1 Samuel 12:21

12:21 You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty. ¹ 

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 17:15

17:15 David was going back and forth ²  from Saul in order to care for his father’s sheep in Bethlehem.

Psalms 31:6

31:6 I hate those who serve worthless idols, ³ 

but I trust in the Lord.

Jeremiah 2:13

2:13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong:

they have rejected me,

the fountain of life-giving water, ⁴ 

and they have dug cisterns for themselves,

cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Jeremiah 10:8

10:8 The people of those nations ⁵  are both stupid and foolish.

Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! ⁶ 

Jeremiah 10:14-15

10:14 All these idolaters ⁷  will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham. ⁸ 

There is no breath in any of those idols. ⁹ 

10:15 They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. ¹⁰ 

When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ¹¹ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ¹² 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ¹³ 

Habakkuk 2:18-20

2:18 What good ¹⁴  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ¹⁵ 

What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ¹⁶ 

Why would its creator place his trust in it ¹⁷ 

and make ¹⁸  such mute, worthless things?

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ¹⁹  –

he who says ²⁰  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ²¹ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

2:20 But the Lord is in his majestic palace. ²² 

The whole earth is speechless in his presence!” ²³ 

[12:21]  ¹ tn Or “useless” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “nothing”; NASB “futile”; TEV “are not real.”

[17:15]  ² tn Heb “was going and returning.”

[31:6]  ³ tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.

[2:13]  ⁴ tn It is difficult to decide whether to translate “fresh, running water” which the Hebrew term for “living water” often refers to (e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5), or “life-giving water” which the idiom “fountain of life” as source of life and vitality often refers to (e.g., Ps 36:9; Prov 13:14; 14:27). The contrast with cisterns, which collected and held rain water, suggests “fresh, running water,” but the reality underlying the metaphor contrasts the Lord, the source of life, health, and vitality, with useless idols that cannot do anything.

[10:8]  ⁵ 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.”

[10:8]  ⁶ 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.”

[10:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “Every man.” But in the context this is not a reference to all people without exception but to all idolaters. The referent is made explicit for the sake of clarity.

[10:14]  ⁸ tn Or “nothing but a phony god”; Heb “a lie/falsehood.”

[10:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “There is no breath in them.” The referent is made explicit so that no one will mistakenly take it to refer to the idolaters or goldsmiths.

[10:15]  ¹⁰ tn Or “objects of mockery.”

[16:19]  ¹¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  ¹² tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ¹³ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

[2:18]  ¹⁴ tn Or “of what value.”

[2:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.

[2:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.

[2:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.

[2:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to make.”

[2:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ²⁰ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ²¹ tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).

[2:20]  ²² tn Or “holy temple.” The Lord’s heavenly palace, rather than the earthly temple, is probably in view here (see Ps 11:4; Mic 1:2-3). The Hebrew word ֹקדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) here refers to the sovereign transcendence associated with his palace.

[2:20]  ²³ tn Or “Be quiet before him, all the earth!”