[b-hebrew] repost of full question

Harold Holmyard hholmyard3 at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 18 17:19:48 EDT 2008


Dirk,
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> If Jeremiah wrote chapter 25 in the 1st year of Neb, and this was 605, and Assyria was crushed in 609, why would Jeremiah have to list it? It was already serving Babylon. "God's wrath" didn't need to be poured out on it - it was already done.
>   

HH: But then its destruction is not part of the prophecy, which speaks 
about what the Lord will do, not what he has done.

HH: But another point is that Jeremiah did not necessarily write the 
prophecy that year. The date is when the incident happened that he 
writes about. One suggestion of this is in v. 13:

Jer. 25:13 I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered 
against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied 
against all the nations.

HH: The book was written later than the prophecy was given, I would think.


> Jeremiah 25:18, does put Jerusalem first on the list, but it also mentions: "Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn and cursing, **as they are today**;" - so something had already started in Jerusalem too. 
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HH: Keil took "as this day" to mean that the prophecy was about to 
happen: "starting from this day." But I think it may be better to assume 
that Jeremiah wrote the history of all this later, once the events had 
happened. So by the time he wrote it down, the realities showed that the 
prophecy had been fulfilled to some extent, as one could see.

HH: It does not seem to make as much to me sense for Jeremiah to 
prophesy something that has already happened. If it has happened, why 
speak about it as something the Lord will do:

Jer. 25:9 I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the 
LORD, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will 
bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these 
nations around; I will utterly destroy them, and make them an object of 
horror and of hissing, and an everlasting disgrace.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown write:

as it is this day--The accomplishment of the curse had already begun 
under Jehoiakim. This clause, however, may have been inserted by 
Jeremiah at his final revision of his prophecies in Egypt.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard



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