Jeremiah and God’s Plans of Well-Being by Barbara Green (review)

In Jeremiah and God’s Plans of Well-Being, Barbara Green seeks to provide a coherent account of the book of Jeremiah through literary analysis. This is no easy task, as Jeremiah has often been viewed as a complex of disparate sources, unified loosely around the persona of the prophet. Green presents a compelling reading, however, of the “shape and function given to the character Jeremiah” as a literary construct, in order to “mediate God’s plans of well-being for the people of Judah”(3). In so doing, she also provides a rich account of the characterization of God, as God interacts with the prophet and the people.

Green clearly defines the scope and method of her analysis. Her book does not address the composition of the book of Jeremiah or a historical reconstruction of the described events. She also does not engage with many of the contemporary methodologies that highlight incoherence or contemporary reception. She focuses instead on the literary projection of the prophet through seven stages of his ministry, as he discovers, proclaims, occasionally resists, and ultimately fails to successfully convey his prophetic message to the people: that they must go early and willingly into exile. In all of this, Green explores the dynamics of prophetic speech, in which God must convince Jeremiah of the divine plan, and Jeremiah must in turn attempt to convince the people.

Each chapter begins with a presentation of the proposed unit’s structure, highlighting its rhetorical progression. The division of the chapters mirrors Green’s division of the material, providing the reader an invaluable map of this rich prophetic book.

The first chapter treats Jeremiah’s call and commission (Jeremiah 1) together with what Green calls his “rhetorical workshop,” the oracles against the nations (Jeremiah 46–51). These together mark the starting point in Jeremiah’s prophetic education. Chapter 2 presents a complex discourse among God, Jeremiah, Lady Zion, and the men of Judah in Jeremiah 2–10. This dialogue spans the whole of God’s relationship with God’s people, from the Exodus through to the inevitability of the exile

Chapters 3 and 4 deal with Jeremiah 11–20. In the twelve prose units, God moves Jeremiah to the realization that a removal from the land is imminent. There are three possible responses for the people: to hold fast without change and be destroyed, to resist captivity, or to accept the dire situation and perhaps produce a hope for future return. Green asserts that this final option, of early and willing departure from the land, is the plan that God desires to convey to the people through Jeremiah. The interspersed poetic units characterize both Jeremiah and God. Green’s analysis of the divine soliloquies is particularly developed. Through these soliloquies, the deity gradually progresses to justified certainty concerning the options available for the people of Jerusalem as well as God’s role in their fate. The decision, which the people must then accept, is “quasi-voluntary resettlement while maintaining trust in YHWH” (99).

Chapter 5 presents the realization of these options, both viable and destructive, in Jeremiah 21–39. Green identifies a loosely structured chiasm: Jeremiah’s presentation of God’s plan clusters in the first half and the corresponding enactments of the presented options cluster in the second half.

The strength of Green’s analysis is clearly displayed in chapter 6: at this moment the prophet’s presentation of viable and non-viable options for survival are tested and tried. King Zedekiah is slaughtered after witnessing horrible violence. Even the group who chooses to stay in Judah under Babylonian rule (Jeremiah included!) experience the dissolution of this initially attractive possibility. The aftermath for those who chose the negative options serve to highlight the single salvific option of early and willing exile.

The final chapter gives form to the divine plan of well-being that is discovered throughout the convoluted dialogue and drama...