1Listen to the word that the LORD has spoken about you, house of Israel. 2Thus said the LORD:
The way of the nations do not learn,
and from the signs of the heavens be not terrified,
for the nations are terrified by them.
3For the nations’ practices are mere breath,
for the tree he cuts down from the forest,
the craftsman’s handiwork with an axe.
4In silver and gold he embellishes it,
with nails and hammer
he secures it that it not totter.
5Like a scarecrow in a patch of greens
they do not speak, they are carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not fear them, for they do no harm,
nor is doing good any part of them.
6Because none is like you, O LORD,
great are You
and great Your name in might.
7Who would not fear You,
King of nations?
For among all the nations’ wise men
and in all their regal state
there is none like You.
8And as one they are stupid and foolish,
a doctrine of mere breath—it is but wood.
9Hammered silver brought from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz,
the craftsman’s work and the hands of the smith,
indigo and purple, their raiment,
the work of skilled men, all of them.
10But the LORD is the God of truth,
He is the living God and eternal King.
From His fury the earth is shaken,
and nations cannot contain His wrath.
11Thus shall you say to them: gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from beneath these heavens.
12He makes the earth through His power,
firmly founds the world through His wisdom,
and in His discernment stretches out the heavens.
13As He sounds His voice—a roar of water in the heavens,
and He brings up clouds from the end of the earth.
Lightning for the rain He makes,
and He brings out wind from His storerooms.
14Every human is too stupid to know,
every smith is shamed by the idol,
for the molten image is a lie,
and there is no spirit in them.
15Mere breath are they, a work of mockery,
in their judgment time they shall perish.
16Not like these is Jacob’s Portion,
for He is the Fashioner of all things,
and Israel is the tribe of His estate,
the LORD of Armies is His name.
17Gather from the ground your wares,
you who dwell under siege.
18For thus said the LORD:
I am about to sling away the land’s dwellers
this time and bring them in straits, that they may find out.
19Woe is me for my disaster,
the blow against me is grievous,
and I had thought:
this is but illness and I shall bear it.
20My tent is ruined and all my cords are ripped,
my children have left me and are gone,
or sets up my tent curtains.
21For the shepherds are stupid,
and they have not sought the LORD.
Therefore they have not prospered,
and all their flock is scattered.
22Hark, a sound, look, it comes
and a great tumult from the land of the north,
to make the towns of Judah
a desolation, a jackals’ den.
23I know, O LORD,
that a person’s way is not for him
and not for a man walking to direct his own steps.
24Correct me, LORD, but with justice,
not in Your anger, lest You diminish me.
25Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that do not know you
and on the clans
that do not call upon Your name.
For they have devoured Jacob and made an end of him,
and have devastated his home.
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
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2. and from the signs of the heavens be not terrified. Astrology was a powerful presence in this period, in Babylonia and elsewhere. The prophet urges his audience to dismiss all supposed celestial portents.
3. practices. The Hebrew ḥuqot elsewhere means “statutes,” but the context requires something on the order of “practices.”
for the tree he cuts down from the forest. Jeremiah now imagines a kind of representative idolator (hence the singular form) who cuts down the tree, carves wood from it, and overlays it with silver and gold. The absurdity of attributing divinity to a material object fashioned through human craftsmanship would be picked up by Second Isaiah.
6. Because none is like you, O LORD. In antithesis to the absurdity of idol worship, the prophet launches on a kind hymn to God’s greatness. The phrase “none is like you, O LORD” echoes the “Who is like You among the gods, O LORD” of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:11), but, significantly, “among the gods” is deleted because Jeremiah, at this relatively late moment, no longer imagines that there may be other, punier gods alongside YHWH.
7. For to You it is fitting. That is, to You is fear or reverence fitting.
8. a doctrine of mere breath—it is but wood. The doctrine, or guiding principle, is totally empty because it is based on the hopeless idea that wood can be a god.
9. indigo and purple, their raiment. The idols were often dressed in fine clothing resembling royal raiment.
skilled men. The Hebrew seems to say “wise men,” but ḥakhamim is often a designation for people skilled in a craft, which is the likely sense here.
11. Thus shall you say to them. This entire verse is in Aramaic, being the only complete sentence in Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible apart from the Aramaic sections of Nehemiah and Daniel. There have been suggestions from Late Antiquity onward that Jeremiah is addressing the group of Judahites exiled to Babylonia in 597 B.C.E., who would have been constrained to speak in Aramaic to their pagan captors.
12. He makes the earth through His power. This celebration of God as Creator is reminiscent of many of the psalms.
14. Every human is too stupid to know. The prophet now swings back from the praise of God’s mastering of the cosmic forces of the heavens to the foolishness of idol worship.
there is no spirit in them. The Hebrew noun also means “breath,” and both senses are probably intended here.
16. Jacob’s Portion. In the present context, this has to be an epithet for God. There is a reciprocity: God is Jacob’s Portion and Israel is “the tribe of His estate.”
17. Gather from the ground your wares. These words begin a new prophecy, a vision of destruction and exile. The word represented as “wares,” kinah, is understood in this translation as deriving from kenaʿani, “merchant,” though others, proposing an Arabic cognate, think it means “bundle.”
18. this time. The implication is that until now God has held back from condemning the people to exile but will no longer forbear.
20. no one pitches my tent again. This extending of the metaphorical image of destruction intimates that since the children are all gone, there is no one to set up the flattened tent.
21. the shepherds. As elsewhere, these are the leaders of the people.
23. a person’s way is not for him. The slightly puzzling formulation is best explained by assuming that the verb “to direct” (or, more literally, “to make firm”) just before the end of the second verset does double duty for both parts of the line, yielding the sense “is not for him to direct.” The notion that a man’s destiny is beyond his control fits in with the monotheistic idea of an omnipotent God, but it has also often been articulated by ancient and modern writers without any theistic assumption.
25. Pour out Your wrath on the nations. While the speaker—evidently the prophet identifying with the people—asks to be spared God’s wrath in whatever punishment he may have to suffer, he invites the full measure of divine fury to be administered to the nations that have wreaked havoc on the people of Israel. It should be noted that “anger,” ʾaf, in the previous verse and “wrath,” ḥeimah, in this verse constitute a break-up pattern because the two nouns are often idiomatically joined in a construct form, ḥamat-ʾaf.
For they have devoured Jacob and made an end of him. The Masoretic Text reads, “For they have devoured Jacob and devoured him and made an end of him,” but the second “devoured” is in all likelihood a scribal duplication (dittography). It is absent in the parallel to this verse in Psalms 79:7 and also in the Septuagint and some Hebrew manuscripts.