Mazmur 102:25

102:25 In earlier times you established the earth;

the skies are your handiwork.

Yesaya 40:26

40:26 Look up at the sky! ¹ 

Who created all these heavenly lights? ² 

He is the one who leads out their ranks; ³ 

he calls them all by name.

Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,

not one of them is missing.

Yesaya 42:5

42:5 This is what the true God, ⁴  the Lord, says –

the one who created the sky and stretched it out,

the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ⁵ 

the one who gives breath to the people on it,

and life to those who live on it: ⁶ 

Yesaya 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ⁷  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ⁸ 

Yeremia 10:11-12

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

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ⁹  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ¹⁰ 

10:12 The Lord is the one who ¹¹  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.

Wahyu 14:7

14:7 He declared ¹²  in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”

[40:26]  ¹ tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”

[40:26]  ² tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.

[40:26]  ³ tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)

[42:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “the God.” The definite article here indicates distinctiveness or uniqueness.

[42:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and its offspring” (so NASB); NIV “all that comes out of it.”

[42:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “and spirit [i.e., “breath”] to the ones walking in it” (NAB, NASB, and NRSV all similar).

[44:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ⁸ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[10:11]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[10:11]  sn This passage is carefully structured and placed to contrast the Lord who is living and eternal (v. 10) and made the heavens and earth (v. 12) with the idols who did not and will disappear. It also has a very careful concentric structure in the original text where “the gods” is balanced by “these,” “heavens” is balance by “from under the heavens,” “the earth” is balanced by “from the earth,” and “did not make” is balanced and contrasted in the very center by “will disappear.” The structure is further reinforced by the sound play/wordplay between “did not make” (Aram לָא עֲבַדוּ [la’ ’avadu]) and “will disappear” (Aram יֵאבַדוּ [ye’vadu]). This is the rhetorical climax of Jeremiah’s sarcastic attack on the folly of idolatry.

[10:12]  ¹¹ 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.

[14:7]  ¹² tn Grk “people, saying.” In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence. For the translation of λέγω (legw) as “declare,” see BDAG 590 s.v. 2.e.