Jeremiah 10:11

Thus shall ye say unto them,.... The godly Jews to the idolatrous Chaldeans; and therefore this verse alone is written in the Chaldee language.

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.

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.

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.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.] The vanity of idols and heathenish gods is set forth (1.) By their impotence; (2.) Frailty. Quid ad haec respondebunt Papistae? aut qualem contradictoriae reconciliationem afferent?

(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 English—The 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.

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 Jeremiah 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. כזאת תאמרו להם האלהים אשר לא עשו השמים והארץ יאבדו מן הארץ ומן תחת השמים אלה cazoth tomeru lahem; haelohim asher lo asu hashshamayim vehaarets, yobedu min haarets, umin tachath hashshamayim elleh. כדנא תאמרון להון אלהיא די שמיא וארקא לא עבדו יאבדו מארעא ומן תחות שמיא אלה 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.

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; Jeremiah 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.

This verse is (in the original) in Chaldee. It was probably a proverbial saying, which Jeremiah inserts in its popular form.