Yeremia 10:13

10:13 When his voice thunders, ¹  the heavenly ocean roars.

He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. ² 

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

He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. ³ 

Yeremia 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ⁴ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ⁵ 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ⁶ 

Yeremia 51:16

51:16 When his voice thunders, the waters in the heavens roar.

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

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

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

[10:13]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”

[10:13]  ³ tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”

[16:19]  ⁴ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  sn The shift here is consistent with the interruptions that have taken place in chapters 14 and 15 and in Jeremiah’s response to God’s condemnation of the people of Judah’s idolatry in chapter 10 (note especially vv. 6-16).

[16:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ⁶ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

[16:19]  sn This passage offers some rather forceful contrasts. The Lord is Jeremiah’s source of strength, security, and protection. The idols are false gods, worthless idols, that can offer no help at all.