Jeremiah 33:2

33:2 “I, the Lord, do these things. I, the Lord, form the plan to bring them about. ¹  I am known as the Lord. I say to you,

Exodus 15:3

15:3 The Lord is a warrior, ² 

the Lord is his name. ³ 

Psalms 83:18

83:18 Then they will know ⁴  that you alone are the Lord, ⁵ 

the sovereign king ⁶  over all the earth.

Isaiah 43:3

43:3 For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, ⁷  your deliverer.

I have handed over Egypt as a ransom price,

Ethiopia and Seba ⁸  in place of you.

Amos 5:8

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ⁹  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

¹ tn Or “I, the Lord, made the earth. I formed it in such a way as to firmly establish it”; Heb “Thus says the Lord who makes/does it, the Lord who forms it to establish it, whose name is the Lord.” It is unclear what the antecedent of “it” is. The Greek version supplies the object “the earth.” However, as D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 4:269, notes, this is probably a smoothing of a text which had no object other than the pronoun. No other text or version has an object other than the pronoun. It could be argued that “the earth” is to be understood as the intended referent from other contexts within the book of Jeremiah (Jer 10:12, 16; 51:15) where these verbs refer to the Lord as creator and from the prior context in 32:17 where the Lord’s power as creator is the basis for the assertion that nothing is too hard for him. This is the object that is supplied in a number of modern English versions and commentaries. However, the use of the feminine singular pronoun in other contexts to refer to an indefinite reality which is spelled out in the preceding or following context (cf. 2 Kgs 19:25; Isa 22:11; 37:26; 44:7) lends credence to the suggestion by the committee for The Hebrew Old Testament Project that the pronoun refers to the work or plan of the Lord, a view which is reflected in the NJPS and has been adopted here. For the use of the verb “form” here in the sense of “plan” see BDB 427 s.v. יָצַר 2.b and compare the usage in Isa 22:11; 37:26. The best discussion of options is given in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 169-70, who see the pronoun referring ahead to the great and hidden things of v. 3. As in several other cases our translation has opted for a first person introduction rather than the third person of the original because the Lord himself is speaking.

² tn Heb “man of war” (so KJV, ASV). “Warrior” is now the preferred translation since “man of war” is more commonly known today as a warship. The expression indicates that Yahweh is one who understands how to fight and defeat the enemy. The word “war” modifies “man” to reveal that Yahweh is a warrior. Other passages use similar descriptions: Isa 42:13 has “man of wars”; Ps 24:8 has “mighty man of battle.” See F. Cross, “The Divine Warrior in Israel’s Early Cult,” Biblical Motifs, 11-30.

³ tn Heb “Yahweh is his name.” As throughout, the name “Yahweh” is rendered as “the Lord” in the translation, as is typically done in English translations.

⁴ tn After the preceding jussives (v. 17), the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose (“so that they may know”) or result.

⁵ tn Heb “that you, your name [is] the Lord, you alone.”

⁶ tn Traditionally “the Most High.”

⁷ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

⁸ sn Seba is not the same as Sheba in southern Arabia; cf. Gen 1:10; 1 Chr 1:9.

⁹ tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”