Jeremiah’s 70-Year Prophecy 513 mirrors Esarhaddon’s own embracing of sacral Babylonian royal traditions during his effort to secure his rule over Babylon (32). A number of Jeremianic passages reflect the prophet’s own familiarity with Assyrian literature and culture. Jer 10,1-16 accurately reflects the ritualized process of the creation of graven images in both Assyria and Babylon (33), and Jer 2,13.16.18.36 refer to Assyria’s military alliance with Egypt during the last few tense years of Josiah’s reign (34). Jer 4,23-26 involves a subtle play on the Akkadian cognate to the Hebrew word tbç (35), and the prophet’s familiarity with Aramaic, the language of diplomacy employed by Assyria, is evident in Jer 10,11 and Jer 25,10 (the latter of which points to the prophet’s reliance upon the norms of Assyrian political epigraphy) (36). The similarities in form between Jeremiah’s juridical prose and the parenetic features of the Deuteronomic corpus suggests that the prophet was himself familiar with the Assyrian literature which served as the latter’s literary inspiration (37). This is further supported by the consistent associations (32) For parallels between the Deuteronomic material and the VTE, see WEINFELD, Deuteronomy, 115-138. For Esarhaddon’s diplomatic strategy with respect to Babylonian royalistic theology, see PORTER, Images, Power Politics, 77-117, 119-153. (33) See especially T. JACOBSEN, “The Graven Image”, Ancient Israelite Religion. Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (eds. S.D. MCBRIDE et al.) (Philadelphia 1987) 15-32. For Jer 10,1-16 as original to the prophet, see W.L. HOLLADAY, “Indications of Jeremiah’s Psalter”, JBL 121 (2002) 247; B.D. SOMMER, A Prophet Reads Scripture. Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford 1998) 166, 237 n. 112, 258 n. 94; M. MARGALIOT, “Jeremiah x 1-16: A Re- Examination”, VT 30 (1980) 295-208. (34) For the references in Jer 2 to the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance ca. 616 B.C.E., see SWEENEY, King Josiah, 215-225, 233. (35) M. FISHBANE, “Jer iv 23-26 and Job iii 3-13: A Recovered use of the Creation Pattern”, VT 21 (1971) 151-153. (36) See A. LEMAIRE, “Jérémie xxv 10b et la Stèle Araméenne de Bukan” VT 47 (1997) 543-545. Lemaire suggests that the form of the verse is dependent upon the political language represented by an inscription from the reign of Esarhaddon. If the verse may be attributed to Jeremiah (see the discussion below concerning Jer 51) then the prophet appears to be conversant with Esarhaddon’s political dispatches, supporting the hypothesis I have proposed herein. (37) See LEUCHTER, Jeremiah, 140ff., wherein I have argued that significant portions of the juridical or sermonic prose in the book of Jeremiah may be attributed to the prophet directly, though there is no reason to deny the presence of subsequent scribal accretions; such is implied by the function of Baruch’s colophon in Jer 45, which empowers the scribe to continue in the footsteps of the prophet.