A psalm of David, written to get God’s attention. 2
38:1 O Lord, do not continue to rebuke me in your anger!
Do not continue to punish me in your raging fury! 3
90:7 Yes, 4 we are consumed by your anger;
we are terrified by your wrath.
102:10 because of your anger and raging fury.
Indeed, 5 you pick me up and throw me away.
6:4 For the arrows 6 of the Almighty 7 are within me;
my spirit 8 drinks their poison; 9
God’s sudden terrors 10 are arrayed 11 against me.
10:16 If I lift myself up, 12
you hunt me as a fierce lion, 13
and again 14 you display your power 15 against me.
2:1 30 Therefore 31 you are without excuse, 32 whoever you are, 33 when you judge someone else. 34 For on whatever grounds 35 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
1 sn Psalm 38. The author asks the Lord to deliver him from his enemies. He confesses his sin and recognizes that the crisis he faces is the result of divine discipline. Yet he begs the Lord not to reject him.
2 tn The Hebrew text reads simply, “to cause to remember.” The same form, the Hiphil infinitive of זָכַר (zakhar, “remember”), also appears in the heading of Ps 70. Some understand this in the sense of “for the memorial offering,” but it may carry the idea of bringing one’s plight to God’s attention (see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 303).
3 tn The words “continue to” are supplied in the translation of both lines. The following verses make it clear that the psalmist is already experiencing divine rebuke/punishment. He asks that it might cease.
4 tn Or “for.”
5 tn Or “for.”
6 sn Job uses an implied comparison here to describe his misfortune – it is as if God had shot poisoned arrows into him (see E. Dhorme, Job, 76-77 for a treatment of poisoned arrows in the ancient world).
7 sn Job here clearly states that his problems have come from the Almighty, which is what Eliphaz said. But whereas Eliphaz said Job provoked the trouble by his sin, Job is perplexed because he does not think he did.
8 tn Most commentators take “my spirit” as the subject of the participle “drinks” (except the NEB, which follows the older versions to say that the poison “drinks up [or “soaks in”] the spirit.”) The image of the poisoned arrow represents the calamity or misfortune from God, which is taken in by Job’s spirit and enervates him.
9 tn The LXX translators knew that a liquid should be used with the verb “drink”; but they took the line to be “whose violence drinks up my blood.” For the rest of the verse they came up with, “whenever I am going to speak they pierce me.”
10 tn The word translated “sudden terrors” is found only here and in Ps 88:16 [17]. G. R. Driver notes that the idea of suddenness is present in the root, and so renders this word as “sudden assaults” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 73).
11 tn The verb עָרַךְ (’arakh) means “to set in battle array.” The suffix on the verb is dative (see GKC 369 §117.x). Many suggestions have been made for changing this word. These seem unnecessary since the MT pointing yields a good meaning: but for the references to these suggestions, see D. J. A. Clines, Job (WBC), 158. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 59), nonetheless, follows the suggestion of Driver that connects it to a root meaning “wear me down.” This change of meaning requires no change in the Hebrew text. The image is of a beleaguering army; the host is made up of all the terrors from God. The reference is to the terrifying and perplexing thoughts that assail Job (A. B. Davidson, Job, 44).
12 tn The MT has the 3rd person of the verb, “and he lifts himself up.” One might assume that the subject is “my head” – but that is rather far removed from the verb. It appears that Job is talking about himself in some way. Some commentators simply emend the text to make it first person. This has the support of Targum Job, which would be expected since it would be interpreting the passage in its context (see D. M. Stec, “The Targum Rendering of WYG’H in Job X 16,” VT 34 [1984]: 367-8). Pope and Gordis make the word adjectival, modifying the subject: “proudly you hunt me,” but support is lacking. E. Dhorme thinks the line should be parallel to the two preceding it, and so suggests יָגֵּעַ (yagea’, “exhausted”) for יִגְאֶה (yig’eh, “lift up”). The contextual argument is that Job has said that he cannot raise his head, but if he were to do so, God would hunt him down. God could be taken as the subject of the verb if the text is using enallage (shifting of grammatical persons within a discourse) for dramatic effect. Perhaps the initial 3rd person was intended with respect within a legal context of witnesses and a complaint, but was switched to 2nd person for direct accusation.
13 sn There is some ambiguity here: Job could be the lion being hunted by God, or God could be hunting Job like a lion hunts its prey. The point of the line is clear in either case.
14 tn The text uses two verbs without a coordinating conjunction: “then you return, you display your power.” This should be explained as a verbal hendiadys, the first verb serving adverbially in the clause (see further GKC 386-87 §120.g).
15 tn The form is the Hitpael of פָּלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be surpassing; to be extraordinary”). Here in this stem it has the sense of “make oneself admirable, surpassing” or “render oneself powerful, glorious.” The text is ironic; the word that described God’s marvelous creation of Job is here used to describe God’s awesome destruction of Job.
16 tn Or “refuses to believe,” or “disobeys.”
17 tn Or “anger because of evil,” or “punishment.”
18 tn Or “resides.”
19 tn Grk “hardness.” Concerning this imagery, see Jer 4:4; Ezek 3:7; 1 En. 16:3.
20 tn Grk “in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
21 tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
22 tn Or “will render,” “will recompense.” In this context Paul is setting up a hypothetical situation, not stating that salvation is by works.
23 sn A quotation from Ps 62:12; Prov 24:12; a close approximation to Matt 16:27.
24 tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.
25 tn Grk “those who [are] from selfish ambition.”
26 tn Grk “are persuaded by, obey.”
27 tn No verb is expressed in this verse, but the verb “to be” is implied by the Greek construction. Literally “suffering and distress on everyone…”
28 tn Grk “every soul of man.”
29 sn Paul uses the term Greek here and in v. 10 to refer to non-Jews, i.e., Gentiles.
30 sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).
31 tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.
32 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
33 tn Grk “O man.”
34 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
35 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
36 sn A quotation from Isa 52:5.
37 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
38 tn It is difficult to say where this quotation ends. The translation ends it after “withstand it” at the end of v. 17, but it is possible that it should end here, after “Lamb” at the end of v. 16. If it ends after “Lamb,” v. 17 is a parenthetical explanation by the author.
39 tc Most
40 tn The translation “to withstand (it)” for ἵστημι (Jisthmi) is based on the imagery of holding one’s ground in a military campaign or an attack (BDAG 482 s.v. B.4).