Ancient Near Eastern scribes from Egypt to Mesopotamia, including Israelite scribes of the Hebrew Bible, create infelicitous or symmetric elements in their textual production. By their form, these elements communicate beyond the textual and semantic levels for rhetorical and literary purposes. "Meta-textual semantics" is a widespread scribal device in the ancient world, and ancient audiences and exegetes (e.g., rabbinic, medieval Jewish and Christian exegetes, and Masoretes) properly appreciated it, but it is underappreciated in modern interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. Using Prov 1:1-7 as a paradigm, Josiah D. Peeler explores elements in Hebrew Jeremiah usually considered secondary because of their odd or well-formed nature, to demonstrate that they exemplify a contextual theme.
