Psalms 8:3

8:3 When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made,

and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place, ¹ 

Psalms 33:6

33:6 By the Lord’s decree ²  the heavens were made;

by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created. ³ 

Psalms 115:16

115:16 The heavens belong to the Lord, ⁴ 

but the earth he has given to mankind. ⁵ 

Psalms 148:3-4

148:3 Praise him, O sun and moon!

Praise him, all you shiny stars! ⁶ 

148:4 Praise him, O highest heaven,

and you waters above the sky! ⁷ 

Isaiah 40:22-26

40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ⁸ 

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ⁹ 

He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ¹⁰ 

and spreads it out ¹¹  like a pitched tent. ¹² 

40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing;

he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant.

40:24 Indeed, they are barely planted;

yes, they are barely sown;

yes, they barely take root in the earth,

and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up,

and the wind carries them away like straw.

40:25 “To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?”

says the Holy One. ¹³ 

40:26 Look up at the sky! ¹⁴ 

Who created all these heavenly lights? ¹⁵ 

He is the one who leads out their ranks; ¹⁶ 

he calls them all by name.

Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,

not one of them is missing.

Jeremiah 10:11-12

10:11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ¹⁷  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ¹⁸ 

10:12 The Lord is the one who ¹⁹  by his power made the earth.

He is the one who by his wisdom established the world.

And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

Romans 1:19-20

1:19 because what can be known about God is plain to them, ²⁰  because God has made it plain to them. 1:20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people ²¹  are without excuse.

[8:3]  ¹ tn Heb “when I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you established.” The verb “[and] see” is understood by ellipsis in the second half of the verse.

[33:6]  ² tn Heb “word.”

[33:6]  ³ tn Heb “and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” The words “were created” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons; they are understood by ellipsis (note “were made” in the preceding line). The description is consistent with Gen 1:16, which indicates that God spoke the heavenly luminaries into existence.

[115:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the heavens [are] heavens to the Lord.”

[115:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “to the sons of man.”

[148:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “stars of light.”

[148:4]  ⁷ sn The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7. See also Ps 104:3. For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 47.

[40:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[40:22]  ⁹ tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:22]  ¹⁰ tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).

[40:22]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.

[40:22]  ¹² tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”

[40:25]  ¹³ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[40:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”

[40:26]  ¹⁵ tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.

[40:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)

[10:11]  ¹⁷ tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” The sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[10:11]  ¹⁸ tn This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only Aramaic sentence in Jeremiah. Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10,” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324-25, 334-35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the Lord and idols in vv. 2-16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

[10:12]  ¹⁹ tn The words “The Lord is” are not in the text. They are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation here because of the possible confusion of who the subject is due to the parenthetical address to the people of Israel in v. 11. The first two verbs are participles and should not merely be translated as the narrative past. They are predicate nominatives of an implied copula intending to contrast the Lord as the one who made the earth with the idols which did not.

[1:19]  ²⁰ tn Grk “is manifest to/in them.”

[1:20]  ²¹ tn Grk “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.