The word is used in various meanings, but they are basically two alternatives. It could refer to a punishment:” and he will take Zedekiah to Babylon and there he will remain until I punish him,” or, alternatively, it refers to the reversal of Zedekiah’s fate: “and he will take Zedekiah to Babylon and there he will remain until I attend to him.” Although semantically possible, the first alternative is improbable in this context, because the loss of kingship and expulsion to Babylon is already a very severe punishment, perhaps this ultimate punishment for a king. A reference to an upcoming punishment would make little sense here, especially since no further punishment is mentioned. עד-פקרי אחו is comprehensible only if it refers to the opposite of what has been described in the previous text, to the reversal of Zedekiah’s fate. The misery of imprisonment and shame as described in Jer 32:5aα would continue in Babylon until Yhwh attends to him, implying that Zedekiah’s fate would be reversed. This interpretation is well in line with other passages in Jeremiah, which imply that Zedekiah’s fate was more positive that what is described in 2 Kgs 25:7.

 

A reference to the reversal of Zedekiah’s fate was the main problem with Jer 32:5. The influence of 1-2 Kings (and Deuteronomistic conceptions in general) is evident in many passages in Jeremiah. When the book of Jeremiah was later harmonized with the conceptions rising out of 1-2 Kings, the contradiction between 2 Kgs 25:7 and Jer 32:5 became evident. This is probably the main reason for the omission in the LXX tradition. The conceptions about what happened to Zedekiah were harmonized and this necessitated an omission in Jer 32:5. There appears to be a general development in the LXX version of Jeremiah to make Zedekiah a more evil king, as shown by Hermann Josef Stipp (“Zedekiah in the Book of Jeremiah: On the Formation of a Biblical Character, CBQ 58 [1996]: 612-638), which further suggests that the LXX is secondary in Jer 32:5. In comparison, the late addition of a reference to the reversal of Zedekiah’s fate in the MT would make little sense, because on the basis of 2 Kgs 25 Jehoiachin’s line gradually came to be regarded as the only legitimate one, and this interpretation is also represented in literature (for example, according to 1 Chr 3:17, Shealtiel was son of Jehoiachin [Jeconiah]. Through him the line would have continued to Zerubbabel. The same conception is also found in Matt 1:12-13). Consequently, the reference to the reversal of Zedekiah’s fate in the MT probably derives from a period when there was at least some hope for that Zedekiah’s dynastic line could continue and when there were still supporters of his dynastic line. The shorter LXX, would then have to be seen as a later development where the conceptions of 1-2 Kings have established themselves and Jehoiachin’s dynastic line is seen as the only legitimate one. (Juha Pakkala, God's Word Omitted: Omissions in the Translation of the Hebrew Bible [Forschungen zur Religion und Lieratur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 251; Bristol, Conn.: Vandenhoeck and Reprecht, 2013], 113-16, emphasis in bold added)