Jeremiah 31:35-36

The Lord Guarantees Israel’s Continuance

31:35 The Lord has made a promise to Israel.

He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day

and the moon and stars to give light by night.

He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll.

He promises it as the one who is known as the Lord who rules over all. ¹ 

31:36 The Lord affirms, ²  “The descendants of Israel will not

cease forever to be a nation in my sight.

That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights

were to cease to operate before me.” ³ 

Psalms 74:16-17

74:16 You established the cycle of day and night; ⁴ 

you put the moon ⁵  and sun in place. ⁶ 

74:17 You set up all the boundaries ⁷  of the earth;

you created the cycle of summer and winter. ⁸ 

Psalms 104:19

104:19 He made the moon to mark the months, ⁹ 

and the sun sets according to a regular schedule. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for this title. In the Hebrew text the verse reads: “Thus says the Lord who provides the sun for light by day, the fixed ordering of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar, whose name is Yahweh of armies, ‘…’” The hymnic introduction to the quote which does not begin until v. 36 has been broken down to avoid a long awkward sentence in English. The word “said” has been translated “made a promise” to reflect the nature of the content in vv. 36-37. The first two lines of the Hebrew poetry are a case of complex or supplementary ellipsis where the complete idea of “providing/establishing the fixed laws” is divided between the two lines (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 110-13). The necessity for recombining the ellipsis is obvious from reference to the fixed ordering in the next verse. (Some commentators prefer to delete the word as an erroneous glossing of the word in the following line (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 277, n. y).

² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

³ tn Heb “‘If these fixed orderings were to fail to be present before me,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘then the seed of Israel could cease from being a nation before me forever (or more literally, “all the days”).’” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to modern style. The connection has been maintained by reversing the order of condition and consequence and still retaining the condition in the second clause. For the meaning of “cease to operate” for the verb מוּשׁ (mush) compare the usage in Isa 54:10; Ps 55:11 (55:12 HT); Prov 17:13 where what is usually applied to persons or things is applied to abstract things like this (see HALOT 506 s.v. II מוּשׁ Qal for general usage).

⁴ tn Heb “To you [is] day, also to you [is] night.”

⁵ tn Heb “[the] light.” Following the reference to “day and night” and in combination with “sun,” it is likely that the Hebrew term מָאוֹר (ma’or, “light”) refers here to the moon.

⁶ tn Heb “you established [the] light and [the] sun.”

⁷ tn This would appear to refer to geographical boundaries, such as mountains, rivers, and seacoasts. However, since the day-night cycle has just been mentioned (v. 16) and the next line speaks of the seasons, it is possible that “boundaries” here refers to the divisions of the seasons. See C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms (ICC), 2:156.

⁸ tn Heb “summer and winter, you, you formed them.”

⁹ tn Heb “he made [the] moon for appointed times.” The phrase “appointed times” probably refers to the months of the Hebrew lunar calendar.

¹⁰ tn Heb more metaphorically, “knows its setting.”