Jeremiah 4:23

4:23 “I looked at the land and saw ¹  that it was an empty wasteland. ² 

I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

Jeremiah 4:26

4:26 I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert

and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins.

The Lord had brought this all about

because of his blazing anger. ³ 

Jeremiah 18:3

18:3 So I went down to the potter’s house and found him working ⁴  at his wheel. ⁵ 

[4:23]  ¹ tn Heb “I looked at the land and behold...” This indicates the visionary character of Jeremiah’s description of the future condition of the land of Israel.

[4:23]  ² tn Heb “formless and empty.” This is a case of hendiadys (two nouns joined by “and” both describe the same thing): one noun retains its full nominal force, the other functions as an adjective. The words תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu vavohu) allude to Gen 1:2, hyperbolically picturing a reversal of creation and return to the original precreation chaos.

[4:26]  ³ tn Heb “because of the Lord, because of his blazing anger.”

[18:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “And behold he was working.”

[18:3]  ⁶ sn At his wheel (Heb “at the two stones”). The Hebrew expression is very descriptive of the construction of a potter’s wheel which consisted of two stones joined by a horizontal shaft. The potter rotated the wheel with his feet on the lower wheel and worked the clay with his hands on the upper. For a picture of a potter working at his wheel see I. Ben-Dor, “Potter’s Wheel,” IDB 3:846. See also the discussion regarding the making of pottery in J. L. Kelso, “Pottery,” IDB 3:846-53.