Hetty Lalleman - Jeremiah & Lamentations (TOTC)

Volume 21

General Editor: Donald J. Wiseman

An Introduction and Commentary

R. K. Harrison

Additional Notes

The aim of this series of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, as it was in the companion volumes on the New Testament, is to provide the student of the Bible with a handy, up-to-date commentary on each book, with the primary emphasis on exegesis. Major critical questions are discussed in the introductions and additional notes, while undue technicalities have been avoided.

In this series individual authors are, of course, free to make their own distinct contributions and express their own point of view on all controversial issues. Within the necessary limits of space they frequently draw attention to interpretations which they themselves do not hold but which represent the stated conclusions of sincere fellow Christians. The experience of the prophet Jeremiah and his teaching, with its emphasis on a bold personal and practical faith in God in a time of stress and opposition, are as relevant to our time as they were when he spoke and wrote some 2,500 years ago.

In the Old Testament in particular no single English translation is adequate to reflect the original text. The authors of these commentaries freely quote various versions, therefore, or give their own translation, in the endeavour to make the more difficult passages or words meaningful today. Where necessary, words from the Hebrew (and Aramaic) text underlying their studies are transliterated. This will help the reader who may be unfamiliar with the Semitic languages to identify the word under discussion and thus to follow the argument. It is assumed throughout that the reader will have ready access to one, or more, reliable renderings of the Bible in English.

Interest in the meaning and message of the Old Testament continues undiminished and it is hoped that this series will thus further the systematic study of the revelation of God and his will and ways as seen in these records. It is the prayer of the editor and publisher, as of the authors, that these books will help many to understand, and to respond to, the Word of God today.

D. J. Wiseman

The two books which comprise this commentary deal with one of the most tragic events in the life of the Chosen People. The first gives the reader a picture of the carefree Judeans of the pre-exilic period as they indulged shamelessly in the grossest forms of idolatry, ignored the many warnings of impending destruction given by their compatriot Jeremiah, and finally brought their long-promised ruin down on their heads. The second book shows something of the devastation and agony which accompanied divine judgment on national sin when Jerusalem fell in 587 BC . Together they formulate a theology of disaster commensurate with the nature of the catastrophe, but by their insistence upon the ethos of the Sinai covenant they point the way through suffering to spiritual renewal.

Relevant archaeological discoveries have been brought to bear upon the material under consideration, and the most significant textual problems have been discussed in the appropriate places in the commentary sections. Dates have been written in the form 605/4 BC because the Hebrew year did not coincide with the January-to-December period of our Western civil year.

I wish to express my thanks to the Rev. Norman Green, Assistant Director of the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto, for his great kindness and skill in correcting the proofs of this book, and to Professor D. J. Wiseman for his general oversight of the work.

R. K. Harrison

Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

J. Bright, Jeremiah (1965).

A. Condamin, Le Livre de Jrmie (1920).

H. Freedman, Jeremiah (1949).

J. P. Hyatt, The Interpreters Bible (1956), V, pp. 7771142.

H. T. Kuist, The Book of Jeremiah (1960).

J. Muilenberg, The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (1962), II, pp. 823835.

T. W. Overholt, The Threat of Falsehood (1970).

J. Skinner, Prophecy and Religion (1922).

D. W. Thomas, The Prophet in the Lachish Ostraca (1946).

J. G. S. S. Thomson, The New Bible Dictionary (1962), pp. 606611.

H. Torczyner, Lachish I, The Lachish Letters (1938).

A. C. Welch, Jeremiah (1928).

G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (1957).

B. Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations (1963).

S. Goldman, Lamentations in A. Cohen (ed.), The Five Megilloth (1959).

N. K. Gottwald, Studies in the Book of Lamentations (1954).

R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (1969), pp. 10651071.

D. R. Hillers, Lamentations (1972).

A. S. Peake, Jeremiah and Lamentations (1912).

A. W. Streane, Jeremiah and Lamentations (1913).

The book of Jeremiah received its name from its attributive author, the celebrated seventh-century BC prophet of Judah. It occupied a consistent position between Isaiah and Ezekiel in the Hebrew canon, although a rabbinic tradition, preserved in