Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 10:11
Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, [even] they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
11. The v. is not Hebrew, but Aramaic. Either it is a marginal note, subsequently introduced into the text, where it interrupts the connexion of Jer 10:10 ; Jer 10:12, or it was designed by the prophet to supply the exiles with a form of answer when solicited to share in idolatrous practices. In the former case, inasmuch as the word for “earth” appears here in two distinct (non-Hebraic) forms, both of which are found in the Assuan papyri (see Intr. i. 17 note), it has been conjectured to be an insertion on the part of some member of the Jewish colony in Egypt.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
This verse is (in the original) in Chaldee. It was probably a proverbial saying, which Jeremiah inserts in its popular form.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 11. Thus shall ye say unto them] This is the message you shall deliver to the Chaldean idolaters.
The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish] Both they and their worshippers shall be destroyed; and idolatry shall finally be destroyed from the earth; and the heavens shall look no more on so great an abomination. It is suffered for a while: but in the end shall be destroyed. This verse is written in a sort of Hebraeo-Syriaco-Chaldee; such a dialect as I suppose was spoken at that time in Babylon, or during the captivity. As it is a message to the Babylonians, therefore, it is given in their own language. The Chaldee makes it the beginning of the copy of the epistle which the Prophet Jeremiah sent to the rest of the elders of the captivity who were in Babylon. All the ancient Versions acknowledge this verse; and it is found in all MSS. hitherto collated, except one of Dr. Kennicott’s numbered 526; and he has included it between lines, as doubting its authenticity. Dr. Blayney supposes that some public teacher during the captivity, deducing it by direct inference from the prophet’s words, had it inserted in the margin, and perhaps usually read together with this section, in the assemblies of the people, in order that they might have their answer always ready, whenever they were molested on the point of religion, or importuned to join the idolatrous worship of the Chaldeans.
Dahler has left it entirely out of the text, and introduces it in a note thus: – “After Jer 10:10 the Hebrew text is interrupted by a verse written in the Chaldean or Babylonish tongue. It is thus expressed: –
Ye shall say unto them, Let the gods perish!
Who have not made the heavens and the earth.
Let them be banished from above the earth,
and from under the heavens.
This verse can be considered only as a foreign insertion, not only on account of the difference of the language, but also because it interrupts the natural course of the ideas, and of the connexion of the tenth and twelfth verses.”
As a curiosity I shall insert it in Hebrew, which the reader may compare with the Chaldee text, which I also subjoin.
cazoth tomeru lahem; haelohim asher lo asu hashshamayim vehaarets, yobedu min haarets, umin tachath hashshamayim elleh.
kidna temerun lehon; elahaiya di shemaiya vearka la abadu, yebadu meara umin techoth shemaiya elleh.
The Hebrew is the translation of Leusden; the Chaldee is that of the common text. Had not all the ancient Versions acknowledged it, I also, principally on account of the strangeness of the language, as being neither Chaldee nor Syriac, should have doubted its authenticity.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Say unto them, viz. to your great lords, the Babylonians, when they shall solicit you to worship idols.
The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth: this seems to have some allusion to a saying common among those Greeks that held one supreme Deity, Let him that saith he is a god make another world. Here is noted both how frail they are,
they shall perish; and how weak they are, they could not make
the heavens or the earth. This verse is writ in the Chaldean tongue, and not in the Hebrew, that when they came among them that did worship their idols, they might openly and plainly profess the true God in that language, which the enemies understood better than they did the Hebrew, and that in such kind of bold language as this; Let all those gods perish from off the earth, and under the heavens, that were not able to make either. It is an imprecation upon their idols.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. This verse is in Chaldee,Jeremiah supplying his countrymen with a formula of reply to Chaldeeidolaters in the tongue most intelligible to the latter. There may bealso derision intended in imitating their barbarous dialect.ROSENMULLER objects tothis view, that not merely the words put in the mouths of theIsraelites, but Jeremiah’s own introductory words, “Thusshall ye say to them,” are in Chaldee, and thinks it tobe a marginal gloss. But it is found in all the oldestversions. It was an old Greek saying: “Whoever thinkshimself a god besides the one God, let him make another world”(Ps 96:5).
shall perish (Isa 2:18;Zec 13:2).
these heavensthespeaker pointing to them with his fingers.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thus shall ye say unto them,…. The godly Jews to the idolatrous Chaldeans; and therefore this verse alone is written in the Chaldee language. The Targum prefaces it thus,
“this is the copy of the letter, which Jeremiah the prophet sent to the rest of the elders of the captivity in Babylon; and if the people among whom you are should say unto you, serve idols, O house of Israel; then shall ye answer, and so shall ye say unto them, the idols whom ye serve are errors, in whom there is no profit; from heaven they cannot bring down rain, and out of the earth they cannot produce fruit:”
so Jarchi observes: it follows in the text,
the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens; which the Targum paraphrases thus,
“they and their worshippers shall perish from the earth, and shall be consumed from under these heavens.”
The words may be considered as a prediction that so it would be; or as an imprecation that so it might be, and be read, “let the gods”, c. and considered either way, being put into the mouth of the godly Jews in Babylon, to be openly pronounced by them in the midst of idolaters, and in answer to them, when they should be enticed to idolatry, show how open and ingenuous men should be in the profession of the true God, and his religion and worship: and it may be observed, against the deniers of the true deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that if he is not that God that made the heavens and the earth, he lies under this imprecation or prediction.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Now, the reason why he bids the Israelites to speak in the Chaldee language is, because they had been led into exile, and were mingled with the Assyrians and Chaldeans. He then required from those despised exiles an open and a bold confession, as though he had said, “Even though ye are now in the most miserable bondage, and though the Chaldeans disdainfully oppress you, as if ye were slaves, yet proclaim the glory of God and shrink not from an open confession of your religion, and say to them, in contempt of all their idols, perish must your gods from the earth and from under heaven, for they have not made heaven nor the earth.” We now understand the meaning of the Prophet. But the rest I shall defer until tomorrow.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) Thus shall ye say unto them.The verse presents an almost unique phenomenon. It is not, like the rest of the book, in Hebrew, but in Chaldee or Aramaic, the language of the enemies of Israel. Two explanations have been offered(1) that a marginal note, added by one of the exiles in Babylon, found its way at a later period into the text; (2) a far more probable view, viz., that the prophet, whose intercourse with the Chaldeans had made him familiar with their language, put into the mouths of his own countrymen the answer they were to give when they were invited to join in the worship of their conquerors. Little as they might know of the strange language, they might learn enough to give this answer. The words have the ring of a kind of popular proverb, and in the original there is a play of sound which can only be faintly reproduced in EnglishThe gods that have not made . . . they shall be made away with. The apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah, already referred to, may, perhaps, be regarded as a rhetorical sermon on this text.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 10:11. Thus shall ye say, &c. This verse is in the Chaldee language, and it appears here as a kind of parenthesis. Houbigant thinks, that the most probable reason why it is here inserted in the Chaldee, and not in the Hebrew, is, that Jeremiah prescribes to the Jews what they shall answer, in living among idolaters, and using the Chaldee language; hereby presignifying that they should be the captives of the Chaldees.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 10:11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, [even] they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
Ver. 11. Thus shall ye say unto them. ] Confession with the mouth is necessary to salvation. This verse (written therefore in the Syriac tongue, which was spoken at Babylon) is a formulary given to God’s people, to be made use of by them in detestation of the idolatries of that city.
The gods that made not the heaven and the earth. NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 10:11
11Thus you shall say to them, The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.
Jer 10:11 This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only verse in Jeremiah in Aramaic (also note Ezr 4:8 to Ezr 6:18; Ezr 7:12-26; Dan 2:4 to Dan 7:28). Why one Aramaic verse should appear in the midst of a Hebrew book is uncertain. Some of the theories are:
1. The rabbis say that it was part of a letter sent to King Jehoiachin in captivity in Babylon.
2. It was an anti-polytheistic proverb.
3. It was an exorcism formula.
4. It was a marginal note, later inserted into the text (TEV, NEB).
Thus shall ye say, &c. This verse is in Chaldee, to serve as a confession of their faith in their exile.
not made . . . shall perish. Note the Figure of speech Paronomasia. Hebrew. ‘abadu ye’badu.
Thus: “In the Chaldean language.” The gods. Psa 96:5
they: Jer 10:15, Jer 51:18, Isa 2:18, Zep 2:11, Zec 13:2, Rev 20:2
under: Lam 3:66
Reciprocal: Gen 24:3 – the Gen 31:30 – my gods Exo 23:13 – make no mention Deu 6:4 – the Lord Deu 7:24 – their name Jdg 6:31 – if he be 1Sa 5:4 – the head 2Sa 4:11 – from 2Ki 5:15 – now I know 1Ch 16:26 – the Lord 2Ch 32:13 – were the gods Ezr 1:2 – Lord God Neh 9:6 – thou hast Job 9:8 – Which Psa 19:1 – The heavens Psa 24:2 – For Psa 135:5 – I know Psa 146:6 – made heaven Psa 148:5 – for he Isa 37:19 – no gods Isa 40:26 – who hath Isa 51:13 – that hath Jer 27:5 – made Jer 32:17 – thou Hos 2:17 – and they Joh 1:10 – and the world was Act 7:50 – General Act 14:15 – which Act 17:24 – that made Act 19:26 – that they Heb 11:3 – faith Rev 4:11 – for thou Rev 10:5 – lifted
Jer 10:11. Thus shall ye say unto them is the instruction of the Lord, telling Jeremiah what he should say t.O the people of his nation. They are to be told that their idol gods will cease to be and hence it will be seen all Idols are powerless.
Jer 10:11. Thus shall ye say unto them This verse is in the Chaldee language, and it appears here as a kind of parenthesis. Houbigant thinks that the most probable reason why it is here inserted in the Chaldee, and not in the Hebrew, is, that Jeremiah prescribes to the Jews what they shall answer in living among idolaters, and using the Chaldee language; hereby prescribing that they should be the captives of the Chaldees. Dodd. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth And therefore they are no gods, but the usurpers of the honour due to him only who did make them; shall perish from the earth, &c. Shall perish of course, because they are vanity, formed of perishing materials; and shall perish by his righteous sentence, because they are rivals with him who made all things. Here the prophet foretels that there shall be a final period put to idolatry. God hath already blotted out the names of many of the heathen idols, as an earnest of the utter destruction of the rest in his due time.
10:11 Thus shall ye say to them, The gods {g} that have not made the heavens and the earth, [even] they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
(g) This declares that all that has been spoken of idols in this chapter, was to arm the Jews when they would be in Chaldea among the idolaters, and now with one sentence he instructs them both how to protest their own religion against the idolaters and how to answer them to their shame who would exhort them to idolatry, and therefore he writes this sentence in the Chaldean tongue for a memorial while all the rest of his writing is in Hebrew.
Jeremiah instructed his audience to say that these idols would perish, because they were human creations rather than the divine Creator. This is the only Aramaic verse in Jeremiah.
"The Tg [Targum] prefaces Jer 10:11 with these words: ’This is the copy of the letter which the Prophet Jeremiah sent to the leaders of the exile in Babylon: "If the Chaldeans say to you, worship our idols, then answer them as follows."’ This suggests that Jer 10:11 was a shortened version of a letter sent by Jeremiah to Jehoiachin and the other exiles in Babylon [where Aramaic was spoken] between 598 and 587 B.C. (compare Jer 29:1-32)." [Note: Kelley, p. 160. The Targums were interpretive translations of portions of the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic, which increasingly replaced the Hebrew language following the Babylonian captivity.]
Another possibility is that this verse represents a well-known saying that someone, perhaps an Aramaic speaker, added to the text under divine inspiration. [Note: Thompson, p. 330.]
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)