38:15 What can I say?
He has decreed and acted. 1
I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. 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 “and he has spoken and he has acted.”
2 tn Heb “because of the bitterness of my soul.”
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.”