'Do not Diminish a Word' in Jeremiah 26:2: Its Theological Imports and Impact on Je

                                                           CHAPTER ONE  
                                                   GENERAL INTRODUCTION  
1.1 BACKGROUND  
The people of Ancient Near East understood ‘spoken word’ to be an entity imbued with dynamic power. We have human word and divine word. Biblically, divine word is God’s revelation of his will and purpose.  It is the driving force of history. “In Egypt and Mesopotamia, the divine word was a creative force educing the world into existence. In Mesopotamia the divine decree determining the various fates was the power that moved and directed the course of event.”  In other words, the creative and sustaining power of the world is the divine word.  
Human word is also considered potent but in comparison to divine word, its potency is less in degree. The power of human word is demonstrated “in solemn utterances such as blessings and curses, contract; promises, and other process that were intended to stabilize human relations.”3 With regards to the power of human word, Joseph Omoregbe comments on Awolowo thus:  
“dialectics, according to Awo, begins with thought. For human thoughts, words, and deeds are dynamic. Every thought, word or deed sets certain forces in motion.”    
The dynamism of word depends on the psychic power of the person whose word it is. Hence, it is written: “The power of the word is rooted in the power of the person. By speaking, one externalizes oneself or releases psychic energy. The permanence and energy of personal volition reach the external world through spoken word, and the spoken word retains these qualities of  
   
permanence and energy.”  Then, the difference between the dynamism of divine word and human word is clear: it is the difference between man and God; in the dynamism of person. Another dimension of the word is that it has power to make things intelligible. John McKenzie says:  
Correlative with the dynamic aspect of the word is dianoetic aspect, i.e, its ability to render things intelligible. This is the function of the word name. To know the name is to experience the dynamism of the word in the reverse direction; as the power of the person determines reality by conferring the name, so the power of person apprehends reality by knowing the name.    
 
Prophetic word is the word of Yahweh placed in the mouth of the prophet. McKenzie writes:  
“Most occurrences of ‘the word of Yahweh’ designate the prophetic word; the word is the specific charism of the prophet, as tôrâ (law) is the charism of the priest, and counsel the charism of the sage (Jer.18:18).”   
He gives a clear understanding of prophetic word when he says: “the prophetic word is misunderstood if one thinks of it as merely the experience of hearing; it is the reception of a positive dynamic reality that arises from the power of the person of Yahweh and compels the prophet to speak (Amos 3:8).”  This means that prophetic word is more than merely hearing the word to include the experience of the dynamic power of the person, Yahweh, whose word it is. For Jeremiah, the experience of the word of Yahweh includes that of joy and delight (15:16), a burning fire in one’s bones (20:7-9), a wrath that one must pour out (6:11). To crown it all, prophet Isaiah says that the word of God does not return empty nor does he call back his word until it accomplishes its purpose (45:23; 55:10-11; 31:2). With this projection of prophetic word it seems that the word is endowed with the power to compel the prophet to speak, that is, the  
   
prophet is left with no option than to speak during the experience. Then one may ask why God still needs to instruct Jeremiah not to diminish the word. The injunction presupposes that Jeremiah is free and as such not under compulsion during the experience. It is on this note that the injunction constitutes the trust of this long essay.   
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM  
As it has been noted above, the word of God is dynamic; it has intrinsic power for fulfillment. The word of God is alive and active; spirit and life. It causes the soul which receives it to act accordingly. The experiences of Jeremiah confirm the dynamism of the word of God. Jeremiah confesses: “if I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name’, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in and I cannot” (Jer.20:7). Ordinarily, one would have expected that there is no need for the injunction, do not diminish a word. Then the problem arises: why does God border to give that injunction to Jeremiah? Some say that it was because Jeremiah stood the risk of compromising the word. It has also been said that the book of Jeremiah is written such that Jeremiah could be seen as the new Moses. In this case, the injunction could be likened to Moses’ instruction in Deuteronomy 4:2; 13:1. The varying nature of scholarly conjectures about this injunction creates room for further contribution. This long essay seeks to conduct exegetical study of the injunction so as to affirm its theological import and its impact on Jeremiah.   
1.3 AIMS OF STUDY  
The primary aim of this work is to do exegesis on the injunction, “do not diminish a word”, that God gave to Jeremiah in chapter 26:2. The work researches into the theological understanding of the injunction and its impact on Jeremiah. It aims primarily at emphasizing the inviolability of human freewill, the nature of true prophet, the nature of God’s word and revelation as a sign of  
God’s love.   
1.4 SCOPE OF STUDY  
Without denying the fact that Jeremiah 26 has other verses, the pericope shall be verse two with primary emphasis on Jer. 26:2A!. The pericope shall be discussed alongside with the whole chapter and other relevant passages.   
1.5 METHODOLOGY  
This essay is analytical, expository and theological in approach. It is analytical because it exegetically looks at the injunctions in Jeremiah 26:2. It is expository in the sense that it brings out the theological import that are latent in it and its theological approach comes from the fact that it employs hermeneutics of faith, that is, the interpretation is done in light of the faith of the people of God. It sees the text as being inspired by God.  
The work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter discusses general introduction which includes background to the study, statement of problem that serves as impetus to the study, scope of the study, aim of study, methodology and some issues about Jeremiah and his book. Chapter two takes a critical look at some scholarly opinions about Jer. 26:2. Chapter three deals with the exegetical study of Jeremiah 26:2. Chapter four evaluates the work by discussing the theological import and impact of the injunction, אַל־תִּגְַרַעָּ  דָּ בר, ‘do not diminish a word’ in Jeremiah’s experience.   
1.6 JEREMIAH’S TIME  
Jeremiah was said to be born around 650 B.C and started his prophetic ministry around 627 or 626.  He was the son of Hilkiah, who was a priest in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin (cf. Jer.  
   
1:1). He was “possibly a descendant of Abiathar, whom Solomon expelled to Anathoth shortly after his ascension to the throne (1Kings 2:26).”  “He was reared in the tradition of his fathers and his earliest poems reveal a firm grasp of the election-covenant faith of the Mosaic age; his prophetic predecessors, above all, Hosea, and the Deuteronomic Book of covenant influenced him.”  He witnessed the successive impact of three world-powers on Judah: Assyria, Egypt and Babylon. The period of his birth and childhood was during Manasseh’s reign (687-642 B.C) in Judah. At this time Judah was Assyria’s vassal and there was “a resurgence of idolatry in the form of syncretist fusion of Mesopotamia astral gods and Canaanite fertility deities.”  There was forgetfulness of God, religious and moral decay. Josephus also describes Manasseh thus: “for he was so hardy as to defile the temple of God, and the city, and the whole country; for, by setting out from contempt of God, he barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the  
Hebrews; nor would he spare the prophets, till Jerusalem was over flown with blood.”    
Judah was Assyria’s vassal till the reign of Josiah (640-609 B.C). However, before Josiah, Amon (Josiah’s father) reigned for two years (642-640 B.C). The call of Jeremiah to prophetic office was during the time of Josiah. During the reign of Josiah the book of the Law was discovered and there was extensive reform; the renewal of fidelity to Mosaic covenant (2Kings. 23:1-27; 2Ch. 35:1-19). The date was 622-621 B.C.  Josiah attacked Neco, the king of Egypt, on his way to the battle of Carchemish and he died in the encounter. Neco installed Eliakim as king and his  
   
vassal. Neco gave him Jehoiakim as a regal name. He revived religious syncretism in Judah.  It was during his reign that Jeremiah wrote his earlier prophecies in a scroll which he read to the people on the day of fast (Jer. 36:1-6). When the scroll was read to Jehoiakim, he tore it and burned it (Jer. 36:20-26). Nebuchadnezzar, the crown prince of Babylon, won the battle of Carchemish against Egypt and afterward conquered Palestine which gave him access to political dominance over Judah in 597 B.C. This led to the first deportation of the Judeans to Babylon. As to Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar killed him.  He was replaced with his son, Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem for fear that Jehoiachin might revolt against him for killing his father. At the eighth year of Jehoiachin’s reign, he delivered himself and his kindred to Nebuchadnezzar to avert the destruction of the city. Babylonian generals took both youth and handicraftsmen to Nebuchadnezzar who held them captive together with Jehoiachin.   
Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah in place of Jehoiachin. Zedekiah was fond of seeking Jeremiah’s advice but unable to effect it because of the fear of his officials.  He was caught up in between two parties: Pro-Egyptians and Pro-Babylonians. Pro-Egyptians prevailed and this led to revolt against Babylon.  This led to the sack of Jerusalem and the second deportation of the Judeans to Babylon.  Zedekiah was blinded and exiled and Judah became Roman province. Gedaliah, a Judean, was appointed governor of the province (2kgs. 25:7, 22). Pro-Egyptian party killed Gedaliah and fled to Egypt forcing Jeremiah to go with them. Jeremiah lived and died in Egypt.  
 
   
1.7 JEREMIAH’S MISSION  
As it has been noted above, Jeremiah’s call to prophetic office took place at the time of upheaval in history. He was a man who loved God and his people; he also understood the depth of God’s love for his people and their duty to God.  In God’s commission of Jeremiah, his mission is stated thus: “see I appointed you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). John F. Graybill puts it thus: “when the prophet was called, it was intimated that his message would be one of condemnation rather than of salvation. Throughout his long ministry, of more than forty years, his preaching reflected this theme of judgment.”  His mission was to declare condemnation and judgment on the nations and kingdoms, especially Judah. In his confession this was also made evident: “For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, “violence and destruction!”” (Jer. 20:8). He was a man of deep sense of mission   
Looking at his futile effort to bring his people to repentance so as to avert the judgment, one could say that his mission was not to make them repent. While the people were entrenched in nationalism and bent on seeking independence, Jeremiah was persuading them to take on the yoke of a foreign nation, claiming that it was a divine will (Jer.25; 27). The more he spoke to them, the more they hated and wanted to kill him (Jer. 26 & 37: 11-38:6). He was persecuted and abandoned (Jer. 11:21; 20:7-18). God told him not to even pray for the people, for he will not listen to him (Jer. 7:16). His mission seems that he is to make them accept the judgment as something they deserved and as a moment of purification (Jer. 30; 33). This purification will bring about reform. Here, reform means an interior work that everyone must accomplish  
   
personally and collectively in order to respond better to what God expects of them.  This was made explicit when he proposed a new covenant (Jer. 31: 31-34).   
1.8.0 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH  
The book of Jeremiah lacks proper organization and smooth flow of thought. Couturier Guy has this to say: “at first glance, we are struck by high number of doublets which might have a redactional purpose, the loose combination of poetic oracles and biographical and autobiographical narratives, the frequent disorder in chronological data, etc.”25 In some aspects, it follows topical order (Jer. 21-23; 30-31; 46-51).  Georgy Authur argues: “this seeming lack of order arises from the fact that this book, like many others in the Old Testament, is not the product of one person, or of small group of persons. It is the product of growth over a long period of time, to which many contributed.”  He adds: “Yet the book contains a large authentic material from and concerning the prophet himself than some of the others, such as Isaiah.”   
With regards to the authenticity of the book Guy says:   
The passages that are still highly disputed are the biographical narratives and the so-called Deuteronomic discourses. …The authenticity of the poetic oracles (chaps. 1-25) is no longer suspect. Mowinckel, and several others after him, rejected the oracle of salvation (chaps. 46-51) as a very late addition; however, a close examination of these poems now proves that some of them are certainly Jeremiah’s, and an authentic Jeremian nucleus is at the origin of the remaining ones.   
 
 1.8.1 COMPOSITION  
Due to the disorganization in the book of Jeremiah, it is always very difficult to reconstruct the  
history of its composition. However several attempts have been made to reconstruct the history  
   
of collection of Jeremiah’s works into a book form. Guy says: “Most critics begin with chap. 36”.  It is recorded in the chapter that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C), at dictation of Jeremiah Baruch wrote on a scroll all Jeremiah’s oracles against Israel and Judah and all nations from the day of Josiah. Jehoiakim burned the scroll but Jeremiah re-dictated all the oracles with addition to Baruch who also wrote it down. According to Guy this was done in the following year (604 B. C).  For Guy, these oracles were those directed against Judah and Jerusalem and are found in chapters 1-25, but he adds that each case is to be considered separately.  For James Philip the oracles of this first edition are found in chapters 1-9:1.  He claims that chapter 9:2 to chapter 23 contains oracles that are later than 605 B.C and can be associated  with events during the time of later part of Jehoiakim, Zedekiah and a few with the downfall of Jerusalem in 587  
B.C. He sees them as second collection of Jeremiah’s oracles. He says “The person most likely to have done this was Baruch himself.”  It contains the “confessions” of Jeremiah which probably occurred in the later part of Jehoiakim’s reign, oracles of condemnation and warning, laments over national or personal sorrow, which probably occurred in 602 and 598 B.C, parables, acted or spoken, believed to have been during Zedekiah’s reign.   
Philip also talks of Baruch’s memoirs. These are prose that “gives detailed information concerning the activities of the prophet as well as reports of his words.”  He says that their detailed nature shows that it was written by an eyewitness. He adds that the memoirs, in some instances, have been extensively revised by Deuteronomic editor. The contents of these memoirs are found in chapters 19, 20, 26-29, 32, 33, 34-38, 39, 42-44. He suggests that Baruch would  
   
have added the memoirs to the original scroll and his second collection. This means that Baruch would have produced the second edition of the book of Jeremiah.  
He talks of Deuteronomic (D) edition which took place in Egypt around 550 B.C. In his words:  
“D’s main theme in the book of Jeremiah is that all of history is under the control of Yahweh.”  He adds that “In ch. 26, D has revised the report of the sermon in vss. 4-6, but has left the remainder largely as it stood in Baruch’s memoirs.”  Hence, it could be said that the Deuteronomist produced the third edition of the book of Jeremiah. He also talks of later authors or editors who worked on the book at various time after Deuteronomic edition.  This later addition contains eschatological predictions and psalmlike compositions, for example, Jer. 10:25 (ps. 79:6-7); 16: 19-21.  
However, E. Podechard talks of three sections in the book of Jeremiah. The first section contains the scroll of 605 arranged in chronological order, for most part, in chapters 1-17, separate collection of symbolic actions in chapters 18-20, booklets on kings and prophets in chapters 2123, and the book of confession inserted at different places.  He mentions chapters 26-35, second section, as Baruch’s redactional works which contain Jeremiah’s altercation with the false prophets (chaps. 26-29), the prophet’s early prophecies on Israel’s restoration (chaps. 30-31), blended oracles under Zedekiah (chaps.32-33), and appendix on diverse matters (chaps 34-35).  
He says “the theme is the restoration of Yahweh’s people.”  The third and last contains Jeremiah’s biography by Baruch, with the scroll of 605 as preface, and oracle of hope by  Baruch as closing remarks. “Finally, Podechard holds that the collection of oracles against the nations  
   
(chaps. 46-51) has been set at two different places- after 25:13b and in chap. 45 by very old tradition. … The present form of Jer can be dated at the end of the exile or soon after.”    
1.8.2 THE AUTHORSHIP  
The difficulties encountered in tracing the composition of the book of Jeremiah also flow into its authorship. The composition of the book shows various authors. As earlier mentioned, in the book itself, it is recorded in chapter 36 that Jeremiah dictated his prophecies to his secretary and disciple, Baruch, to write in a scroll. This could only make him the author of his prophecies till  
605 B.C and also infer that this might make him to see the need to write his subsequent oracles. However, this will not make him the author of the whole book. The narratives and prose which make use of third person and other parts which some authors claim to be beyond the scope of his time could not have been written by him.  
Some documents have been found attributing the authorship of the book to Jeremiah. John  
Rogerson writes:  
 Out of hints found in the Old Testament a view of its authorship emerged as early probably as the second century CE, and is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra 14b-15a. This attributed ‘his book’ (almost all Genesis to Deuteronomy) and Job to Moses, the book of Joshua and eight verses of torah (presumably Deut. 34: 5-12 recording the death of Moses) to Joshua; the books of Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel to Samuel; and the psalms to David assisted by ten elders, including the first Adam, Melchisedek and Abraham. Jeremiah was credited with 1 and 2 kings, Jeremiah and Lamentations, and Hezekiah and his helpers (cf. prov. 25:1) with Isaiah, proverbs, Song of Songs and  
Ecclesiastes. The remainders were attributed to the ‘men of the Great Synagogue and Ezra.    
From the discussion on composition of the book, it is clear that Philip proposes three authors with Deuteronomist as editor: Jeremiah for poetic oracles; Baruch for prose (both biographical  
   
prose and prose discourse) and unknown author for psalmlike composition and eschatological predictions.  
1.8.3 AUDIENCE  
Jeremiah was called to be prophet to all nations, kingdoms and Judah in a special way  (Jer. 1:10). He prophesied in Judah for more than forty years and later in Egypt. He prophesied both against Judah, other nations and kingdoms. His message was for the kings, officials, priests, prophets and ordinary people in the land; they are the categories of people he addressed throughout his ministry.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
                                                            CHAPTER TWO  
                                                      LITERATURE REVIEW  
2.0 The previous chapter gave direction to the work and also looked at the overview of the book of Jeremiah. This chapter shall concern itself with scholarly opinions about Jer. 26: 2 and their critiques. There are varying scholarly opinions about Jer. 26: 2. Scholars such as Nathan  
Mastnjak, Dominic Marbaniang, Lange John Peter, etc contribute to the discourse.  
2.1 SCHOLARLY CONJECTURES  
Mastnjak argues that Jer. 26: 2 alludes to Deut.18:18; 13:1. He says, “The allusion to Deut. 13:1 in Jeremiah 26: 2 elevates the words of Jeremiah to the level of Moses. Just as the words of  
Moses are inviolable and must be obeyed, so also the words of Jeremiah.”  He mentions two transformations that take place in the allusion. The first transformation involves the change in the nature of the speaker and the audience. In Deut. 13:1 it was Moses, a prophet, who is the speaker but in Jer.26: 2 God is the speaker instead of a prophet. Jeremiah, a prophet, is the recipient of the message, while in Deut. 13:1 the people of Israel are the audience. In the words of Mastnjak:  
“First, in Deut. 13:1, the prophet Moses is the speaker and the people are the ones adjured to obey and prohibited from altering the word. In Jer. 26: 2, Yahweh is the speaker, and Jeremiah is the one not to omit a word of the message.”  He interprets the allusion thus:   
This transformation is connected to the narrative, in which Jeremiah is given a message that will put him in danger. Within the narrative, therefore, Jeremiah becomes the audience of the divine command that functions to equate the authority of the message  
Jeremiah is about to speak to that of the Mosaic Law.47  
   
What could be inferred from this interpretation is that both prophetic word and Mosaic Law have God as their origin and as such they are equal in status. The Torah came through Moses while divine oracle/word comes through a prophet.   
The second transformation concerns the omission of the restriction on adding to the Mosaic Law. This restriction on adding expresses the finality of Mosaic Law.  For Nathan Mastnjak, its omission in Jer. 26: 2 does not affect the finality of the revelation but shows its adaptation in prophetic tradition: “ongoing prophecy, including but not limited to D’s law” . In his words:   
The second transformation of Deut.13:1 is of greater significance. For D, to the word that must be obeyed (13:1a) nothing can be taken away or added to the word. As Otto has also noted, this adaptation of Deut. 13:1 represents a subversion of D’s concept of finality of its own revelation.    
 
He argues that this adaptation raises Jeremiah’s authority to equal status with that of Moses. He says,   
Jeremiah 26:2 ignores the Deut. 13’s restriction on adding to the Mosaic Law and elevates Jeremiah’s authority to equality with that of Moses. As in the case of Moses’ words, the words imparted by Jeremiah must be transmitted with verbatim fidelity without omitting a single word.   
 
Dominic Marbaniang did a conceptual analysis of the injunction, “do not diminish a word”. He talks about restriction on the diminution of wholeness, meaning, significance, volume and audience. Concerning the wholeness of the word, he talks about restriction on selection of what to say. He puts it thus: “Do not pick and choose from the word thinking ‘I should only say this  
   
and I should not be saying that’.”  For him to say the whole word is to say the truth. In his words: “speak the whole word, for the truth is whole.”53  
Under restriction on diminution of meaning, he talks about prohibition of arbitrary misinterpretation of the words. He made reference to 2 Timothy 2:15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explain the word of truth.” Marbaniang says, “Those who misinterpret arbitrarily are unfaithful to the word. The message must be given in the words that the message intends.”   
The diminution of the significance of the word is about the softening of the word in the midst of other doctrines or contradicting voices. He says, “In the age of pluralism, we often try to mellow down the word, focusing only on those parts that would be generally appealing.”  The injunction bids Jeremiah to speak the word as the truth, not as one of the ways in the midst of pluralism and forbids speaking of the words as a matter of mere personal choice but as the  
truth.   
The volume of the word concerns the frequency at which the word is spoken. The frequency enhances the impact of the words. The constancy at which the word is said makes the word shine forth in the midst of darkness. In his words: “the lesser we communicate, the lesser we impact. The world must be deluged with the truth of God, or else it will always be overpowered by the forces of darkness.”   
He also talks of the restriction on the diminution of the audience of the word. This concerns the limiting of the word to certain group of people. In his words: “the word must be widespread and  
   
reach everybody. The intent of the revelation is that all may hear and believe. God says to  
Jeremiah not to diminish the word, ‘perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way’.”  Daniel Epp-Tiessen says that the phrases, “all the words that I command you” and “do not hold back anything” indicate that the prophetic message in verses 2-6 stands as a paradigm for  
Jeremiah’s prophetic message as a whole. It is the narrator’s recapitulation of Jeremiah’s entire prophetic message. He puts it thus:  
 The commission to speak ‘all the words that I command you’ and the warning not to hold back anything both suggest a recapitulation of the entire prophetic message, which heightens the paradigmatic nature of the story, as in one sense it is Jeremiah’s prophetic message as a whole that the crowd spurns in the following verses     
 
He adds that the injunction not to diminish a word together with the narrator’s report that  
Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord commanded him (v. 8) “indicates that the completeness of the message is not compromised by the narrative abridgement.”    
The claim of Daniel can be buttressed with the use of ַהַדָּ ָ֖בָּר, ‘the word’, in the book of Jeremiah for an oracle/revelation given at a time (1:4; 2:1, 4; 7:1-2: 10:1; 26:1 etc) or a body of oracles  
(1:1). In chapter 36: 2, כָּל־ ַהַדְּבָּ ִ֔רִ֔ים, ‘all the words’, means all the oracles given to Jeremiah. Hence, כָּל־ ַהַדְּבָּ ִ֔רִ֔ים, ‘all the words’, in Jer.26: 2 could mean the prophetic oracles of Jeremiah as a whole. However, there are some instances in the book of Jeremiah that ַהַדְּבָּ ִ֔רִ֔ים, ‘the words’ means basic units of language that have meanings (1:10; 7:4, 8; 26:20).   
Another scholar, Lange John, says that the injunction makes sense only in reference to a message earlier communicated. He argues that the message might have been given and communicated once. So the phrase “which I command you” and the injunction not to diminish a word refer to  
   
the message earlier communicated. He puts it thus: “here the words, ‘which I command thee’ and ‘omit not a word’, point back to the revelation as previously received. The latter especially would have no sense, if what is to be delivered by the prophet had not been already communicated.”   
John Bright gives a contextual understanding of the injunction. The context of the message shows that the message generates hostility. Jeremiah stands the risk of diminishing the message as a result of the circumstance the message would put him. Hence, he argues that, having understood the hostility the message would provoke and the consequences to himself, Jeremiah might have been tempted to corrupt the message.  This means that the message is contrary to what Jeremiah would have ordinarily delivered.  
Carol Dempsey talks of the tone of the pericope. She says that the tone of the message is imperative and as such evokes urgency and definitiveness of the message. For her the urgency and the definitiveness show that Jeremiah must carry out God’s will. In her words: “the three imperatives ‘stand’, ‘speak’ (twice), and ‘do not hold back one’ create a sense of urgency and definitiveness. Jeremiah must do what God asks him to do.”   
2.2 CRITIQUES  
It should be noted that each of the scholarly opinion has both merit and demerit. Nathan is able to establish the connection between the Law and prophetic message on the terms of origin, inviolability and incorruptibility in/of transmission. For Nathan, the people are bound from corrupting the message in transmission as he says, “As in the case of Moses’ words the words imparted by Jeremiah must be transmitted with verbatim fidelity without omitting a single  
   
word.”  The context of the narrative does not support this. In fact, the narrative shows that the people actually diminish the words as they remove the conditional statement of Jeremiah’s words in their report to the officials (verses 8-9). The context only shows that Jeremiah is the one bound by the injunction not to diminish a word.   
Nathan also overlooks the difference between the Hebrew negatives ַאַל־ and ַאַל .ֹֽלֹֽ א־ is used in Jer.26:2 while ֹֽלֹֽ א is used in Deut.13:1. Lambdin Thomas says, “The perfect is negated with ֹֽלֹֽ א. In poetry the negative אַַל is also found.”  This means that ַאַל is only found in poetic form of literary work. He goes further to say that as negative of imperative, the former is “for immediate, specific commands, such as ‘Don’t go!’, ‘Don’t wait!’”66, while the latter is “for durative, nonspecific command: ‘You shall not do such- and such (ever).’”  ֹֽלֹֽ א denies objectively while ַאַל denies subjectively. Hence, the injunction binds Jeremiah, not the people, from corrupting the message as he passes it to the people. The analysis also shows that the prohibition is meant for only the occasion. The injunction is given because, as the context shows, there is temptation to diminish the word in face of death and attack. It aims at making him faithful to the word even in face of death. The imperative only shows the devotion and faithfulness that a prophet should have towards a divine oracle.    
Furthermore, Nathan removes the injunction from its immediate context and places it in the context of Deut. 13:1. He allows only the context of Deut. 13:1 to determine the understanding of the injunction to the extent of reducing it to a literary device that the narrator used to impart on readers the Deuteronomic understanding of the injunction.   
   
What Dominic Marbaniang does is the conceptual analysis of the injunction. The motive of the analysis is performative. Performative analysis is done “with the view to obtaining specific effects from the listener (or reader) and not so much to affirm the truth or falsehood.”  However, being performative does not deny it of truth. It is said: “the performative aspect becomes meaningful only on the basis of the truth or mistruth of the statement in question.”  Being focused on performative aspect, Dominic does not pay attention to the context of the narrative. For instance, he talks of restriction on diminution of meaning as prohibition of misinterpretation and an approval of correct interpretation. The context of the narrative does not suggest approval of correct interpretation but presentation of the oracle verbatim or in its raw state. Moreover, interpretation is not needed since the oracle is not given to Jeremiah in form of riddle or symbolic presentation.  
Lange’s claim is possible if reference is not made to other verses in the narrative. The presentation of another oracle in verses 4-6 constitutes a problem in accepting his claim. The oracle in verses 4-6 is presented as the oracle for the occasion and as such, to which the injunction refers.   
Daniel’s claim suggests that the phrases, “all that I command you” and “do not hold back anything” are literary devices used by the narrator to show that the oracle is the paradigm of Jeremiah’s prophetic oracles. Furthermore, though there are instances where a word means an oracle or a revelation (Jer.1:4, 11; 2:1; 7:1-2), there are also instances where a word means a unit of language that has meaning (Jer. 1:9b; 7:4, 8). However, if the phrase, “all the words”, refers to  
Jeremiah’s prophetic oracle as a whole, the paradigm is a reduction of all the oracles to a  
synthesis and this violates the warning not to hold back anything.   
   
Carol’s stand that the tone of the message evokes urgency and definitiveness is true. The problem comes when she shows that it means “Jeremiah must do what God asks him to do.”  This suggests that Jeremiah is under compulsion to carry out the will of God. The imperatives,  
‘stand’, and ‘speak’, indicate the urgency of the message in the sense that the message demands immediate response from Jeremiah. In other words, the message demands immediate delivery.  
The definitiveness is expressed by the imperative, ‘do not hold back one’,  and it is in the sense that the oracle is true, clear, not in riddle or symbolic presentation and that it will surely come to pass.   
2.3 RESUME  
So far an attempt has been made to look at what some scholars have said about Jer. 26:2. The chapter shows that, apart from Dominic, the rest of the aforementioned scholars treat the pericope as mere literature. As it is observed above, Dominic, on his own part, focuses more on performative aspect. Thus, he does not pay attention to the context. It is also clear that they do not treat the theological import and the impact of the injunction, do not diminish a word, on Jeremiah. This essay, therefore, focuses on the theological import and the impact of the junction on Jeremiah.   
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
CHAPTER THREE  
EXEGETICAL STUDY OF ‘DO NOT DIMINISH A WORD’ (אַל־תִּגְַרַע  ד בר)   
3.0 In the previous chapter, an attempt is made to examine scholarly opinions about the pericope.  
The scholarly opinions are deficient because they are not exhaustive in their treatment of it. Nathan, for instance, does not take historical context seriously. He does not exploit other literary contexts in which the pericope can be located.  Dominic, while focusing on performative aspect, does not take literary context seriously. Hence, this chapter shall look into some of the areas.  
3.1 LITERARY CONTEXT  
John Bright writes: “As universally agreed, there are three major types of material in the Jeremiah books: poetic saying, biographical prose and prose discourses.”  Chapter 26 belongs to the group of biographical prose. It is a narrative of the temple sermon and the incidents resulting from it. It summarizes Jeremiah’s sermon and narrates the reaction of the people, priests and the prophets to the sermon, Jeremiah’s defense, the response of the officials to the accusation against  
Jeremiah and the author’s recognition of the role of Ahikam son of Shaphan in saving Jeremiah. As noted earlier, Philip attributes the authorship of the biographical prose and prose discourse to Baruch and their redaction to Deuteronomic school. Bernhard Duhm argues that the redaction is not systematic in character, but that the book "grew like a jungle" all along to the first century B.C.E.  Sigmund Mowinckel in 1914 study argues that this chapter constitutes part of the historical tales surrounding Jeremiah's activity which was passed on through oral traditions.  During the passing on of the story orally it might have been adapted to the need and circumstance of the people. In this case the editorial works will not be attributed to a school.  
   
Concerning Deuteronomic influence on Jeremiah, Esias E. Meyer and Morné Malan discuss three scholarly positions.  The first position holds that there is Deuteronomic redaction throughout the book. Scholars like Philip, Hermann-Josef Stipp, Thomas Romer and Winfried Thiel hold this view. The second position is a middle ground that states that parts of the book consist of the writings of Baruch and Deuteronomic editorial work. Scholars like William Mckane belong here. The third position is an unconvinced position. The scholars range from not being unconvinced to not being certain of Deuteronomic influence.  Here we have W. L. Holladay, W. Oesterley, T. H. Robinson, Helga Weippert, and Bright. W. Oesterley and T. H. Robinson argue that the style should rather be considered Judean prose style of the end of 7th and early 6th centuries and of which prose discourse, biographical prose of the book and Baruch’s memoirs are examples.76   
For R. C. Steiner, “Baruch b. Neriah may be identified as the author of the Supplement and the scribe who introduced it to the Jeremianic tradition, yielding the LXX sequence, with his brother  
Seraiah inheriting this earlier work and rearranging/updating it to form the early version of the MT”.  It should also be noted that some scholars suggest that a number of scribes (probably shaphanides) are responsible for the composition78. Leuchter and Weinfeld M hold this view.  
Leuchter, commenting on Jeremiah 45, describes Baruch thus: “The closing verse echoes Jeremiah’s own call in Jer 1:8, where Baruch’s security, like that of Jeremiah is assured by יהיה. Baruch is thus patterned on the prototype of Jeremiah” . He adds: “Baruch is made an authoritative voice that preserved the prophetic words of Jeremiah.”   
   
However, it is held in this work that each of the conjectures has merit and that the editor or compiler made use of different materials not likely from Baruch alone but also from Shaphanides. It is very likely that verses 1-3 was taken from Baruch memoirs because the message therein is personal to Jeremiah and Baruch who shared from his personal life could have been responsible for preservation of such information. It is also very likely that verses 4-6 was taken from his memoirs. Verses 7-19 could have come from either Baruch or Shaphanides. The editor or Shaphanides would probably be responsible for verses 20-24. Some scholars argue that verses 17-19 are later addition meant to show that Jeremiah’s prophecy is consistent with tradition and it is accurate (Deut. 18: 22).  Leuchter shows how verses 2-6 are composed from various sources. He argues that the author made use of themes found in chapters 1-25. For him the reliance on the temple sermon was because it was well known to the author’s exilic audience.  In his words:  
 While these texts may have arisen during various periods of the prophet’s career, the author of Jeremiah 26 understood them to be part of a single prophetic message, consistent with each other, with the Temple Sermon, and with his own scribal agenda. By hermeneutically broadening the scope of what he cites (via the shift from קרא to דבר in Jer 26:2), the author fuses all of these elements into his citation. In contradistinction to the introduction to the Temple Sermon in Jer 7:1, the entire collection of the prophet’s preexilic oracles in Jeremiah 1 –25 has, for the author, become “this matter” (הזה הדבר) introduced in Jer 26:1.   
 
Another source that the author used is Deut. 4:2; 13:1. The pericope of this work is considered to be from Baruch memoirs.  
Dating the biographical narrative has become a matter of polemics among scholars; they give different dates. Daniel J. Lewis, after giving the date of Jeremiah’s call (627 BC) and the first edition dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch (604), he says, “other traditions are difficult to date with  
   
precision.”   Some scholars date it in pre-exilic period. For instance, Leuchter says that  
Jeremiah 27-29 is “largely attributable to the prophet and to his immediate tradition circle and date from 597–593” . Some scholars date it in exilic period.  There is a conjecture of “a centuries-long period of composition, on the one hand or a single but late period of composition on the other hand”.86 It is written:   
For Duhm, therefore, one must envisage a later writing, editing and composition of the texts, which need not have had a historical kernel, whereas for Mowinckel the texts are and were at the time of their writing historical narratives, passed on orally and written down at a later stage. Modern scholars seem to locate themselves at various points between these two poles.   
 
Leuchter writes: “Polak’s findings point to a specific and limited period of composition behind the Supplement’s narratives, composed by the middle of the sixth century BCE and (agreeing with Friedman, Dearman, Lundbom, and others) by a limited group of writers.”  Leuchter agrees with Y. Hoffman who fixes the date of the biographical prose around 570 BCE . He argues thus:   
Here, previously discussed position concerning the date of the Supplement’s composition to ca. 570 BCE is crucial. There is to be no doubt that the text of the Jeremianic corpus contains an abundance of literary features and ideas that need not be anchored to a specific period or circle of authorship, and many important investigations of the text-as-literature have demonstrated the value of such an approach   
 
   
Leuchter suggests the possibility of the biographical narratives being written during exile by author who made use of pre-exilic texts and record of events.    
The remote context of the chapter is found in Deut. 13:1-18 and 18:15-22. The author aims at showing who a true prophet is. In discussing Jeremiah as a true prophet he patterned his thought and materials to meet the criteria set in Deut. 13:1-5; 18:15-22. Todd Hibbard holds that in chapter 26 Jeremiah is projected as the prototypical Moses-like prophet of Deut 18, who speaks everything that God commands him to speak.   
In Deut. 13: 1-5 a criterion for evaluating true prophet is based on whether his message turns people’s mind to God or away from him. A prophet is false if he attempts to make the people turn away from serving the Lord their God and holding fast to his commandments. In Deut. 18:  
15-22 Moses reminded the people of God’s promise to send a prophet like him to the Israelites. Hence, a prophet-like Moses is set as a criterion for a true prophet. Robert Clement holds that the criteria from the text are of twofold: (1) the harmony of the message with mosaic tradition and (2) the accuracy of its prediction.  However, to know a prophet-like Moses there is need to go outside the text. Hence, Joseph Ratzinger commenting on Deut. 34: 10 holds that a prophet-like Moses must have seen God face to face.  In many instances in the scriptures, this quality is used to single out the uniqueness of Mosaic prophetic office (Ex. 33: 11; Num. 12: 1-8; Deut. 34:10). It is also true that such a prophet must have been called and commissioned (Ex.3: 1-4:17); this is implicit in Deut. 18: 20, 22. Commenting on prophet-like Moses, Joseph Blenkinsopp says: “the  
   
true prophet is called by Yahweh, is a native Israelite, and is a continuator of the prophetic office of Moses (cf. Exod 33: 11; Num 12: 1-8; Hos 12: 13).”   
The remote context of the pericope that is the focus here could be located in Deut. 18:18.  
Deut. 18:18 reads: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak everything that I command.” In the pericope, the author used the term עֲֹמֹד, “stand”, to allude to ָאָ ִ֥קים “I will raise up”. So among the people Jeremiah was raised up by God. The other part of the context is evident in the pericope, for the author writes: “speak to them all the words I command you; do not diminish a word.” In this context, Jeremiah could be seen as the new Moses.  
Nathan Mastnjak locates the remote context of the pericope in Deut.13:1 (this is in Hebrew, in NRSV it is 12:32). He writes: “The primary marker of the allusion is verb תגְַרַע  ‘to omit, diminish’, in collocation with דָּבַָּרַ in the sense of ‘word’… The further collocation with less unique sequence of ‘the word(s) which I am/have commanding/commanded’ corroborates the allusion.”  He adds thus:   
Having established the presence and direction of the allusion, it is now possible to analyze its import. The Mosaic word, according to Deut.13:1 is inviolable and cannot be superseded. …The allusion to Deut.13:1 in Jer.26:2 elevates the words of Jeremiah to the level of Moses. Just as the words of Moses are inviolable and must be obeyed, so also the words of Jeremiah.   
 
The context of the injunction ַאַל־ תגְַּרַע דָׇּבׇר, “do not diminish a word”, could also be located in Deut.4:2 and it will have the same import as already found in Deut.13:1.  
   
The injunction also brings to mind the literary contexts of Ecclesiastes 3:14 and Proverbs 30:5-6. The two contexts are modified to fit prophetic tradition. The prohibition of addition in Eccl. 3:14 is dropped while in Prov. 30:5-6 it is changed to prohibition of diminution.  Eccl. 3:14 says that because whatever God does endures forever nothing can be added to it nor anything taken away from it. It adds that the perfection of God’s works is to make people stand in awe before God. Prov. 30:5-6 emphasizes the truth of God’s word as the reason for prohibition of addition. It adds that addition to God’s word makes one a liar. This means that addition to God’s word corrupt it and makes it a lie/falsehood. In the contexts of Eccl. 3:14 and Prov. 30:5-6, the import of the injunction is that the words God commands Jeremiah to speak is the truth and it is meant to stimulate piety in the people. The words are true because they endure forever and must come to pass. If the words are diminished, they become lies/falsehood and will not come to pass again.    
 Another context is chapter one of the book of Jeremiah itself. It is like the pericope recalls the call and commission in chapter one as it alludes to 1:7b-10, 17. Even the whole chapter 26 seems to allude to chapter one. For instance, the fact that Jeremiah escaped death is the fulfillment of God’s promise to be with him and to deliver him (1:8, 18, 19). The attack that he also experienced had been foretold in the same verses. However, Mastnjak has also noted that chapter one also alludes to Deut. 18: 18, 22. He compares Jer. 1: 7-9 with Deut. 18:18,  
22.   In his words: “A further allusion to Deut. 18, therefore, would be consistent with the compositional logic of Jer. 1.”  In the context of chapter one, the pericope shows the protection and fulfillment of God’s promises in the life of Jeremiah.  
   
Another context in which the pericope can be located is Jer. 7:2. Commenting on the relationship, Mark Leuchter writes:  
The author of Jeremiah 26 has crafted his introduction after that of Jer 7:2 but has deliberately changed several key words and phrases. Jeremiah no longer stands in the gate of YHWH’S house but rather in the court; he is not to speak simply to those in earshot in the Temple but to the larger population served by that Temple. More significantly, the author has placed an increased emphasis on the דבַרַ terminology, changing Jeremiah’s proclamation of YHWH’S message (וקראת in Jer 7:2) into a דבַרַ-centric method of communication (ובדרת in Jer 26:2).   
 
He holds that the replacement of ‘קראת’ with ‘דבר’ gives the impression that Jeremiah communicates sentiment in chapter 26. He explains that ‘קראת’ (proclaim) “represents a fixed, finite unit of speech, that is, the specific content of the Temple Sermon that ensues in Jer 7:3–15. By contrast, ‘דבר’ (speak) reflects the potential for specific speech, an unformed word waiting to take shape.”  He also notes that the author augments Jer. 7:2 with the phrase, “do not diminish a word”, which is uncommon in the preceding chapters 1-25. In the context of Jer. 7, the pericope portrays that the people need to hear the word of God in its raw state to be saved. The immediate context of the pericope in focus is chapter 26. The chapter is concerned with portraying the challenge of a true Prophet. In this context the injunction could mean that Jeremiah should not economize God’s word in deference to anyone or for fear of death. The author begins by dating the incident in the period of accession of king Jehoiakim in verse one  
and continues by introducing the pericope and verse three with the term כַֹה אָּ ַ֣מַַרַ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗הַ֣ ‘thus says the  
Lord’. He uses the same term to introduce God’s message for the people, verses 4-6. In verses 7 to 8a Jeremiah delivers the message. Verses 8a and 9 address the reaction of the people, priests and prophets to the message. Their reaction is that of attack and passing death sentence. Verses  
   
10 to 19 are concerned with formation of court which comprises of the officials as the judges, the priests and the prophets as accusers, Jeremiah as the accused and the people as the audience. In verse 10 the officials enter the scene and in verse 11 the priests and prophets present their allegation against Jeremiah. From verse 12 to verse 15 Jeremiah gives his defence speech. For  
Ojo, verse 12b is Jeremiah’s assertion of divine authority, verse 13 to verse 15b is a new call to conversion and submission to judgment, and 15c is the assertion of divine authority again.  Verse 16 to verse 19 is the response of the officials and the people to the allegation and the elder’s defence of Jeremiah. The elders vindicated Jeremiah by citing example of a prophet, Micah, who prophesied in like manner during the time of King Hezekiah and was not put to death but rather the people entreated the Lord and won his favour. In verse 20 to verse 24 the author tells a story of the prophet Uriah son of Shemaiah, who was killed by King Jehoiakim for prophesying in like manner to show that Jeremiah actually narrowly escaped death through the instrumentality of Ahikam son of Shaphan.  
The pericope (verse 2) is located within the conversation of God with Jeremiah in verses 2-6. This conversation can be divided into two units: personal message to Jeremiah (verses 2 and 3) and message to the audience (verses 4-6). The personal message can be divided into two: injunctions (verse 2) and its purpose (verse 3). Being located in the oracle of God, it shows that the injunctions have divine origin.  
The pericope opens with the assertion of God’s authority with the messenger formula, אָּ ַ֣מַר ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה כַֹהַ֣ , ‘thus says the Lord’. Afterwards, the conducts and the setting for the message are given. The first imperative is about the posture to maintain by Jeremiah and the location: “stand in the court of the Lord’s house.” The second imperative identifies the action (speaking) and the audience:  
“speak to all the people of Judah that come to worship in the house of the Lord. The third  
   
imperative identifies the message (object of the action): speak to them all the words that I command you”. The last imperative expresses the command to be faithful to the message: “do not diminish a word.” This last part asserts God’s authority for the message indirectly, for it is a way of saying that the message remains as God has given it; no diminution. Hence, the structure of the pericope could be given thus:  
A: Assertion of Divine Authority  
B: Posture, Action, identification of the message, and Life Setting  
A!: Indirect Assertion of Divine Authority  
The pericope is marked off from what comes before and after it by its language which is imperative and commanding in tone. It contains injunctions given to Jeremiah by God. So it is different from the historical prologue preceding it in verse 1 and verse 3 which expresses the purpose of the message in a concessional form. Hence, the pericope is a unit on its own. The themes depend on the perspective from which a particular scholar views it. Viewing it from divine realm, some scholars conclude that the main themes of the book of Jeremiah are divine judgment on Judah (chapters 1-29) and restoration in the messianic kingdom in future (chapters 23; 30-33).  The secondary theme is “God’s willingness to spare and bless the nation only if the people repent”.  The minor themes given include:   
(1)    God’s longing for Israel to be tender toward Him, as in the days of first love (2:1-3);  
(2)    Jeremiah’s servant tears, as “the weeping prophet” (9:1; 14:17);  
(3) The close, intimate relationship God had with Israel and that He yearned to keep (13:11);  
   
(4)    Suffering, as in Jeremiah’s trials (11:18-23; 20:1-18) and God’s sufficiency in all troubles (20:11-13);  
(5)    The vital role that God’s Word can play in life (15:16);  
(6)    The place of faith in expecting restoration from the God for whom nothing is too difficult  
(chapter 32, especially verses 17 and 27);  
(7)    Prayer for the coordination of God’s will with God’s action in restoring Israel to its land (33:3, 6-18).  
Bob Utley views it from human realm and he identifies the following themes:     
1.    The time of judgment is imminent because Judah would not repent! Jeremiah emphasizes sin, judgment, then restoration; 1:4-10.  
2.    Liturgical or ritual religion without personal lifestyle of faith in God is a disaster! (Chapter 7; Isa. 29:13).  
3.    Judah had hopelessly lost her way in ritual, idolatry, and sin! She had broken God's covenant (cf. 2:1-3:5).  
4.    Personal repentance and faith are the basis of God's new covenant (31:31-34), not family faith (31:29; Ezekiel 18).  
5.    The New Covenant is permanent (31:35-37) because it is not conditioned on human performance but on God's grace and power (Ezek. 36:22-38).  
   
Guy gives two themes that summarize everything thus: “The two predominant themes of his message are precisely to define true Yahwism and to proclaim the imminent wars as punishment for Judah’s aberrations.”   
From the foregoing, it could be said that the themes in chapter 26 include the following:  
1    The main theme: Jeremiah as God’s messenger (true prophet);  
2    Secondary themes: divine judgment on Judah; God’s willingness to relent his anger if only the people repent; and obstinacy of the people, verses 3-6 and 13;  
3    Minor themes: the fortitude of Jeremiah against the hostility of the prophets and the priests; and the role of Ahikam ben Shaphan in saving Jeremiah, verses 7-24.  
The theme of Jer.26:2 is Jeremiah, the true prophet, for he is portrayed as a prototype of Moses in whose mouth God puts his words and speaks nothing but what God commands him to speak  
(cf. Deut. 18: 15 & 18; Jer. 26: 2).   
3.2 LITERARY FORM       
For Philip J. King, the literary form of the book of Jeremiah includes “poetry, prose and biography. Literary devices including puns, assonance (recurrence of similar vowel sounds) and double entendres (language that lends itself to more than one interpretation)” . The literary forms in the book of Jeremiah are identified thus: 1. classical Hebrew poetry (Jeremiah's oracles and autobiographical complaints to God or Confessions of Jeremiah); 2.Hebrew prose (prose discourse and biographical prose) . Chapter 26 is a biographical prose. As a prose it contains poetic oracle (2-6), legal trial/form-accusations, defence and judgment (10-19), and assessment  
   
(20-24). The pericope is located in the oracle. The poetic oracle contains injunctions (2), call to repentance (3) and judgment (4-6).   
The pericope contains injunctions. The injunctions are given to Jeremiah as rules to follow in delivering the message. The injunctions in the pericope are unconditional and as such call for unconditional obedience. This calls to mind the injunction that God gives to Saul in 1 Samuel 15: 18. Saul’s rejection in verse 22 is as a result of his failure to adhere to the injunction. Injunction is a commandment, for, in reference to the injunction, Saul says, “I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord” (1 Sam. 15: 24). God does not accept his excuse that it is the fear of the people that makes him to act contrary to the injunction (1 Sam. 15: 24). Divine injunction is a law binding on whoever it is given to.  
The pericope performs the role of prologue to Jeremiah’s defence speech. This is because in  
Jeremiah’s defence that he is sent to prophesy/speak in all the words the people have heard is in reference to the pericope.   
3.3 HISTORICAL CONTEXT  
The text was composed for exilic audience. The prophecy, which was once given to the preexilic audience, was adapted to the situation of the exilic audience. The people’s faith in the inviolability of Zion and the covenant was shattered by the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation. Prophets, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, made them to realize that it was as a result of their sins that the Temple and the city were destroyed. As time went by they accepted their fate and put the blame on their impurity; formed community in Babylon and resumed their own religion, practices and philosophies. Richard Hooker puts it thus:   
But the Jews in Babylon also creatively remade themselves and their world view. In particular, they blamed the disaster of the Exile on their own impurity. They had betrayed Yahweh and allowed the Mosaic laws and cultic practices to become corrupt; the Babylonian Exile was proof of Yahweh's displeasure.    
 
They undertook reform by reviving Mosaic traditions and practices. The scribal works that make the Deuteronomic history was edited and writings of/on the prophets were collected. Oral traditions were also committed to writing. They did this to initiate reform in line with Mosaic and Temple traditions. With the destruction of the Temple, the study of Torah took the centre stage. Roland E. Murphy writes: “a period of intense religious activity began: Israel traditions were gathered and committed to writing. The torah was given form by the P (priestly) school, which collected old desert traditions and codified the practices of Jerusalem Temple.”   During this time writings of/on Jeremiah were collected. For the exilic audience the book of Jeremiah was to reform them. For instance, Jer. 26 was to teach them who a true prophet is, his roles and challenges, the need to listen to true prophets (Ezra 5:1-2; 6: 14-15), and so on. Guy writes:   
E. W. Nicholson was the first to see in both narratives and the discourses the same attempt by these (Deuteronomic) circles, acting in Babylonia, to explain to the exiles the reason for the catastrophe of 587 and to provoke in their mind the hope of restoration of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel; in this attempt, they reinterpreted the acts and words of Jeremiah in this new historical situation.112   
 
The text shows that Jeremiah gave the prophecy in the outer court of the Temple where people gathered to worship. The Temple was in the land of Judah in Palestine. The text puts the date of the prophecy in the beginning of king Jehoiakim’s reign (vs. 1). The expression בְרֵאשִׁיַתַ מַמְְלְכוּת “the beginning of the reign of” is often seen in the light of Akkadian expression, res sarrutim, a technical term for the period between a king’s accession and the following New Year.  Hence, the period was slated between ca. September 609 and April 608.  
   
During the reign of Josiah, Jehoiakim’s father, the book of the law was found in the Temple. The discovery was reported to King Josiah. Consequent on this, Josiah undertook some reforms (2  
Kings 23: 1-25). Ojo comments on the reforms thus: “King Josiah initiated some reforms which were both religious and political to which Jeremiah gave his succinct support initially until he realized that the reform failed to inspire personal repentance because it dealt more with externals of religion.”   There is scholarly opinion that during this period Jeremiah enjoyed the friendship of the reformed group but that he had limited right to temple worship.     
After the death of Josiah, Jehoahaz became king for three months and did what was evil in the sight of God (2 Kings 23:31, 32). Pharaoh Neco deposed Jehoahaz and took him into exile and installed his brother, Jehoiakim, as king (2 Kings 23:33-35). Josephus describes Jehoiakim thus: “Jehoiakim was of a wicked disposition, and ready to do mischief, nor was he either religious towards God or good nature towards men.”  His reign witnessed syncretism and killing of prophet Uriah ben Shemaiah in Judah (Jer. 26:20-23).  
During this period there were false prophets in Judah, prophesying peace, divine security and prosperity (Jer. 26: 7, 11; 27-29). They constituted a great challenge to Jeremiah. The people were already in crises both in economic and political situations. So, what the people needed was a message of peace, consolation, assurance of security and prosperity. False prophets attempted to satisfy the desire of the people. They would, therefore, be more popular among the people than Jeremiah.   
It has been noted that the prophecy was given on a feast day. The likely feasts are Passover, Pentecost or Tabernacle feast. They were all pilgrimage feasts. This shows that Jeremiah preached to a large audience who were religiously attached to the Temple and Jerusalem.  
   
Jerusalem has great religious importance for the people. The religious significance of Jerusalem is depicted in Psalms 46 and 48. Jerusalem is referred to as the holy mountain, fairest of heights, the joy of all the earth (Ps. 48:4). It is also called the city of David and the city of God. It is the dwelling place of the ark of God. It enjoyed special love and protection from God (2 Sam.  
24:16). Its inviolability is based on the assurance of God’s everlasting covenant with David (2 Sam. 7:1-17; 1 Ch. 17:1-15). Unlike Deuteronomic covenant, Davidic covenant was  
unconditional, even in time of dire threat to the security of the nation, the covenant would stand (Is. 29:1-8; 31:4-5; 37:35; 2 Sam. 7:8-16; 22:51; 23:5a; Micah 4:11-13; Ps. 46; 48).  Hence, the prophecy that Jerusalem would be left desolate would not but be seen as blasphemy against God; it is like calling God a liar. It is an abandonment of Davidic dynasty and its theology.  This would definitely arouse the anger of the king, officials and religious people of Judah.   
The Temple was a sign of God’s presence among the people (1Kgs 8: 13; Ex. 33: 9; 40: 34-35;  
Pss. 27: 4; 84; Jer. 14:2). It is a symbol of God’s choice of Israel as his own people and sign of his preference for Jerusalem (2 Sam. 24: 16; 2Ch. 3: 1; Pss. 68: 17; 78: 68). John J. Castelot writes: “In 701 when the Holy City was saved from destruction by Sennacherib’s army, the people were persuaded that the Temple itself afforded them protection against whatever forces might assail them”  (2 Kings.19). The people, therefore, looked up to the Temple as a kind of good luck charm that provided security against hostile forces, not minding their unfaithfulness to God (Jer. 7: 1-5; 26: 1-15; Ex. 8-10). The prophecy about the destruction of the Temple would be a source of confusion to the people. It is worth shattering their faith in God and also sets them against Jeremiah.  
   
Jeremiah also exercised his prophetic ministry at turbulent moment in history. With the decline of Assyria, Egypt and Babylon were fighting for Palestine, to which Judah belongs. At the time of the prophecy, Judah was under Egypt. Egypt was no longer powerful and Babylon was coming up as a world-power. The struggle of Judah at this time was to become an independent nation. In this context, Jeremiah’s prophecy could be easily seen in the light of condemnation rather than a call for repentance. It was the later understanding of the prophecy as a call for repentance during his defence speech that saved him. David Guzik writes: “When Jeremiah prophesied about the coming destruction of the temple and conquest of Jerusalem most people thought he was disloyal to Judah and all that happened at the temple. Perhaps they thought that he wanted these things to happen.”  This could make them to see Jeremiah as a traitor to Jerusalem.  
During this time too Jeremiah was in contradiction with false prophets. They prophesied peace and assurance of God’s protection, no matter their unfaithfulness to God (7:4, 8-10). This could make the people be on a crossroad, not knowing who was saying the truth. However, there was the belief that during this time the people’s doings and ways of life did not reflect true Yahwehism and this has been the emphasis of Jeremiah. The people were syncretic in their religious practices and morally corrupt (7:1-15, 30-34). This could have fuelled the critiques of a deep religious person.  
3.4 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS       
The authentic text of the book of Jeremiah had long been taken to be MT until the discovery of Qumran variant versions of the book. According to Guy, “at least two are in agreement with MT, though a long one represents clearly the LXX tradition.”120 K. Gray’s calculation shows that  
   
LXX is one-eighth shorter than MT while some scholars note that it is one-seventh shorter.  With the Qumran fragments, most of the scholars have agreed that “LXX represents the older and more authentic edition of the Book of Jeremiah, one that was subsequently expanded to form the MT.”    Guy puts it this way: “for literary and theological reasons, the LXX cannot be understood any longer as an abbreviated form of the MT, and certainly represents an older form of the text.”123 E. Tov shows in his studies of the two traditions both minute and expansive accretions in the MT that are not found in the LXX.  The distinctions between the two are in the words, sentences and passages in MT that are missing in LXX; the placement of the biographical narratives before the oracles against the nations in MT but after the oracles in LXX and the different arrangement of the oracles against the nations. Bob Utley observes that “Almost  
3000 words of the MT are missing in the LXX.”  Commenting on these distinctions, Lundbom suggests that the missing passages are due to haplography while some scholars say that they could be intentionally left out.  Sharp, studying the oracles against the nations in MT versus LXX, concludes that “the expansions may be secondary in the MT, but the MT may also have arisen from a text source different from that which became the LXX.”  A. Rof´e argues for the priority of the MT saying that “the inclusio or “ring” structure of the MT is inspired by the rhetorical trends of the seventh–sixth centuries BCE and identifies distinct units marked by inclusios in the MT that are disrupted by the LXX sequence.”  Leuchter notes that Sharp’s study raises the question concerning the point in the growth of the book of Jeremiah that  
   
compositional variant arose. Noting that the sociopolitical situation and scribal process of  
Jeremiah’s time could have not made it possible, he answers the question thus: “The dispersion of communities into Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Ammon at different times and the generation of new literary collections based on older prototypes would provide an environment where different authentic Jeremianic collections would have been preserved.”  This polemics makes Leuchter to conclude thus: “It is thus impossible to identify an original Vorlage for the book of Jeremiah en masse; it is better to look to the extant versions currently in our position as repositories of different collections and try to determine the forces that led to the variants we find within them.”    
However, Chapter 26 in MT is chapter 33 in LXX. The pericope of this work is found in both but there is an omission of the phrase, “the cities of”, in LXX. Hence, the problem of authentic text ensues. The omission affects the constitution of the audience: all Judah means all the people of Judah while all the cities of Judah talks of the people in cities that make up the province of  
Judah. In this work “all the cities of Judah” is taken to represent the nature of the audience better than “all Judah”. The clue is taken from Josiah’s celebration of Passover that includes both Israel and Judah (2 Ch. 35:18; 2 Kings. 23:1-20).  
3.5 RESUME  
The chapter has so far placed the pericope in its literary and historical contexts. Under literary context such issues as authorship, dating, parallelism, structure, delimitation and themes are treated. Historical context involves the life-situation in which the book of Jeremiah was written and the life-situation in which the prophecy, Jer. 26, was given. It goes through the political,  
   
religious, literary and geographical outlook of the period. The chapter also discusses the literary form and textual analysis of the pericope.   
The exegetical study that is done in this chapter opens up the theological import and the impact of the injunction,ַאַל־ תגְַּרַע  דָׇּבׇר, ‘do not diminish a word’, on Jeremiah. The theological import and the impact of the injunction on Jeremiah constitute the main thrust of the next chapter.     
     
                                                       CHAPTER FOUR  
                                               EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION  
‘DO NOT DIMINISH A WORD’ (אַל־תְִּגְ רע דָׇבׇר ): ITS THEOLOGICAL IMPORTS AND  
ITS IMPACT ON JEREMIAH  
4.0 Chapter one gave the general direction of the work and the overview of the book of Jeremiah. In chapter two, some scholarly opinions about the pericope were discussed and the need for further contribution was affirmed. The openness for further contribution paved the way for chapter three where exegetical study was conducted. The chapter discussed the historical and literary contexts of the pericope. It also deals with textual problem and the literary form of the pericope. The exegetical study showed that the pericope portrayed Jeremiah as a prototype of  
Moses and thus, the fulfillment of God’s promise of a prophet like Moses. The current chapter attempts to evaluate the injunction,ַאַל־ תגְַּרַע   דָׇּבׇר, “do not diminish a word”, by bringing out its theological import and its impact on Jeremiah.  
4.    1. 0 THE THEOLOGICAL IMPORT  
The explication of the text reveals the theological import latent in it. The recognized theological import in the text are itemized and explained as follow.   
4.1.1 THE SAVING POWER OF GOD’S WORD (דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה)  
The meaning of the term, דָׇבׇר, word, is popularly derived from the Hebrew word, דְבִׁיַרַ, to be behind. דְבִׁיַרַ refers to “the back of the Temple”, “holiest of all” (2 Ch. 5:7, 9). In the words of O.  
Procksch: “To this correspond the Arab. Dubr, ‘back, which brings to the heart of the matter’.  
The Arab. dabara means ‘to put on one’s back’, the Aram. d’bar ‘to be behind’.”  He adds thus:  
   
“in דָׇבׇר one is thus to seek the “back” or background of a matter.”  דַָׇבׇר is “a dynamic and energetic motion forward from that which is behind.”133 Uppsala J. Bergman corroborates this thus: “It is the heart that is responsible for all knowledge; it is the tongue that repeats what is conceived in the heart. Yea, every word of God came from that which the heart conceived and the tongue commanded.”  דָׇבׇר has both dianoetic and dynamic elements. It is revelatory and creative. Its dianoetic element refers to the capacity of דָבׇרַ to reveal the nature of a thing while its dynamic element showcases its creative power. Scholars have emphasized that whenever Jeremiah speaks of דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה (the word of the Lord) that he does not have primarily in view the dianoetic sense but its dynamic sense; he thinks first of its dynamic content.  It is written thus:  
“as in Jer., the dynamic aspect of the דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה is here more prominent than the dianoetic. The  
Word is seen to be a heavenly force which creatively accomplishes its work on earth.”  It is the dynamic element of דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה that create and recreate man, brings conversion, and forgiveness which leads to salvation. Behind Jeremiah’s prophetic word is the salvific intention (Jer. 26:3; 36:3, 7). The intention behind the writing of his oracle and its reading to the people is stated thus:  
“it may be that when the house of Judah hears of all the disasters that I intend to do to them, all of them may turn from their evil ways, so that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin” (Jer. 36:3).  
God asked Jeremiah to speak everything and not diminish a word (אַל־תִׁגְַרַע דָּבַָּרַ). This is because to experience the saving power of God’s word one has to put everything into practice (Matt.  
   
28:20; Deut. 5:33; 8:1). One who breaks one law breaks all; salvation is in keeping the whole words of God (James 2: 9-12; Matt. 5:17-19). This is in line with the Shema (Deut. 6: 4-5). God requires total devotion to his will. It is evident in the text itself. The verse that follows immediately reveals this and it is joined to verse 2 by adverbial particle, Hebrew “ulay”, meaning if, perhaps, should or suppose. It reads: “perhaps they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings.” To bring salvation is the purpose of the message. Matthew Henry, commenting on the verse says:  
This was the main thing God intended in sending him to them, to try if they would return from their sins, that so God might turn from his anger and turn away the judgments that threatened them, which he was not only willing, but very desirous to do, as soon as he could do it without prejudice to the honour of his justice and holiness   
 
 
Paul, the apostle, affirms the saving power of God’s word when he writes: “pay close attention to yourself and your teaching, for in doing this you will save yourself and your hearers” (1Tim. 4:16).  The word of God is spirit and life; it pierces the heart, the innermost thought of man, teaches, reproofs, corrects, trains in righteousness and bestows virtues (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17). For its piercing power not to be lost the word must be delivered in its raw state. The word of God must not be diminished for it to achieve its purpose. The word of God is the truth. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).  
4.1.2 THE NATURE OF GOD’S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS PEOPLE  
God reveals his will to whom he loves (Ps. 25:14). It is said that the Lord has not revealed his law to other nations but to Israel, his chosen people (cf. Deut. 4:6-8). It is also evident in Jesus’  
words: “I do not call you servants any longer; because a servant does not know what his master  
   
is doing but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have commanded from my Father” (John 15:15). So the injunction אַל־תִׁגְַרַע דָּבַָּרַ was given because God wanted everything to be revealed to the people and by that expressing his special closeness to the people. The pericope therefore reveals God’s special relationship with the people and Jeremiah as an individual to whom the divine will was revealed. The pericope expresses the divine election or special choice of the people (13:11).   
4.1.3 TRUE PROPHET  
False prophet is not uncommon to Israel. However, the so-called false prophet “is not a biblical term: the Hebr Bible knows only of nebi’im (though they may be qualified as prophets who tell lies or who have a lying spirit)” . Πσευδοπροφετες (false prophet) is LXX translation, in a few places, of the phrase, “prophets who tell lies or have a lying spirit”. Aquinas holds that “prophecy is a transient motion rather than habit; the same person might prophesy both truth and falsehood depending on whether he is touched by the spirit of God”139. The word nabi’ simply means one who acts or plays a prophet. Prophets that are prone to lying spirit are ecstatic prophets (1kgs 22: 5-28). As ecstatic condition is a genuine religious experience through which contact with God is achieved, it could be also a source of delusion.  In ecstatic state, the prophet is open to religious experience such that he could be possessed by either the spirit of  
God or a lying spirit. Ecstatic prophets are common among cultic and court prophets (cf. 1 Kings 4:1ff; 2 Kings 22:14-17; Amos 7:10ff; 2 Sam. 7:1ff; 12:1ff; 24:11; 1 Kings 1:8; 22:6ff; 2 Kings 3:6ff; 2 Kings 3:11ff; Neh. 6:7).  
   
However, the tradition of Israel traces true prophet to Moses. Earlier in this work some attributes of prototype of Moses are identified thus: 1. Native of Israel, 2. Call and Commission, 3. Direct  
Reception of God’s Words, 4. Faithfulness to the Message, and 5. Accuracy. The introduction of Jeremiah shows that Jeremiah is a true son of Israel (1:1). Chapter one substantiates the divine call and commission of Jeremiah. The pericope alludes to the call by using the word “’ עֲֹמֹ דַ” which recalls יָּ ִ֥קִׁים, raise up, in the statement made by Moses, “the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet” (Deut. 18: 15). The commission is alluded to with the word  וְדִׁבְַרְ תַָּ, “and speak”. It is also clear in the pericope that Jeremiah receives the word of God direct, not through vision, dream, divination or in ecstatic state (Num.12:6-8). The pericope puts it in such a way that it is to be believed that God puts his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. The injunction, אַל־תִׁגְַרַע דָּבַׇרַ, expresses the faithfulness to the message. The accuracy of the prophecy is in two ways (Deut. 18: 22). The first one is that what the prophet prophesies will come to pass. The second one is that his prophetic word will be proved true by tradition. Jeremiah made use of this criterion when he says that the prophets before him and Hananiah prophesied war, famine and pestilence (28: 8). His emphasis on Law and the need to listen to the prophets is in line with the tradition (Deut. 8: 1;  
10: 12-13; Ps.119). A true prophet calls people back to authentic faith.  
4.1.4 THE TRUTH OF GOD’S WORD   
David says, “O Lord God, you are God and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant” (2 Sam.7: 28). The word of God is אֶֶמֶת “truth”. The Hebrew word אמן, “amen”, is used to attest to דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה (1 Kings 8: 26; 1 Ch 17:23; 2 Ch 1:9; 6:17). Scripture also expresses that the whole of God’s word are אֶֶמֶת (Ps.119:160). The belief in the word corresponds to its truth (cf. Deut.1:32; Ps 106:12, 24). Hence, it is said, “in every spoken word there should be a relation of truth between the word and the thing and relation of fidelity between the one who speaks and the one who hears.”   
The injunction to Jeremiah אַל־תִׁגְַרַע דָּבַׇרַ is to affirm the eternity of the truth of דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה as different from human word which is temporal (cf. Eccl. 3: 14, Rev. 17: 19). דְַבַר־ ְיְהוַָָּ֗הַ is not bound by time; it is always true. Hence, replacing it with word born out of human desire or knowledge diminishes its truth and accuracy. Agur ben Jakeh puts thus: “Every word of God proves true; … Do not add to his words or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar” (Prov. 30:5-6). Isaiah also says that God’s thoughts and ways are not human thoughts and ways, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, his thoughts and ways are higher than human thoughts and ways (cf. 55:8-9). When the word of God is diminished, its efficacy is tampered with. In contrasting God’s words with human words, Jeremiah says “let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? Says the Lord. Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:28-29). Eternal truth cannot be substituted for temporal truth and still remain the same. It has to be delivered in its raw state. דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה is complete and whole; it needs no addition or subtraction (Deut. 4: 2; 12: 32).   
4.1.5 INVIOLABILITY OF MAN’S WILL  
The injunction presupposes that Jeremiah was free to diminish the word. The fact that he was free necessitated the injunction. The injunction, then, proves that God did not take away  
Jeremiah’s free will. Though Jeremiah felt the dynamic power of דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה, his free will was not tampered with. He could speak nothing but דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה not because he was overpowered by God but because he loved God and his people deeply. In his prophetic ministration he was actively  
conscious of being inspired by God and at the same time actively conscious of his freedom to do  
   
what God asked him to do. This further accentuates the fact that human freedom is inviolable and inalienable. St. Augustine says, “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.”   This shows how much value God places on human free will.  
Furthermore, this throws more light on theology of inspiration. The injunction shows that the prophetic word of Jeremiah is equal to דְַבַר־ ְיְהָָּ֗וָָּ֗ה. When God inspired the author of Scriptures, he did not take away their free will and human understanding; they were actively conscious of being free and of writing the word of God. As God is the source of Jeremiah’s words so also God is the primary author of the written words. To this end, the Church affirms that God is the author of holy scriptures and adds: “to compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all this while he employed them in this task, made full use of their powers and faculties so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.”    
4.1.6 JUSTIFICATION OF DIVINE JUDGMENT  
God reveals his will to show man the way of salvation. Man needs to know the will of God to be saved. Down the ages, God has always revealed his will for the sake of man’s salvation. When God want to purify the world with water, he revealed it to Noah (Gen. 6:12-15). God also revealed his will not to destroy the world with water again to him (Gen. 8:21). Again God revealed to Abraham the will to make him father of all nations and source of blessings for all in the covenant established with him (Gen. 12:1-2; 17:1-14). God’s will to make Israel his own people is revealed to Moses in the Torah, the terms of the covenant (Ex. 24:1-12). It is the Torah that makes Israel a unique people (Deut. 4:6-8). At the fullness of time God reveals his will to reconcile all things to himself and to make them new in his Son Jesus Christ (Heb. 1: 1-2).   
   
The justification of divine judgment rests on the fact that nothing is hidden from God’s will. Everything has been made known to the people and so they have no excuse for not doing the will of God (Rm.1:18-20). Hence, God ordered Jeremiah not to diminish a word so as to make the people responsible for their damnation. In this way God’s condemnation or judgment of the people would be just.   
4.2.0 IMPACT OF THE INJUNCTION ON JEREMIAH  
Among all the prophets, the record of Jeremiah’s life is the most detailed. The circumstances surrounding his prophetic ministry are recorded. The inner struggle, emotion and opposition engendered by his ministry are put into consideration in the Book of Jeremiah. The compassion and love shown him by various persons are not left out. The focus here is to discuss the  
contributions of the injunction, אַל־תִׁגְַרַע דָּבַׇרַ, to his life.   
4.2.1     THE JEREMIAH’S ORDEAL  
Some scholars see in Jeremiah the theme of weeping and so refer to Jeremiah as a weeping prophet. He went through trial, both physical and emotional torment. This was because he had to proclaim the whole counsel of God in its raw state.  
 He was not only to proclaim the whole counsel of God; he must be direct and raw in doing so. Considering the message (judgment) he was to proclaim and the historical setting, Jeremiah would not but be torn apart by fear and confusion. That is why some scholars argue that Jeremiah was given the injunction because he stood the risk of diminishing the word.   During his call and commission God forewarned him not to be confounded before the people or else he would confound him (1:17).   
The message of Jeremiah often aroused the anger of his audience; they laid hold of him and  
pronounced death sentence on him (26: 7-8). Jeremiah was abandoned by his associates: priests,  
   
prophets and so on (11: 18-20; 12:6). They became his enemies who wanted him dead; they accused him of blasphemy (26:9-11).  
He became a traitor. They suspected every word he spoke and every step he took (37:11-14).  
Jeremiah’s prophecy was against their struggle for freedom and political independence. He often advised the officials to submit to the rule of Nebuchadnezzar (27; 38). To the officials he was a traitor for giving such a counsel and so demoralizing the people, especially the soldiers (38: 4). They persecuted him and put him in a dungeon to die there (20:1-3; 37:16; 38:6).   
Jeremiah as a Judahite desired the freedom of his people and their political independence. It is heartache for him to stand against their struggle. That is why some scholars argue that the injunction shows that “There was something in the message that the prophet felt himself called to deliver from which he would naturally have shrunk.”  Jeremiah himself affirms this in his confession when he says, “For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name,’ then within there is something like burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in and I cannot” (20:  
8-9). The injunction engenders inner struggle in his life that several times he had to complain (11: 18-20; 12: 1-13; 20:7-18).  
Jeremiah also stood the risk of being misunderstood (15:10). In his temple sermon the judgment was conditional (26: 3, 13-15) but he was misunderstood. The judgment will materialize only if the people refuse to repent of their evil doings and ways. The sermon is actually a call for repentance rather than proclamation of definitive judgment. What the people, priests and prophets could see in the sermon is blasphemy instead of a call for repentance. Jeremiah became a controversial person throughout his life (15:10); his prophecy was not put into consideration.  
   
Jeremiah’s faithfulness to the message costs him his freedom of movement and comfort of his home. The contradictory nature of the message to the struggle of his people earned him imprisonment (20:1-3; 37:11-21; 38:1-13). At a time he had to hide to save his life (36:19, 26).  
The faithfulness of Jeremiah to the message made him to become the incarnate of divine situation. The divine situation is the manifestation of God’s faithful love for the people. It is demonstrated in God’s earnest longing for the people to come back to himself whenever they sin.  
It is written in Hosea 11:7-8 thus:   
 My people are bent on turning away from me. To the most High they call but he does not raise them up at all. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboi’im? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.   
 
Isaiah says that the divine faithful love transcends that of mother for her child (49:14-15). Jeremiah manifested such faithful love in his prophetic ministry. This faithful love is the action of God in the life of Jeremiah. Jeremiah manifested the divine earnestness to bring the people to God. He manifested the divine love for the people and wept for their unfaithfulness (8:18-9:6;  
14: 17-22). In his life it is possible to feel the divine love expressed by Jesus Christ for Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37).  
His celibate life is also a result of his faithfulness to the message (16:1-2). He embraced celibacy to prove that the divine judgment was real and imminent. He was convinced of the message and was faithful to it that he saw marriage and children as useless since both wife and children would soon become victims of wars, catastrophe, famine and death (16:1-9). In his culture, where continuity through offspring is almost identical to one’s existence, celibacy amounts to cancellation of one’s existence (Gen. 38:8-10; Deut. 25:5-6; Ruth 4:10). Nevertheless,  
Jeremiah’s faithfulness to the message urged him to embrace celibacy.     
4.2.2     LOVE FOR JEREMIAH  
Jeremiah’s life is like a night having stars and moon to light it up. Despite his ordeal and bitter experiences, he still had some people who sympathized with him and showed him love. This is the fulfillment of God’s promise for him. God told him that he would experience opposition but that he had made him a pillar of iron and a wall of bronze; they would fight against him but they would not prevail, for he, God, is with him to deliver him (1:18-19).  
At every difficult and dangerous situation, Jeremiah had some people who came to his rescue. He had a devoted and faithful disciple in the person of Baruch ben Neriah. In time of peace and turbulent moment, he was always with him (35; 36). He recorded the oracles of Jeremiah and the circumstances surrounding them.  
Ahikam ben Shaphan also saved Jeremiah from death. During the temple sermon, the priests and the prophets passed death sentence on Jeremiah but it was Ahikam, one of the officials, that saved him from the death sentence (26:7-24). The danger of death was real because Uriah, who earlier prophesied in the same words during the time of the same king Jehoiakim, was killed by the king Jehoiakim (26:20-23).  
When Jeremiah was thrown into cistern, Ebed-melech sympathized with him and pleaded with King Zedekiah to release him (38:7-9). King Zedekiah yielded to the plea and relocated Jeremiah to a favourable prison and made provision for his feeding (38:10-13).  
King Nebuchadnezzar also showed Jeremiah love. During the final deportation of the people of  
Judah to Babylon, he allowed Jeremiah to choose where he would live, whether to remain in  
Judah or to follow him to Babylon (39:11-12; 40:4-6). Nebuchadnezzar assured him of his care and security in whichever place he decided to live (39:13-14; 40:4-6). When Jeremiah chose  
Judah, he put him under the care and security of the governor, Gedaliah (40:6).   
4.2.3 JEREMIAH, THE MAN OF TRUTH  
 Jeremiah’s faithfulness to the message earned him the recognition as the man of truth. He was not partial; he deferred to no one. He proclaimed the word of God as it is given to him without fear or favour. The people and king came to him to seek the truth. King Zedekiah came to him to inquire the truth from him (38:14). Before fleeing to Egypt, the people came to Jeremiah to inquire the will of God from him (42:1-3).   
4.2.4     JEREMIAH’S COMMITMENT TO TRUE YAHWISM  
Yahweh is the name of the God of Israel. God revealed the name to Moses in the events of the burning bush (Ex. 3:13-15). The pronunciation of the name has been lost to history. Ratzinger says “In the name Yahweh, God’s presence for Israel is emphasized, his Being is expounded, not as Being in itself, but as a Being-for.”  This means the Being of Yahweh God is in communion and relation. Yahwism simply means the belief in Yahweh, the covenant God. Yahwism rests on covenant relationship between God and Israel. It follows the principle of covenant relationship. The relationship is maintained by the terms of the relationship. The relationship is broken when the people are unfaithful to the terms of the covenant. For Jeremiah the terms of the covenant are both ethical and religious (7: 1-15). On the part of God there is no unfaithfulness; God continues to be the God of the people of Israel as long as they are faithful to the terms of the covenant. God demands from the people a whole hearted service (Deut. 6: 4-5).  
   
The terms of the covenant are found in the Torah. The synopsis of the Torah is the Ten Commandments given by Moses. In expansive form it constitutes the whole Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Torah is the will of God and the way of salvation for the people.  In the inner dynamism of Yahwism, prophetism is an important factor to be considered. The prophets bring up to date the meaning and application of Torah. Prophets declare the will of God. When the Torah is abused, the prophets call the people back to the real nitty-gritty of the Torah. This is where Jeremiah played a role.  
Among all the prophets, Jeremiah has been recognized as the prophet who has profound and keen understanding of Yahwism. Guy writes: “but of all inspired men no one reached the status of Jeremiah in his great sensitivity to Yahweh’s love for his people and in his profound understanding of this people’s duty towards Yahweh through the covenant ties.”148 His faithfulness to the message makes “Jeremiah’s prophetic word to be noted for its directness and acuity in stating the true nature of Yahwism and in denouncing the different religious  
deviations.”    
Jeremiah brings to bear in his oracles how profound and deep is God’s love for the people. The people always sinned against God and he persistently sent his prophets to them to call them back.  
He showed the people’s obstinacy to respond to God’s faithful and profound love. Even the judgment declared by God is a sign of God’s faithful love for them. The judgment of God is not to destroy but to reform them. The judgment would purify them and lead them to a new covenant that surpassed the former (31:31-34).   
   
Jeremiah asked the people to change their ways and their doings (26:5). Explaining what ways and doings mean, Ojo writes: “The reference to ‘your ways and deeds’ points not just to their public worship of Yahweh in the Temple but more importantly their way of life outside of the Temple.”  He made them realize the ethical and religious consequences of the covenant and bade them to act accordingly. Jeremiah did not promise them peace and prosperity, but that if they change their ways and doings they would escape the divine judgment (26:3, 13). Yahwism is about the faithful love of God in the life of the people and the practical consequences for them. The oracles and life of Jeremiah bring to bear these two aspects in a more profound way than other prophets.    
4.3 GENERAL CONCLUSION  
The study so far has shown that faithfulness to God’s words is the mark of a true prophet. Jeremiah preached what God wanted him to preach, not what his people want. This is unlike Nigeria where prophets seize on the bad socio-economic situation of Nigerians to preach prosperity. Such prophets often claim that they could make them rich. They also seize on Nigerian cultural belief to attribute the misfortune of the people to generational curses and the havoc of witches and wizard. They are like Job’s friends who persistently told Job that suffering  
and poverty were signs of curse from God. God later rebuked them and asked them for atonement (Job 42: 7-9). Such prophets diminish God’s words. They instill fear in the people in order to make the people perpetually depend on them and by that extort them materially.  
The faithfulness to God’s words earned Jeremiah both ordeal and good. The faithfulness of Jeremiah begets the faithful love of God. God was faithful to his promise to deliver him. When he faced death penalty, God saved him from the hands of his enemies. Though there are many  
   
challenges that confront a true prophet, he will not fail to experience God’s faithful love. God will always stay by him to deliver him from all his afflictions.  
A true prophet is an incarnate of divine situation. In every prophetic ministry there should be a demonstration of God’s faithful love for the people. In Catholic Church this is demonstrated at baptism and at confessional. Besides sacraments, it should also manifest in the action of the prophet. This is hardly the case in prophetic ministry in Nigeria; the prophets are after what they will get from the ministry.  
The study also shows that a true prophet does not deviate from tradition. Conformity with tradition is also one way in which the truth of a prophet can be ascertained. Jeremiah never deviated from Mosaic tradition but rather sought to bring it into fulfillment in a concrete way. He called the people to live out the demand of the Law of Moses. In prophetic ministry today, it is not the case any longer. Deviation from tradition is one of the major causes of proliferation of churches today. Although the will of Jesus Christ is that all his disciples may hold on to one truth  
(John 17:11), today there is multiplicity of Christian truth as a result of proliferation of churches. There are as many Christian truths as there are many denominations.  
The study shows that only the untarnished word of God saves. In a nation, like Nigeria, where there are many churches and yet there is unprecedented immorality and moral decadence, the cause could be that the word of God has been diminished and thus corrupted. In untarnished word of God the will of God is made known to the people so that they can be in right disposition towards God and their neighbours. In the revelation of God’s will to the people they experience the special love of God for them. When God’s word is corrupted its truth and efficacy are tampered with and so become a lie and impotent.  
In the study it is clear that God does not violate man’s freedom of will; he leaves every man to his conscience in doing his will. However, he often endows man with enabling grace to do his will; he does not force man to accept it. This is manifested in the fact that prophetic word has intrinsic power to compel the prophet to speak but God still allows the prophet to exercise his freedom of will in the matter. The inviolability of man’s will and the revelation of God to him constitute the basis on which the divine judgment is justified. The revelation of God to man is to cancel out the possibility of acting in ignorance. Hence, the revelation must be total, not diminished.  
Finally, the essay has succeeded in showing that the injunction reveals the nature of prophecy and the implication it has on prophetic ministry. Its theological import is enriching for prophecy.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                           CITED WORKS  
Bright John, The Anchor Bible: Jeremiah, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1986  
Carol, Dempsey, Jeremiah: Preacher of Grace and Poet of Truth, Minnesota: Liturgical Press,  
2007       
Epp-Tiessen, Daniel, Concerning the prophets: True and False Prophecy in Jeremiah 23:9-
29:32, Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2012  
“Dei Verbum” (DV) in Flannery, Austin, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Bandra-Mumbai: St. Pauls, 1975   
King, Philip, Jeremiah: An Archeological Companion, Louisville-Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989  
Lange, John Peter, Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Volume 4: Songs of Songs to  
Lamentations, Translated by Dunlop Moore and Samuel T. Lowrie, Delmarva Publications, 2014  
Leuchter, Mark, The Polemics of Exile in Jeremiah 26–45, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008  
Lewis, Daniel, Jeremiah, the Deuteronomic Prophet: Studies in the Theology and Life of Jeremiah, Mchigan: Diakonos, Inc., 1990  
Malan, Morné and Meyer, Esias E., Jeremiah 26-29: a not so Deuteronomistic Composition. Old testam. Essays [online]. 2014, vol.27, n.3 [cited 2018-01-06]  
Marbaniang, Dominic, Mission and Ministry of the Church, Smashwords: Dominic Marbaniang, 2014  
Mastnjak Nathan, Deuteronomy and Emergency of Textual Authority in Jeremiah, Tubingen-
Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2016  
O’ Callaghan, Paul, Christ Our Hope: An Introduction to Eschatology, Washington: Catholic University of America, 2011  
Olatona Banji, A Comprehensive Revision Course on Religious Knowledge, Ado-Ekiti: Standard Press & Bookshops Co. (Nig.) Ltd, 1980  
Omoregbe, Joseph, Introduction to Philosophy, Lagos: Joja Educatinal Research and Publishers Limited, 1999, Reprinted 2002, 2006, 2009  
Pereira, Francis, Gripped by God in Christ: The Mind and Heart of St. Paul, Bandra, Mumbai:  
St. Paul, 2008  
Ratzinger, Joseph, Introduction to Christianity, New York: Doubleday, 1985  
Ratzinger, Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 1, New York: Doubleday, 2007  
Rogerson John, “The Old Testament”, in Rogerson John (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible, Oxford: University Press, 2001   
Sarah, Robert, God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith with Nicolas Diat, Translated by Miller Michael, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015  
Thomas, Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press Ltd, 1971  
Josephus, Flavius, “The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 10”, in The Works of Josephus: Completed and Unabridged, New Updated Edition, Transl. by Whiston William, Peabody, USA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987, 23rd Printing, 2010  
DICTIONARY  
Bergman, J. Uppsala, “דַָ ברdabhar; דַָׇבׇר dabhar: In the Ancient Near East- Egypt”, in Botterweck, Johannes G. and Ringgren, Helmer (eds.), Theological Dictionary of Old Testament, Transl. by  
Wills John T. et al, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967  
MuilenBurg J., “Jeremiah the Prophet”, in Arthur Buttrick G. et al, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, E-J, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962  
Paul Achtemeier (Gen. Ed.) et al, The HarperCollins Dictionary, Bangalore: Theological Publications, 2009  
Procksch, O., “The Word of God in the Old Testament” in Kittel, Gerhard (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol., IV, transl. by Bromiley W., Michigan: W. M. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967  
Schmidt, W. H. Kiel, “ַַדָ בַרdabhar; דַָׇבׇר dabhar: The Root” in Botterweck, Johannes G. and Ringgren, Helmer (eds.), Theological Dictionary of Old Testament, Transl. by Wills John T. et al, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967  
COMMENTARY  
Blenkinsopp, Joseph, “Deuteronomy” in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011  
Castelot, John, “Religious Institutions of Israel” in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011  
Couturier Guy, “Jeremiah”, in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011),  
Grayhill John, “Jeremiah”, in Pfeiffer, Charles et al, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Chicago: Moody Press, 1962  
Hyatt James, “Jeremiah: Introduction”, in Buttrick, Georgy A., The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 5, Nashville: Atingdon Press, 1956  
Mckenzie John, “Aspects of Old Testament Thought”, in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The New  
Jerome Biblical Commentary, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011  
Murphy, Roland E, “From Abraham to Pompey”, in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011  
Vawter, Bruce, “Introduction to Prophetic Literature” in Brown Raymond et al (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2011  
JOURNAL  
Ojo Vincent, “An Exegetical Understanding of Jer. 26:12-15 and the Challenges Facing  
Prophetic Ministry in Nigeria Today”, in Ihensekhien, Matthew et al, Ekpoma Review: Philosophy and Theology of the Catholic Major Seminary of All Saints, Uhiele, Ekpoma, Vol. 3, 2016  
INTERNET SOURCES  
Book of Jeremiah, http://www.bible-studys.org/Bible/Books/Jeremiah/Book/of/Jeremiah.html, Accessed Date: 25/12/2017; Time: 5:14 pm  
Babylonian Exile, file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/The/Babylonian/Exile.htm, Accessed Date:  
06/01/2018; time: 11:35  
Study Guide for Jeremiah by David Guzik. htm, Accessed Date: 07/10/2017; Time: 4:33pm    
Utley, Bob, Introduction to Jeremiah, https://bible.org/seriespage/introduction-jeremiah, Accessed Date: 25/12/2017; Time: 4:33pm www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete, 07/10/2017; Time: 9:37 pm   
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Biblehub.com/commentaries/Elliot/Jeremiah/26.htm,     Accessed     Date:     06/10/2017;     Time: 10:39pm