13:21 Remove 2 your hand 3 far from me
and stop making me afraid with your terror. 4
78:38 Yet he is compassionate.
He forgives sin and does not destroy.
He often holds back his anger,
and does not stir up his fury. 5
ח (Khet)
2:8 The Lord was determined to tear down
Daughter Zion’s wall.
He prepared to knock it down; 6
he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. 7
He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament;
together they mourned their ruin. 8
1 tn Heb “my eye pitied.”
2 tn The imperative הַרְחַק (harkhaq, “remove”; GKC 98 §29.q), from רָחַק (rakhaq, “far, be far”) means “take away [far away]; to remove.”
3 sn This is a common, but bold, anthropomorphism. The fact that the word used is כַּף (kaf, properly “palm”) rather than יָד (yad, “hand,” with the sense of power) may stress Job’s feeling of being trapped or confined (see also Ps 139:5, 7).
4 tn See Job 9:34.
5 tn One could translate v. 38 in the past tense (“he was compassionate…forgave sin and did not destroy…held back his anger, and did not stir up his fury”), but the imperfect verbal forms are probably best understood as generalizing. Verse 38 steps back briefly from the narrational summary of Israel’s history and lays the theological basis for v. 39, which focuses on God’s mercy toward sinful Israel.
6 tn Heb “he stretched out a measuring line.” In Hebrew, this idiom is used (1) literally: to describe a workman’s preparation of measuring and marking stones before cutting them for building (Job 38:5; Jer 31:39; Zech 1:16) and (2) figuratively: to describe the
7 tn Heb “He did not return His hand from swallowing.” That is, he persisted until it was destroyed.
8 tn Heb “they languished together.” The verbs אָבַּלּ (’aval, “to lament”) and אָמַל (’amal, “languish, mourn”) are often used in contexts of funeral laments in secular settings. The Hebrew prophets often use these terms to describe the aftermath of the