Mazmur 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 

Mazmur 95:4

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

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

Mazmur 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 

Mazmur 136:6

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

for his loyal love endures,

Kejadian 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.

Ayub 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!

Yeremia 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 

Yeremia 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.

Pengkhotbah 3:5-7

3:5 A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 A time to search, and a time to give something up as lost; ²⁸ 

a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 A time to rip, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silent, and a time to speak.

[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.

[10:11]  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]  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]  sn The phrase the portion of Jacob’s descendants, which is applied to God here, has its background in the division of the land where each tribe received a portion of the land of Palestine except the tribe of Levi whose “portion” was the Lord. As the other tribes lived off what their portion of the land provided, the tribe of Levi lived off what the Lord provided, i.e., the tithes and offerings dedicated to him. Hence to have the Lord as one’s portion is to have him provide for all one’s needs (see Ps 16:5 in the context of vv. 2, 6 and Lam 3:24 in the context of vv. 22-23).

[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.”

[10:16]  sn For this rendering of the name for God and its significance see 2:19 and the study note there.

[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.

[10:2]  sn The Hebrew word translated here “things that go on in the sky” (אֹתוֹת, ’otot) refers both to unusual disturbances such as eclipses, comets, meteors, etc., but also to such things as the changes in the position of the sun, moon, and stars in conjunction with the changes in seasons (cf. Gen 1:14). The people of Assyria and Babylonia worshiped the sun, moon, and stars, thinking that these heavenly bodies had some hold over them.

[3:6]  ²⁸ tn The term לְאַבֵּד (lÿ’abbed, Piel infinitive construct from אָבַד, ’avad, “to destroy”) means “to lose” (e.g., Jer 23:1) as the contrast with בָּקַשׁ (baqash, “to seek to find”) indicates (HALOT 3 s.v. I אבד; BDB 2 s.v. אבד 3). This is the declarative or delocutive-estimative sense of the Piel: “to view something as lost” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 28, §145; IBHS 403 §24.2g).