Between Fear and Freedom: Essays on the Interpretation of Jeremiah 30–31. By Bob Becking. Pp. viii + 338. (Oudtestamentische Studiën, 51.) Leiden: Brill, 2004. isbn 90 04 14118 9. €90/$120.

Abstract

The book offers a translation and structural analysis of Jer. 30:1–31:40 and five exegetical studies of Jer. 30:5–11; 30:12–17; 31:15–22; 31:29–30; 31:31–7 respectively. It is designed to throw new light on the sequence of visions for a future of Jacob (Israel) in its land and the culmination of this sequence in the idea of a new covenant. As the subtitle indicates, the studies (pp. 135–272) are revised versions of earlier essays, published between 1989 and 2003. Becking advocates a shift in methodological orientation in Old Testament exegesis. While historical issues, including the question of the literary growth of individual texts and the redaction history of a wider literary complex, are reduced to a question of ‘context’ and find a very general answer (cf. esp. pp. 242, 275, 300), the emphasis is now put on the literary shape and conceptual coherence of a text. From this starting point, Becking devotes chapter 3 to the macrostructure of Jeremiah 30–1 and the microstructure of its several components (pp. 49–134). The entire sequence of texts is regarded as one unified poetic composition, a ‘canto’, which consists of ten ‘sub-cantos’ A–J (plus an introduction, 30:1–3, and an ‘envelope’, 30:4 and 31:26). Each of these comprises a number of ‘canticles’ which in turn comprise a number of ‘strophes’ consisting of a number of ‘lines’. The advantage of the suggested system is its unlimited flexibility. The character of the ‘lines’ is such that even a prose text can be construed as a synthesis of small poetic units, a ‘strophe’ can consist of any number of lines between two and eight (in the texts under scrutiny), a ‘canticle’ of one to four strophes, and a ‘sub-canto’ of one to three canticles. What is striking about this system is the fact that—despite a cautionary note on p. 50—it is intended to be an analysis of a purposeful compositional structure of the text rather than an attempt to make a given text suitable for a liturgical reading. Furthermore, it seems far from obvious that the programme of ‘delimitation criticism’, for which Becking refers to M. C. A. Korpel and J. C. de Moor's study of Isaiah 44–55, The Structure of Classical Hebrew Poetry (1998), should provide a functional methodology for explaining the origin of a text in a single act of composition rather than through an extended process of literary development, and the problem of a conceivable adaptation of compositional structures through secondary additions is not considered.