In this part of the chapter, Yirmiyahu addresses the vast gulf between the idols of the nations, which possess no substance whatsoever, and the Holy One, blessed be He, Who alone is truth. The prophet demonstrates the Creator's greatness from three perspectives: from the fact that He is living and eternal, from the fact that He alone created heaven and earth, and from the fact that He alone directs the world through divine providence and wisdom. Let us examine the verses in order.
וַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים אֱמֶת הוּא אֱלֹהִים חַיִּים וּמֶלֶךְ עוֹלָם מִקִּצְפּוֹ תִּרְעַשׁ הָאָרֶץ וְלֹא יָכִלוּ גוֹיִם זַעְמוֹ׃ (י) - But Hashem, God, is truth; He is the living God and an eternal King; at His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His fury. (10)
Rashi explains: Why is Hashem the God of truth? "Because He is the living God and an eternal King." That is to say, who is capable of validating his words? Only one who is eternal. A mortal human being - here today and in the grave tomorrow - how can he guarantee anything? Only One Who lives and endures forever can say: Everything I tell you is absolute truth. And since He is an eternal King, He also has the power to fulfill and validate His words.
Radak adds: The gods that the nations fashion for themselves to worship are false, dead gods; there is no breath of life in them and they possess no power. Hashem, however, is the God of truth, Master over all powers, and He alone is truth; He is all-powerful and judges all. All other forces derive their power from Him alone. Even the celestial bodies, which genuinely possess forces (astrology and the like contain an element of truth), derive all those powers solely from the Holy One, blessed be He. His governance depends on no one else; rather, all others depend on Him.
Why does the verse say Elohim chayim ("living God") in the plural form rather than Elohim chai? The early commentators explain that it is an expression of honor to speak in the plural, similar to Kedoshim ("Holy One"), which reflects profound reverence toward the Holy One, blessed be He. From this, one can understand the continuation of the verse: "At His wrath the earth quakes" - if Hashem is angered, the entire earth quakes, this shaking being a metaphor for the destruction of the earth's inhabitants. "And the nations cannot endure His fury" - they have no capacity to withstand or bear the wrath of the Holy One, blessed be He. From this one realizes that everything comes from Him.
And how do we know this? Radak explains: because Hashem foretells the impending calamity long before it arrives. This is something no power in the world can do. This is the unique hallmark of the Torah of Hashem, the Torah of truth, and of the Jewish people: none among the nations can deliver true prophecy. There was once one, Bil'am, but Moshe Rabbeinu prayed, "so that we may be distinguished, I and Your people" - requesting that prophecy no longer reside among the nations. The Holy One, blessed be He, granted his request, and ever since, prophecy ceased among the nations.
Consider how absurd the matter is: the Muslims refer to Muhammad as a "prophet", yet he never uttered a single prophecy. There is not a single statement of his foretelling something that would come to pass. In Christianity, too, there is not a single prophet in all of history, nor is there in all of Islamic history. In truth, no other religion has any true prophet, for no one dares to risk predicting what will happen even two hours from now.
A story was once told about a broadcast on one of the media channels where people were brought in to predict election results: astrologers, readers of coffee grounds, tarot cards, ropes, anything at all - and especially your bank account, as long as you pay up. Each one declared who would be prime minister and who would pull off an upset. A month after the elections, the program revisited the predictions and revealed that each had spoken absolute nonsense, and nothing they predicted had come true. It was even noted that statistically, had one simply guessed on his own, he would have had a better chance of hitting the mark than that "expert" reading cards and coffee grounds; flipping a coin would have yielded greater accuracy.
Someone once came excitedly to a rabbi: "There is someone, a great figure, who can tell you everything about yourself!" The response was: "There is no need for anyone to tell me about myself; a person already knows everything about himself. Let him foretell something that will happen in the future!" Go and try finding someone capable of that. Telling people about themselves is mere trickery. "You are a good person" - show me anyone who would argue with that. "You love helping others" - show me anyone who would call that a lie. All they offer are compliments, pleasant things to hear, and in the end, the main objective is simply that money is left behind.
Radak explains: They will be able to recognize that it is from Him, because He announces matters beforehand, prior to the arrival of the calamity, through His servants the prophets. There has never been anything like this in any nation throughout history. The Holy One, blessed be He, said that the land would become desolate - and the land became desolate. He said that you would be exiled from your land and scattered among all the nations - and we are scattered among all the nations. He said that throughout all the years following the conquest, no one would succeed in settling it - and for two thousand years, no one succeeded. Prophecies upon prophecies, the Torah is filled with them endlessly, whereas the nations do not possess even a single prophecy. This is the greatest proof that everything is in His power and dominion.
The Malbim defines: "The definition of truth is the correspondence between what is stated about a thing and the actual reality of the thing itself." In other words, truth is an alignment between what is said of a matter and reality. If you were told it is raining outside, and you went out and saw rain - that is truth.
Accordingly, the Malbim explains, idols are falsehood, for the attributes you describe and ascribe to them do not correspond to reality: we know that there is no substance to them, neither the power to exert influence nor the power to save. In contrast, all the praises and glorifications offered to the Creator of the world correspond to reality: from the perspective of His essence, He is "a living God" - unlike the gods of the nations, which are dead carcasses, "like a palm tree," like a date palm that stands inert with no power within it - rather, He is the source of life; and from the perspective of His governance, He is "an eternal King," reigning, sovereign, and ruling.
And regarding "at His wrath the earth quakes," the Malbim explains: The stargazers and astrologers of that generation would interpret the signs they saw in the heavens. Prior to the destruction, omens were visible in the sky, resembling fire, a shooting arrow, and the like, and there were those who purported to understand these signs and terrified the people with them. Earthquakes also occurred in several lands. Concerning this, the prophet tells them: Know that this is not due to any power of celestial omens at all. If the earth quakes - it is from the wrath of the Holy One, blessed be He. Do not treat the changes in the heavens or the earthquake as independent "signs," but rather as the speech of Hashem. Everything is from Him, blessed be He, and there are no powers apart from Him.
כִּדְנָה תֵּאמְרוּן לְהוֹם אֱלָהַיָּא דִּי שְׁמַיָּא וְאַרְקָא לָא עֲבַדוּ יֵאבַדוּ מֵאַרְעָא וּמִן תְּחוֹת שְׁמַיָּא אֵלֶּה׃ (יא) - Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. (11)
What is an Aramaic pasuk doing in the middle of Sefer Yirmiyahu? After all, this is not Sefer Daniel! Let an Aramaic speaker therefore come and translate for us from Aramaic into Aramaic - Targum Yonatan. And this is how he translates: "This is the text of the letter that Yirmiyahu the prophet sent to the rest of the elders of the exile in Babylonia" - this is the written text of the letter that Yirmiyahu the prophet sent to the remaining elders of the exile in Babylonia, to Yechanyah and the exiles with him. And this is what he said to them: If the Chaldeans among whom you dwell say to you, "Worship idols, O House of Israel" - this is how you shall answer and say to them: The idolatry that you worship is a worthless error that serves no need and yields no benefit. From the heavens they cannot bring down rain, and from the earth they cannot produce fruit. They and their worshipers shall perish from the earth and be eradicated from beneath these heavens.
This is the meaning of "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth": they possess no power of influence, neither in heaven nor on earth. In heaven they do not bring down rain, and on earth they do not produce fruit. Therefore he said, "Thus shall you say to them" - this is how you shall respond to the Chaldeans who incited you to idol worship. And why was it written in Aramaic? Because the Chaldeans were Arameans, and he wished to address them in their own language; therefore, he conveyed these statements to them in the Aramaic tongue.
Presumably, it would have been appropriate for the words "Thus shall you say to them" to be stated in Hebrew, since he is speaking to us, and only afterward shift into Aramaic. Radak explains: Indeed, that would have been proper, but so as not to split a single pasuk into half Hebrew and half Aramaic - for one does not write a sentence that is half Hebrew and half Aramaic - the entire pasuk was written in Aramaic. Radak further makes grammatical observations: "Lehom" rather than "lehon" - and so we find in Sefer Ezra. And the word "eleh" is both Hebrew and Aramaic, which is why it says "techot shemaya eleh." And "arka" means earth, in accordance with the statement of Chazal that the earth was given four names corresponding to four seasons: eretz, tevel, adamah, and arka (spelled with a kuf and an alef).
Radak writes: It is true that Israel did not worship idols once they went into exile. And should you say, did they not bow down to the image in the days of Nevuchadnezzar? They were acting under duress. Even so, in the days of Haman they were held accountable for it, as Chazal say: Why were the Jewish people of that generation deserving of destruction? Because they bowed down to the image. And were it not that God had mercy upon them, that decree would have been carried out.
The Malbim explains the sharp force of the argument: They themselves admit that Hashem created the heavens and the earth. If so, how can you refer to the idols as "gods"? What did they create? And should you argue: They did not create these heavens and this earth, but created other worlds - if so, "they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens": they did not make these heavens and this earth, so what business do they have here? Let them go and dwell in the heavens and earth that they created! Since you admit that the God of gods created these, what is the idol doing here? All this comes to demonstrate just how ridiculous their claims truly are.
In connection with this verse, the book Mishnat HaChalomot (pp. 40-41) cites an incident concerning Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah ztz"l. It is related in the Zohar (Bamidbar 253) that there are demons known as "Jewish demons" (shedin yehuda'in), who pose as prophets, Tannaim, Rishonim, judges of Israel, and renowned Torah scholars, complete with long beards and dignified head coverings, or as righteous and pious men. At times they claim to be Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, or Eliyahu HaNavi and the like. A person might come and claim that Avraham Avinu or Eliyahu HaNavi appeared to him, along with all sorts of hallucinations of this nature. A person must ask them directly whether they are indeed the actual Patriarchs or merely bear the names of the Patriarchs, and examine their answer closely: if they give an ambiguous response that vacillates back and forth, know that they are demons, and do not be impressed by their words. Furthermore, they are capable of showing a person the image of the firmament, the Throne of Glory, and the heavenly host.
Rabbi Fatiyah relates: In the year 5670 (1910), in the month of Tammuz, after the Shabbat Minchah prayer, they brought before me an eleven-year-old boy who claimed that he spoke with Eliyahu HaNavi mouth to mouth, clearly and not in riddles, and that whenever he wished, he would call him and Eliyahu would instantly appear - provided that he was in a private place with no one else present. In other words, Eliyahu was willing to meet him only in solitude; if anyone else was there, he would not come. I told the boy: Enter this room and ask him, "Are you truly Eliyahu HaNavi?" He did so, and the figure answered: "Yes, I am truly Eliyahu, and why does Rabbi Yehuda doubt this?"
I said to the boy: "This is none other than a Jewish demon whose name is Eliyahu, and he is not Eliyahu HaNavi; you are being afflicted by Jewish demons. Come, let me recite over your head the prayer for those afflicted by demons, and this Eliyahu will flee from you." The boy said to me: "He is certainly Eliyahu HaNavi; do whatever you can, and let us see whose word will stand." After I prayed over him two or three times, the boy went into the room to test it, and Eliyahu immediately appeared as was his custom. And I was astonished by this.
I took the boy and went to the sage Rabbi Shimon Aharon Agassi, who was still alive, to examine him. After examining him, he said that this was indeed Eliyahu HaNavi and not a demon, but I disagreed with him. We agreed to go on Motza'ei Shabbat to the sage Rabbi Yaakov, son of the Ben Ish Chai ztz"l. He too, after testing him on several matters, said that this was surely Eliyahu HaNavi, remembered for good, and there was no doubt about it. Yet I disagreed with both of them and rejected their conclusions, and I requested permission to test him once more.
I said to the boy: "Go tell Eliyahu to translate for you the verse in Yirmiyahu: 'Kidnah teimrun lehum: elahaya di shemaya ve'arka la avadu, ye'evadu me'ar'a umin tekhot shemaya eleh' ('Thus shall you say to them: The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens'). If he translates it into Arabic, then there will be room to entertain that perhaps he is indeed Eliyahu HaNavi and not a demon." For demons understand Aramaic and are capable of translating the verse - since even to Aramaic speakers they present bad dreams and whisper in their ears in Aramaic - but this verse, which speaks in their dispraise, they do not want to hear or translate into another language. In other words, he devised a test: a verse that demons despise. If it was Eliyahu, what problem could there be to translate and explain it? But if it was a demon, it would not find favor in his eyes.
When the boy asked Eliyahu to translate the verse, he replied: "I cannot tarry, for I must go write the merits of Israel." I said to the boy: "Go back and tell him that translating the verse is of great necessity, as it is the test to be certain that you are Eliyahu." He replied: "I already told you that I am pressed to go." I told the boy: "Tell him: Look how much you have spoken and how long you have stood here; translating the verse is far easier than all these lengthy words, and the sages will not be satisfied until you translate it." When the boy spoke these words, this "Eliyahu" became furious and swore: "As the Lord lives, I will never appear to you again, since you do not believe that I am Eliyahu!" He immediately left and never appeared to the boy again.
After he left, the sages - Rabbi Agassi and the son of the Ben Ish Chai - said to Rabbi Fatiyah: "In our view, it appears that this was indeed Eliyahu HaNavi, for it was his custom to swear, 'As the Lord lives,' as it is written: 'And Eliyahu the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gil'ad, said to Achav: As Hashem, the God of Israel, lives, before Whom I have stood...' and similarly, 'As Hashem of Hosts lives, before Whom I have stood.' Furthermore, we have received by tradition from our Rabbis - gemiri - that demons do not utter the Name of Heaven in vain; and since he swore, this proves he was the genuine Eliyahu and not an imitation."
Rabbi Fatiyah replied to them: "On the contrary, he was a demon. First, he did not utter the Name of Heaven in vain, for he swore and fulfilled his oath - he fled and was never seen again. Second, fundamentally there was no Name of Heaven uttered here at all, for he did not pronounce the Name with the letters of the Tetragrammaton or Adonai; he merely said 'Chai Hashem' ('As the Name lives') - which is not God's Name at all, and constitutes no oath whatsoever. He was a clever demon! If so, this was merely a deception to mislead people." Rabbi Agassi and the son of the Ben Ish Chai conceded to him. It emerges, then, that demons have the power to deceive a person and lie. We also learn that this verse refers not only to graven images and idols that created nothing and therefore have no place here, but also to demons and all the forces of impurity in general, concerning which it is stated: 'They shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.'"
עֹשֵׂה אֶרֶץ בְּכֹחוֹ מֵכִין תֵּבֵל בְּחׇכְמָתוֹ וּבִתְבוּנָתוֹ נָטָה שָׁמָיִם׃ (יב) - He makes the earth by His power, establishes the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. (12)
Come and see the difference between the Holy One, blessed be He, and those powerless forces, to distinguish by thousands upon thousands of distinctions. Hashem makes the earth through His strength and might. And what is the difference between eretz ("earth") and tevel ("world")? Tevel refers to the inhabited part, whereas eretz refers to the world in its entirety, substantial portions of which are not inhabited at all. To create the world as a whole, raw power was sufficient; but to create a place fit for human habitation, wisdom was also required: the factors that sustain life had to be present in that place, chief among them water sources and the like. Therefore, "He establishes the world by His wisdom." "And by His understanding stretched out the heavens" - He stretched the heavens out above them with His understanding.
The Malbim notes the precise wording: it does not say "He made the earth" or "He established the world" in the past tense, but "He makes" and "He establishes" in the present tense. This is just as Chazal taught, that the Holy One, blessed be He, constantly renews the work of Creation every day, with total divine providence. Every single day, and at every single moment, He creates the earth anew.
לְקוֹל תִּתּוֹ הֲמוֹן מַיִם בַּשָּׁמַיִם וַיַּעֲלֶה נְשִׂאִים מִקְצֵה הָאָרֶץ בְּרָקִים לַמָּטָר עָשָׂה וַיּוֹצֵא רוּחַ מֵאֹצְרֹתָיו׃ (יג) - At the sound of His placing a multitude of waters in the heavens, He causes clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth wind from His treasuries. (13)
We serve the Holy One, blessed be He, who is the One who gives a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He is "He who gives rain upon the face of the earth" - and not the idols. The nations would worship idols so that they would bestow abundance upon them and bring down rain, and regarding this it is said: "Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can bring rain, or can the heavens grant showers?" - show me a gentile nation capable of bringing rain! Israel would go out, fast, return home - and rain would fall.
And this fact was known to the gentiles as well. Many times they would decree harsh edicts against the Jews in times of drought, refusing to lift the decree until rain fell, because they knew that the Jews would go, stand in prayer, and rain would fall. Such was the case in Jerusalem with the Pasha, and such was the case in Yemen in countless instances: decrees were issued against them, they would go out and pray, and by the time they returned home, rain was already falling. Do the gentiles have a god like this, who is capable of bringing down rain? "Or can the heavens grant showers?" - can the heavens produce rain on their own? "Is it not You, Hashem our God!"
The Radak explains: We, the Jewish people, acknowledge that it is through His power that "at the sound of His giving a multitude of waters in the heavens" - He is the One who gives; the water does not fall on its own, nor is it there on its own. And how? "He causes clouds to ascend from the end of the earth" - He raises clouds and vapors from the ends of the earth, like "a mist rose from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground" - and that was just mist. "He makes lightnings for the rain" - another wonder, that lightning precedes rain. Lightning is fire, and rain is meant to extinguish fire, yet two clouds collide, and from these waters emerges fire! And all of this - "He brings forth wind from His treasuries."
The Malbim explains that here the prophet comes to demonstrate the wisdom and individual divine providence of the Holy One, blessed be He. Earlier, the focus was general: "He makes the earth by His power, establishes the world by His wisdom" - preparing the earth as a whole and its inhabited regions, which is still broad and general. Now the verse speaks of the specific, custom-ordered according to the exact need of the moment. And the thing that best reflects this is rain, which descends according to our needs and according to what we require at that specific time, showing individual providence.
"A multitude of waters in the heavens" - the Malbim defines this as "in the breathable air," an expression he frequently uses, referring to the atmosphere, the realm where vapors rise. "He causes clouds to ascend from the end of the earth" - these are the vapors rising to the realm of clouds, which are essentially water droplets. The air is clear and refined, and the Malbim explains that this occurs through electricity and the element of fire, which disperses the vapors on the wings of wind. This is lightning. For what is lightning? Clouds contain positive and negative ions, and when charges meet, the electrical charge discharges in the form of lightning. Immediately after the thunder and lightning, air is displaced, the droplets merge and become heavy, and rain falls. That is why torrential rain always follows a thunderstorm.
And see, says the Malbim, the extraordinary wisdom of Hashem - "He makes lightnings for the rain": when He desires rain to fall, He separates the element of fire and electricity, producing lightning, which releases the element of wind trapped within the vapor, causing the rain to fall. Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, is the One who makes everything and bestows everything. It does not come from the power of the nations or their idols, but from the individual providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, precisely according to the need of the moment and the exact quantity required.
In this passage, Yirmiyahu contrasts truth with falsehood. "Hashem God is true" - for only He who is living, eternal, and the King of the universe can authenticate His words and fulfill them, and the proof that everything is in His hands is prophecy: He alone makes the future known in advance, something unprecedented and unmatched among any other nation. The definition of truth is correspondence between what is said and reality, whereas with idols there is no correspondence at all. The Aramaic verse is the prepared response to the Chaldeans: any deity that did not create heaven and earth has no place in this heaven and earth, which also includes the forces of spiritual impurity. In contrast, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes the earth by His power and establishes the world by His wisdom anew at every single moment, bringing down rains with precise individual providence. Hence, everything comes from Him, and there is none beside Him.