Psalms 33:6

33:6 By the Lord’s decree ¹  the heavens were made;

by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created. ² 

Psalms 95:4

95:4 The depths of the earth are in his hand, ³ 

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

Psalms 104:5-6

104:5 He established the earth on its foundations;

it will never be upended.

104:6 The watery deep covered it ⁴  like a garment;

the waters reached ⁵  above the mountains. ⁶ 

Psalms 136:6

136:6 to the one who spread out the earth over the water,

for his loyal love endures,

Genesis 1:9-10

1:9 God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place ⁷  and let dry ground appear.” ⁸  It was so. 1:10 God called the dry ground “land” ⁹  and the gathered waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good.

Job 38:4

God’s questions to Job

38:4 “Where were you

when I laid the foundation ¹⁰  of the earth?

Tell me, ¹¹  if you possess understanding!

Jeremiah 10:11-16

10:11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ¹²  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ¹³ 

10:12 The Lord is the one who ¹⁴  by his power made the earth.

He is the one who by his wisdom established the world.

And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

10:13 When his voice thunders, ¹⁵  the heavenly ocean roars.

He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. ¹⁶ 

He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.

He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. ¹⁷ 

10:14 All these idolaters ¹⁸  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. ¹⁹ 

There is no breath in any of those idols. ²⁰ 

10:15 They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. ²¹ 

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

10:16 The Lord, who is the inheritance ²²  of Jacob’s descendants, ²³  is not like them.

He is the one who created everything.

And the people of Israel are those he claims as his own. ²⁴ 

He is known as the Lord who rules over all.” ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 10:2

10:2 The Lord says,

“Do not start following pagan religious practices. ²⁶ 

Do not be in awe of signs that occur ²⁷  in the sky

even though the nations hold them in awe.

Jeremiah 3:5-7

3:5 You will not always be angry with me, will you?

You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’ ²⁸ 

That is what you say,

but you continually do all the evil that you can.” ²⁹ 

3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. ³⁰  You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods. ³¹  3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ³²  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ³³ 

[33:6]  ¹ tn Heb “word.”

[33:6]  ² tn Heb “and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” The words “were created” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons; they are understood by ellipsis (note “were made” in the preceding line). The description is consistent with Gen 1:16, which indicates that God spoke the heavenly luminaries into existence.

[95:4]  ³ tn The phrase “in his hand” means within the sphere of his authority.

[104:6]  ⁴ tc Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה (kisattah, “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.

[104:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “stood.”

[104:6]  ⁶ sn Verse 6 refers to the condition described in Gen 1:2 (note the use of the Hebrew term תְּהוֹם [tÿhom, “watery deep”] in both texts).

[1:9]  ⁷ sn Let the water…be gathered to one place. In the beginning the water covered the whole earth; now the water was to be restricted to an area to form the ocean. The picture is one of the dry land as an island with the sea surrounding it. Again the sovereignty of God is revealed. Whereas the pagans saw the sea as a force to be reckoned with, God controls the boundaries of the sea. And in the judgment at the flood he will blur the boundaries so that chaos returns.

[1:9]  ⁸ tn When the waters are collected to one place, dry land emerges above the surface of the receding water.

[1:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “earth,” but here the term refers to the dry ground as opposed to the sea.

[38:4]  ¹⁰ tn The construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, using the preposition and the subjective genitive suffix.

[38:4]  ¹¹ tn The verb is the imperative; it has no object “me” in the text.

[10:11]  ¹² tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” The sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[10:11]  ¹³ tn This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only Aramaic sentence in Jeremiah. Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10,” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324-25, 334-35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the Lord and idols in vv. 2-16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

[10:12]  ¹⁴ tn The words “The Lord is” are not in the text. They are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation here because of the possible confusion of who the subject is due to the parenthetical address to the people of Israel in v. 11. The first two verbs are participles and should not merely be translated as the narrative past. They are predicate nominatives of an implied copula intending to contrast the Lord as the one who made the earth with the idols which did not.

[10:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “At the voice of his giving.” The idiom “to give the voice” is often used for thunder (cf. BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.x).

[10:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”

[10:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”

[10:14]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Or “nothing but a phony god”; Heb “a lie/falsehood.”

[10:14]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Or “objects of mockery.”

[10:16]  ²² tn The words “The Lord who is” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. For the significance of the words that follow them see the study note that follows.

[10:16]  ²³ tn Heb “The Portion of Jacob.” “Descendants” is implied, and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[10:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “And Israel is the tribe of his possession.”

[10:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies is his name.”

[10:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Do not learn the way of the nations.” For this use of the word “ways” (דֶּרֶךְ, derekh) compare for example Jer 12:16 and Isa 2:6.

[10:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “signs.” The words “that occur” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:5]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Will he keep angry forever? Will he maintain [it] to the end?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. The change to direct address in the English translation is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, common in Hebrew style (but not in English), from second person direct address in the preceding lines to third person indirect address in these two lines. See GKC 462 §144.p.

[3:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “You do the evil and you are able.” This is an example of hendiadys, meaning “You do all the evil that you are able to do.”

[3:6]  ³⁰ tn “Have you seen…” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

[3:7]  ³² tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.

[3:7]  ³³ tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.