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42 Structure and the Book ofZechariah
theory that 'and no one shall gather them' was added to tie together
two originally separate poems, apart from the fact that, as Lundbom
himself says, 'this has not been put forward as a unit before'. 1
Pages 31-60 contain numerous other examples of inclusio within the
'Poems of Jeremiah' rather than inclusio in 'the Larger Book of
Jeremiah'. He recognizes the problem of delimiting the poems and
tries to ensure that this is not done by means of 'the controlling
inclusio' but by other criteria, 'some rhetorical, e.g. balancing terms,
repetition... and some non-rhetorical, e.g. messenger formula,
change of speaker, content, etc.' This is to be appreciated. However,
some of the inclusios discovered by Lundbom seem feeble, for
example, 5.10-13 is marked only by the very common verb ntou, and
it occurs in different forms, neither at the beginning nor the end of
either verse. It could not be a very forceful demarcation of a unit for
a hearer or even a reader of this passage. His next example is 5.26-31
in which an inclusio is formed by 'my people'. His explanation may
well be correct, but:
1. There is some doubt about the analysis of Jeremiah 5 into
units (v. 26 begins with *o which makes it unlikely to be a
self-contained unit, although this does not necessarily nullify
the inclusio).
2. 'My people' is not particularly distinctive, hi other words the
example might give some support to a plausible theory, but it
would make a weak foundation. 2
In dealing with chiasmus 3 , Lundbom shows that he is aware of the
danger of imposing a modern thought pattern on the text rather than
discovering the author's own intention. He therefore proposes only to
consider supposed thought patterns that are undergirded by key
words. This, again, seems to be a wise proposal. We may ignore
chiasmus in single bicola, since they are well established, but also of
limited value in helping in our task of determining the structure of a
large section. Two slightly larger—and convincing—examples are: 4
1. Lundbom, Jeremiah, p. 30.
2. Our confidence is not helped by the fact that Holladay both adopts a different
division into units here, (5.20-29, 30-31. Jeremiah, pp. 192-201) and ignores the
repetition of 'my people 1 .
3. Lundbom, Jeremiah, pp. 61 -112.
4. Lundbom, Jeremiah, pp. 69-70.