¹ sn This would be 586 b.c.

³ sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.

¹ sn This would have been August, 586 b.c. according to modern reckoning.

¹ tn The verb is pluperfect, but the force is simple past. See ExSyn 586.

² sn The seventh day of the month would have been August 14, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

² sn The temple had been destroyed some fifty years earlier by the Babylonians in 586 b.c.

² sn The tenth day of the month would have been August 17, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

² sn A quotation from Isa 61:1-2a. Within the citation is a line from Isa 58:6, with its reference to setting the oppressed free.

² sn This lamentation marked the occasion of the destruction of Solomon’s temple on August 14, 586 b.c., almost exactly 70 years earlier (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8).

³ tn Grk “I cannot convince myself.” BDAG 792 s.v. πείθω 3.a states, “οὐ πείθομαι w. acc. and inf. I cannot believe Ac 26:26” (see also BDAG 586 s.v. λανθάνω).

⁴ tn BDAG 586 s.v. λανθάνω states, “λανθάνειν αὐτὸν τούτων οὐ πείθομαι οὐθέν I cannot bring myself to believe that any of these things has escaped his notice Ac 26:26.”

¹ tn Heb “a binder of binding” (חֹבֵר חָבֶר, khover khaver). The connotation is that of immobilizing (“binding”) someone or something by the use of magical words (cf. Ps 58:6; Isa 47:9, 12).

² tn The verb is used for loosening shoe straps in Isa 58:6, and of setting prisoners free in Pss 105:20 and 146:7. Job thinks that God’s hand has been restrained for some reason, and so desires that God be free to destroy him.

¹ tn In Isa 58:6, the only other occurrence of this word in the OT, the term refers to “bonds” or “ropes.” In Ps 73:4 it is used metaphorically of pain and suffering that restricts one’s enjoyment of life.

¹ sn Psalm 74. The psalmist, who has just experienced the devastation of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem in 586 b.c., asks God to consider Israel’s sufferings and intervene on behalf of his people. He describes the ruined temple, recalls God’s mighty deeds in the past, begs for mercy, and calls for judgment upon God’s enemies.

² sn The Chaldeans were a group of tribes who lived in southern Mesopotamia. The established the so-called neo-Babylonian empire in the late seventh century b.c. Their most famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Judah in 605 b.c. and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 b.c.

⁴ sn This attack culminated in the first of three major deportations of Jews to Babylon. The second one occurred in 597 B.C. and included among many other Jewish captives the prophet Ezekiel. The third deportation occurred in 586 B.C., at which time the temple and the city of Jerusalem were thoroughly destroyed.