Jeremiah 10:11

"Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens."

We have noted that Thompson mistakenly called this a gloss. It is no such thing. "It must not be regarded as a gloss, because it provides an immediate connection between Jeremiah 10:10,12."[17]

"Thus shall ye say unto them ..." (Jeremiah 10:11). This refers to a popular saying in those times in the Chaldee tongue (to which the Jews would soon travel); and, in effect, it gives God's people a ready-made answer in the tongue of their captors by which they would be able to resist the inducements to participate in Babylonian idolatry. This is one of the master-strokes of the whole prophecy.

"Because this verse is in Chaldee (Aramaic) some expositors reject it as a gloss; but all versions have it. It fits the context perfectly."[18] Furthermore, "No copyist would have interpolated a Chaldee verse into a Hebrew text!"[19]

In the attention we have paid to the authenticity of the chapter, we should not overlook the extremely important theological teachings of these important verses: "There is none like God (Jeremiah 10:6); He is the true and living God (Jeremiah 10:10); He is the Creator of heaven and earth (Jeremiah 10:12); He is the controller of the clouds and of the rain (Jeremiah 10:13); he alone is worthy of the respect and adoration of all men (Jeremiah 10:7); He is especially the God of Israel (Jeremiah 10:16).

Before leaving Jeremiah 10:11, we shall note that many recent commentators love to parrot the old critical shibboleth that "This verse, being in Chaldee (Aramaic) is out of place."[20] But such a remark is nothing but an eighteenth century error. As R. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury, stated in 1929, "The appearance of this verse, as is, in the Septuagint (LXX) version is decisive. That this verse is in Aramaic is accounted for by the supposition that the exiles (soon to be in Babylon) were to use these very words (in the Chaldean tongue) as a retort when asked by the Chaldeans to join in their idol-worship. It was probably a proverbial saying."[21] What an advantage for the exiles that they were thus armed with a popular proverb in the very language of their captors, enabling them to resist appeals to join in Babylonian idolatry!