5:20 Those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead, 1
who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
who turn bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter. 2
38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. 3
You delivered me 4 from the pit of oblivion. 5
For you removed all my sins from your sight. 6
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] those who call.” See the note at v. 8.
2 sn In this verse the prophet denounces the perversion of moral standards. Darkness and bitterness are metaphors for evil; light and sweetness symbolize uprightness.
3 tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”
4 tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).
5 tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”
6 tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”