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Psalm 96:5
New English Translation
Psalm 96:5
New English Translation
5 For all the gods of the nations are worthless,[a]
but the Lord made the sky.
Footnotes
- Psalm 96:5 tn The Hebrew term אֱלִילִים (ʾelilim, “worthless”) sounds like אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim, “gods”). The sound play draws attention to the statement.
Isaiah 37:16
New English Translation
Isaiah 37:16
New English Translation
16 “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, O God of Israel, who is enthroned on the cherubim![a] You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the sky[b] and the earth.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Isaiah 37:16 sn The cherubim (singular “cherub”) refer to the images of winged angelic creatures that were above the ark of the covenant.
- Isaiah 37:16 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
Jeremiah 10:11
New English Translation
Jeremiah 10:11
New English Translation
11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:
‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.
They will disappear[a] from the earth and from under the heavens.’[b]
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 10:11 tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” In conformity with contemporary English style, the sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence.
- Jeremiah 10:11 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 that 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. God gives Israel a message for the nations in the lingua franca of the time. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note). This fact argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear,” not an attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not the prose that it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.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” by “from under the heavens,” and “the earth” by “from the earth.” In the very center, “did not make” is balanced and contrasted by “will disappear.” The structure is further reinforced by the sound play/wordplay between “did not make” (Aram לָא עֲבַדוּ [laʾ ʿavadu]) and “will disappear” (Aram יֵאבַדוּ [yeʾvadu]). This is the rhetorical climax of Jeremiah’s sarcastic attack on the folly of idolatry.
New English Translation (NET)
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