4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. 1
I killed your young men with the sword,
along with the horses you had captured.
I made the stench from the corpses 2 rise up into your nostrils.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,
I would hunt them down and take them from there.
Even if they tried to hide from me 3 at the bottom of the sea,
from there 4 I would command the Sea Serpent 5 to bite them.
1 tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”
2 tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”
3 tn Heb “from before my eyes.”
4 tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).
5 sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the