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88 Jeremiah, the Shoah, and the Restoration of Israel Marvin Sweeney I The Book of Jeremiah is unique among the prophetic books insofar as it presents the oracles and activities of the only one of the prophets to live through the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem . Other prophets may have lived through such catastrophe, for example, Ezekiel received the news of Jerusalem’s fall while living in Babylonian exile, and Isaiah lived at the time of Samaria’s fall to the Assyrian empire, but Jeremiah is the only prophetic book to give its readers a glimpse of life in the doomed city and the struggles in which its inhabitants engaged as they faced the onslaught of the Babylonian army. Indeed, Jeremiah tells his readers more about himself, his own thoughts, and his struggles with his divine commission than any other prophet in the Hebrew Bible. Jeremiah begins his prophetic career in 627 bce at the outset of the reign of King Josiah, which promises a restoration of Judean independence and a reunification of Judah and Israel under Davidic rule, but he lives to see the tragic death of Josiah in 609 bce and the twenty-two-year period that, ultimately, sees the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah in 587 bce. He is a Levitical priest who knows, teaches, and reflects upon past tradition in relation to the circumstances of his own time. He is a political partisan who employs his reflection on past traditions to stake out a political position opposed to that of the pro-Egyptian King Jehoiakim ben Josiah, one that calls for submission to the Babylonian empire rather than opposition to it. He is a man who suffers when his own brothers or fellow priests seek his life, when he denies himself the joys of marriage and family life because he understands that the catastrophe is coming, when he sees his own nation and people devastated after they failed to heed his advice and fought their former Babylonian allies, when he is arrested for treason for speaking his mind, and when he is forced into Egyptian exile against his will to die in a foreign land. Modern critical scholarship recognizes Jeremiah’s engagement with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, although it has not fully recognized the relevance of Jeremiah for issues posed by the Shoah.1 Overall, Jeremiah is portrayed as a prophet of judgment, who proclaims the destruction of Jerusalem, Judah, and the Temple as a result of the people’s failure to observe YHWH’s Torah.2 In general, Jeremiah’s message of judgment is viewed uncritically as the just punishment of a sinful people who are led astray by false prophets who proclaim peace in a time of threat. Scholars who attempt to reconstruct the compositional history of the book generally argue that the earliest material appears in Jeremiah 1–20 or 1–25, which contain the bulk of the poetic oracles of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah.3 Many likewise argue that the narrative material in Jeremiah 26–45, which also includes oracles of restoration in Jeremiah 30–31 and 32–33, is later material that does not necessarily represent the work of the prophet.4 Because of the prevailing view that prophets and priests are fundamentally opposed to each other, Jeremiah’s laments, which are formulated according to the pat- Jeremiah, the Shoah, and the Restoration of Israel 89 terns of cultic poetry that would have been sung by the Temple priests, are often viewed as secondary additions to the text that likewise do not represent the work of Jeremiah himself.5 Indeed, Jeremiah’s priestly identity is often suppressed or overlooked in modern study of the book. Because Jeremiah is clearly a true prophet, his polemics against false prophets are directed against cynical manipulators of public opinion who speak oracles of support for the monarchy, Jerusalem, and the Temple for their own personal gain.6 Although attempts to reconstruct the history of Jeremiah’s composition are both legitimate and necessary, they tend to obscure important aspects of the interpretation of Jeremiah. First is the literary form of the book, which is hardly structured on the basis of an early collection of oracles in Jeremiah 1–25 that has been supplemented by later additions in Jeremiah 26–52. Rather, the literary pattern of presentation of the words of YHWH that came to Jeremiah throughout his lifetime point to a literary structure that portrays the prophet’s reflection on...

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