6:26 So I said, 5 “Oh, my dear people, 6 put on sackcloth
and roll in ashes.
Mourn with painful sobs
as though you had lost your only child.
For any moment now 7 that destructive army 8
will come against us.”
3:29 Let him bury his face in the dust; 9
perhaps there is hope.
1 tn The verb גָּרַד (garad) is a hapax legomenon (only occurring here). Modern Hebrew has retained a meaning “to scrape,” which is what the cognate Syriac and Arabic indicate. In the Hitpael it would mean “scrape himself.”
2 sn The disease required constant attention. The infection and pus had to be scraped away with a piece of broken pottery in order to prevent the spread of the infection. The skin was so disfigured that even his friends did not recognize him (2:12). The book will add that the disease afflicted him inwardly, giving him a foul breath and a loathsome smell (19:17, 20). The sores bred worms; they opened and ran, and closed and tightened (16:8). He was tormented with dreams (7:14). He felt like he was choking (7:14). His bones were racked with burning pain (30:30). And he was not able to rise from his place (19:18). The disease was incurable; but it would last for years, leaving the patient longing for death.
3 tn The construction uses the disjunctive vav (ו) with the independent pronoun with the active participle. The construction connects this clause with what has just been said, making this a circumstantial clause.
4 sn Among the ashes. It is likely that the “ashes” refers to the place outside the city where the rubbish was collected and burnt, i.e., the ash-heap (cf. CEV). This is the understanding of the LXX, which reads “dung-hill outside the city.”
5 tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the context.
6 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the translator’s note there.
7 tn Heb “suddenly.”
8 tn Heb “the destroyer.”
9 tn Heb “Let him put his mouth in the dust.”