Jeremiah Chapter 10 verse 5 Holy Bible
They are like a palm-tree, of turned work, and speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.
read chapter 10 in ASV
It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.
read chapter 10 in BBE
They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
read chapter 10 in DARBY
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
read chapter 10 in KJV
read chapter 10 in WBT
They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don't speak: they must be carried, because they can't go. Don't be afraid of them; for they can't do evil, neither is it in them to do good."
read chapter 10 in WEB
As a palm they `are' stiff, and they speak not, They are surely borne, for they step not, Be not afraid of them, for they do no evil, Yea, also to do good is not in them.
read chapter 10 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 5. - They are upright as the palm tree; rather, they are like a pillar (i.e. a scarecrow) in a field of cucumbers. This is the interpretation given to our passage in Ver. 70 of the apocryphal Epistle o! Jeremiah (written in the Maccabean period, evidently with reference to our prophecy), and is much more striking than the rival translation, "like a palm tree of turned work," i.e. stiff, immovable (comp. Virgil, 'Georg.,' 4:110, 111; Horace, 'Sat.,' 1. 8, 1-4). They must needs be borne... they cannot do evil; a reminiscence, apparently, of Isaiah 46:7; Isaiah 41:23.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(5) Upright as the palm tree.--Better, perhaps, A pillar in a garden of gourds are they. The Hebrew word translated "upright" has two very different, though not entirely unconnected, meanings--(1) "twisted, rounded, carved," and in this sense it is translated commonly as "beaten work" (Exodus 25:18; Exodus 25:31; Exodus 25:36), and is here applied (if we accept this meaning) to the twisted palm-like columns of a temple, to which the stiff, formal figure of the idol, with arms pressed close to the side, and none of the action which we find in Greek statues, is compared; (2) the other meaning adopted by many commentators is that of "a garden of gourds or cucumbers," and the word is so rendered in Isaiah 1:8. The comparison, in the so-called "Epistle of Jeremy" in the apocryphal book of Baruch (10:70), of an idol to "a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers" shows that the latter meaning was the accepted one when that Epistle was written. The thought, on this view, is that the idol which the men of Judah were worshipping was like one of the "pillars" (so the word for "palm tree" is translated in Song of Solomon 3:6; Joel 2:30), the Hermes, or Priapus-figures which were placed by Greeks and Romans in gardens and orchards as scarecrows. Like figures appear to have been used by the Ph?nicians for the same purpose, and the practice, like the kindred worship of the Asherah, would seem to have been gaining ground even in Judah. . . .