19:1 Here is a message about Egypt:
Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud
and approaches Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him;
the Egyptians lose their courage. 1
40:20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; 2
he then seeks a skilled craftsman
to make 3 an idol that will not fall over.
41:7 The craftsman encourages the metalsmith,
the one who wields the hammer encourages 4 the one who pounds on the anvil.
He approves the quality of the welding, 5
and nails it down so it won’t fall over.”
44:17 With the rest of it he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships it.
He prays to it, saying,
‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’
44:18 They do not comprehend or understand,
for their eyes are blind and cannot see;
their minds do not discern. 6
44:19 No one thinks to himself,
nor do they comprehend or understand and say to themselves:
‘I burned half of it in the fire –
yes, I baked bread over the coals;
I roasted meat and ate it.
With the rest of it should I make a disgusting idol?
Should I bow down to dry wood?’ 7
44:20 He feeds on ashes; 8
his deceived mind misleads him.
He cannot rescue himself,
nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ 9
46:1 Bel 10 kneels down,
Nebo 11 bends low.
Their images weigh down animals and beasts. 12
Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals. 13
46:2 Together they bend low and kneel down;
they are unable to rescue the images; 14
they themselves 15 head off into captivity. 16
46:7 They put it on their shoulder and carry it;
they put it in its place and it just stands there;
it does not 17 move from its place.
Even when someone cries out to it, it does not reply;
it does not deliver him from his distress.
10:8 The people of those nations 18 are both stupid and foolish.
Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! 19
1 tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”
2 tn The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan tÿrumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.
3 tn Or “set up” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NASB “to prepare.”
4 tn The verb “encourages” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).
5 tn Heb “saying of the welding, ‘It is good.’”
6 tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”
7 tn There is no formal interrogative sign here, but the context seems to indicate these are rhetorical questions. See GKC 473 §150.a.
8 tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”
9 tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”
10 sn Bel was the name of a Babylonian god. The name was originally associated with Enlil, but later was applied to Marduk. See HALOT 132 s.v. בֵּל.
11 sn Nebo is a variation of the name of the Babylonian god Nabu.
12 tn Heb “their images belong to animals and beasts”; NIV “their idols are borne by beasts of burden”; NLT “are being hauled away.”
13 tn Heb “your loads are carried [as] a burden by a weary [animal].”
14 tn Heb “[the] burden,” i.e., their images, the heavy burden carried by the animals.
15 tn נַפְשָׁם (nafsham, “their souls/lives”) is equivalent here to a third masculine plural suffix, but the third feminine singular verb הָלָכָה (halakhah, “they go”) agrees with the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, life”).
16 sn The downfall of Babylon is depicted here. The idols are carried off by the victorious enemy; the gods are likened to defeated captives who cower before the enemy and are taken into exile.
17 tn Or perhaps, “cannot,” here and in the following two lines. The imperfect forms can indicate capability.
18 tn Or “Those wise people and kings are…” It is unclear whether the subject is the “they” of the nations in the preceding verse, or the wise people and kings referred to. The text merely has “they.”
19 tn Heb “The instruction of vanities [worthless idols] is wood.” The meaning of this line is a little uncertain. Various proposals have been made to make sense, most of which involve radical emendation of the text. For some examples see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 323-24, fn 6. However, this is probably a case of the bold predication that discussed in GKC 452 §141.d, some examples of which may be seen in Ps 109:4 “I am prayer,” and Ps 120:7 “I am peace.”