“Woe Is Me!”: The Book of Jeremiah and the Language of Despair
The Hebrew Scriptures contain relatively few specific lexemes for the concept of despair. In this study I propose that the self-referential expression “woe is me/us” (אוי לי/לנו) provides an alternative pathway for understanding this concept. Building on a detailed analysis of the distribution and g...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
Journal of Biblical literature
Year: 2020, Volume: 139, Issue: 3, Pages: 479-497 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Jeremiah
/ Despair
/ Despair (Motif)
/ Rhetoric
/ Threatening prophecy
/ Depression
|
| IxTheo Classification: | HB Old Testament |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The Hebrew Scriptures contain relatively few specific lexemes for the concept of despair. In this study I propose that the self-referential expression “woe is me/us” (אוי לי/לנו) provides an alternative pathway for understanding this concept. Building on a detailed analysis of the distribution and grammar of this expression, I analyze six “woes” from Jeremiah that together constitute half of all the self-referential occurrences of אוי (Jer 4:13, 31; 6:4; 10:19; 15:10; 45:3). My exegesis of this corpus focuses on aspects of discourse, communication, and sound, while integrating current insights about despair from the fields of psychology and philosophy. The study thus contributes to the renewed interest in psychological readings of the prophets, the understanding of the overlooked exclamatory particle אוי, and the research on Jeremiah’s polyphony and theology. |
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| ISSN: | 1934-3876 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Biblical literature
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/jbl.2020.0025 DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1393.2020.3 |
