Albert Barnes Commentary Jeremiah 10

Signs of heaven - Extraordinary appearances, such as eclipses, comets, and the like, which seemed to the pagan to portend national calamities. To attribute importance to them is to walk in pagan ways.

The customs—A better rendering, as the marginal note indicates, is “the ordinances,” established institutions, “of the peoples,” that is, pagan nations.

They deck it - It was covered with plates of gold and silver, and then fastened with nails in its place, so that it would not move—that is, tumble down.

The agreement in this and the following verses with the argument in Isaiah 40–44 is so manifest that no one can doubt that the one is modeled on the other. If, therefore, Jeremiah took the thoughts and phrases from Isaiah, it is plain that the last 27 chapters of Isaiah predated Jeremiah’s time and were not, therefore, written at the close of the Babylonian exile. This passage then is a crucial one for the pseudo-Isaiah theory. Two answers are attempted:

1. that the pseudo-Isaiah borrowed from Jeremiah. But this is refuted by the style, which is not Jeremiah's usual style.
2. that it is an interpolation in Jeremiah.

But how then are we to account for its being found in the Septuagint Version? The only argument of real importance is that these verses break the continuity of thought; however, the whole chapter is somewhat fragmentary and not as closely connected as the previous three. Still, there is a connection. The prophet had just included all Israel under the ban of uncircumcision; he now shows them their last chance of safety by expanding on the truth that their true glory is their God, not an idol of wood, but the King of nations.

Then comes the sad feeling that they have rejected God and chosen idols (Jeremiah 10:17–18); then the nation’s deep grief (Jeremiah 10:19–22) and earnest prayer (Jeremiah 10:23–25). It is quite possible that only portions of the concluding part of Jeremiah’s temple sermon were embodied in Baruch’s scroll, and that if the whole had been preserved, we would have found the thoughts as orderly in their development as those in Jeremiah 7–9.

They are upright ... - Rather, “They are like a palm tree of turned work,” that is, like one of those stiff, inelegant pillars, something like a palm tree, which may be seen in oriental architecture. Some translate thus: “They are like pillars in a garden of cucumbers,” that is, like the blocks set up to frighten away the birds; but none of the ancient versions support this rendering.

For as much as - Or, No one is like to you, O Jehovah. In Jeremiah 10:6-11, the prophet contrasts God’s greatness with the impotence of idols.