26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, 3 so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before 4 it, for I am the Lord your God.
104:13 He waters the mountains from the upper rooms of his palace; 8
the earth is full of the fruit you cause to grow. 9
135:7 He causes the clouds to arise from the end of the earth,
makes lightning bolts accompany the rain,
and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
1 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
2 tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.
3 sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”
4 tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).
5 tn The translation understands כִּי (ki) in an emphatic or asseverative sense.
6 tn Heb “the good way in which they should walk.”
7 tn Or “for an inheritance.”
8 tn Heb “from his upper rooms.”
9 tn Heb “from the fruit of your works the earth is full.” The translation assumes that “fruit” is literal here. If “fruit” is understood more abstractly as “product; result,” then one could translate, “the earth flourishes as a result of your deeds” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB).