33:6 By the Lord’s decree 19 the heavens were made;
by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created. 20
33:9 For he spoke, and it 21 came into existence,
he issued the decree, 22 and it stood firm.
34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, 23
the sky will roll up like a scroll;
all its stars will wither,
like a leaf withers and falls from a vine
or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 24
40:26 Look up at the sky! 25
Who created all these heavenly lights? 26
He is the one who leads out their ranks; 27
he calls them all by name.
Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,
not one of them is missing.
40:27 Why do you say, Jacob,
Why do you say, Israel,
“The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, 28
My God is not concerned with my vindication”? 29
40:28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is an eternal God,
the creator of the whole earth. 30
He does not get tired or weary;
there is no limit to his wisdom. 31
45:12 I made the earth,
I created the people who live 32 on it.
It was me – my hands 33 stretched out the sky, 34
I give orders to all the heavenly lights. 35
1 tn Heb “lest you lift up your eyes.” In the Hebrew text vv. 16-19 are subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.
2 tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
3 tn Heb “all the host of heaven.”
4 tn In the Hebrew text the verbal sequence in v. 19 is “lest you look up…and see…and be seduced…and worship them…and serve them.” However, the first two actions are not prohibited in and of themselves. The prohibition pertains to the final three actions. The first two verbs describe actions that are logically subordinate to the following actions and can be treated as temporal or circumstantial: “lest, looking up…and seeing…, you are seduced.” See Joüon 2:635 §168.h.
5 tn Or “allotted.”
6 tn Or “nations.”
7 tn Heb “under all the heaven.”
8 tc The MT reads “and to the sun,” thus including the sun, the moon, and other heavenly spheres among the gods. However, Theodotion and Lucian read “or to the sun,” suggesting perhaps that the sun and the other heavenly bodies are not in the category of actual deities.
9 tn Heb “which I have not commanded you.” The words “to worship” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
10 tn Heb “gates.”
11 tn Heb “does the evil in the eyes of the
12 tn Heb “slain [one].”
13 tn The combination “a wadi with flowing water” is necessary because a wadi (נַחַל, nakhal) was ordinarily a dry stream or riverbed. For this ritual, however, a perennial stream must be chosen so that there would be fresh, rushing water.
14 sn The unworked heifer, fresh stream, and uncultivated valley speak of ritual purity – of freedom from human contamination.
15 tn Heb “the priests, the sons of Levi.”
16 tn Heb “in the name of the
17 tn Heb “by their mouth.”
18 tn Heb “every controversy and every blow.”
19 tn Heb “word.”
20 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.
21 tn That is, “all the earth” in the first line of v. 8. The apparent antecedent of the masculine subject of the verbs in v. 9 (note וַיֶּהִי [vayyehiy] and וַיַּעֲמֹד [vayya’amod]) is “earth” or “world,” both of which are feminine nouns. However, כָּל (kol, “all”) may be the antecedent, or the apparent lack of agreement may be explained by the collective nature of the nouns involved here (see GKC 463 §145.e).
22 tn Heb “he commanded.”
23 tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”
24 tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”
25 tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”
26 tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.
27 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.”)
28 tn Heb “my way is hidden from the Lord” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
29 tn Heb “and from my God my justice passes away”; NRSV “my right is disregarded by my God.”
30 tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.
31 sn Exiled Israel’s complaint (v. 27) implies that God might be limited in some way. Perhaps he, like so many of the pagan gods, has died. Or perhaps his jurisdiction is limited to Judah and does not include Babylon. Maybe he is unable to devise an adequate plan to rescue his people, or is unable to execute it. But v. 28 affirms that he is not limited temporally or spatially nor is his power and wisdom restricted in any way. He can and will deliver his people, if they respond in hopeful faith (v. 31a).
32 tn The words “who live” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
33 tn Heb “I, even my hands”; NASB “I stretched out…with My hands”; NRSV “it was my hands that stretched out.” The same construction occurs at the beginning of v. 13.
34 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
35 tn Heb “and to all their host I commanded.” See the notes at 40:26.
36 tc MT, 4QJera and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJerc reads “the sun and all the stars.”
37 tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”
38 tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.
39 tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.
40 tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”
41 tn Grk “And suddenly.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
42 tn Grk “a multitude of the armies of heaven.”
43 sn The expression and gave them over suggests similarities to the judgment on the nations described by Paul in Rom 1:18-32.
44 tn Or “stars.”
45 tn The two terms for sacrifices “semantically reinforce one another and are here combined essentially for emphasis” (L&N 53.20).
46 tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ question, “was it?”