Jeremiah 2:27

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ¹  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ² 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ³ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

Jeremiah 10:8

10:8 The people of those nations ⁴  are both stupid and foolish.

Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! ⁵ 

Ezekiel 21:21

21:21 For the king of Babylon stands at the fork ⁶  in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: ⁷  He shakes arrows, he consults idols, ⁸  he examines ⁹  animal livers. ¹⁰ 

Habakkuk 2:19

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ¹¹  –

he who says ¹²  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ¹³ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

[2:27]  ¹ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ² sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ³ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[10:8]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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.”

[21:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “mother.”

[21:21]  ⁷ sn Mesopotamian kings believed that the gods revealed the future through omens. They employed various divination techniques, some of which are included in the list that follows. A particularly popular technique was the examination and interpretation of the livers of animals. See R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 90-110.

[21:21]  ⁸ tn This word refers to personal idols that were apparently used for divination purposes (Gen 31:19; 1 Sam 19:13, 16).

[21:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “sees.”

[21:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the liver.”

[2:19]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ¹³ 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).