⁴ tn Heb “you stumble on the mountains at twilight.” The added words are again supplied in the translation to help explain the metaphor to the uninitiated reader.

¹ tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.

¹ tn Heb “for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain”; TEV “will protect Mount Zion”; NCV “will protect (rest on NLT) Jerusalem.”

¹ sn The high mountains and hills symbolize the apparent security of proud men, as do the high tower and fortified wall of v. 15.

³ sn Zalmon was apparently a mountain in the region, perhaps the one mentioned in Judg 9:46 as being in the vicinity of Shechem.

⁴ tn The Hebrew term מִצְעָר (mitsʿar) is probably a proper name (“Mizar”), designating a particular mountain in the Hermon region. The name appears only here in the OT.

¹ tn Heb “mountains of God.” The divine name אֵל (ʾel, “God”) is here used in an idiomatic manner to indicate the superlative.

⁴ sn Like the mountains, Job knows that God has passed by and caused him to shake and tremble, but he cannot understand or perceive the reasons.

³ tn Or “the region of the Rocks of the Mountain Goats,” if this expression is understood as a place name (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV).

¹ sn Mount Hermon. This is the famous peak at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range known today as Jebel es-Sheik.

¹ sn Seir is the chief mountain range of Edom (Deut 33:2), and so the reference here is to the general area of Edom.

² sn The “mountain” and the “place” would be wherever Yahweh met with his people. It here refers to Canaan, the land promised to the patriarchs.

¹ tn This describes the nation of Israel approaching God on Mt. Sinai (Exod 19). There is a clear contrast with the reference to Mount Zion in v. 22, so this could be translated “a mountain that can be touched.” But the word “mountain” does not occur here and the more vague description seems to be deliberate.

² tn Heb “jostling” or “leaping.” There is question whether this pictures chariots rumbling over the mountains (e.g., 2 Sam 6:14, 16; 1 Chr 15:29; Nah 3:2) or the locusts flying—or “leaping”—over the mountains (e.g., Job 21:11); see BDB 955 s.v. רָקַד.

⁴ tn Heb “I am against you, oh destroying mountain that destroys all the earth. I will reach out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs and make you a mountain of burning.” The interpretation adopted here follows the lines suggested by S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 318, n. c and reflected also in BDB 977 s.v. שְׂרֵפָה. Babylon is addressed as a destructive mountain because it is being compared to a volcano. The Lord, however, will make it a “burned-out mountain,” i.e., an extinct volcano that is barren and desolate. This interpretation seems, to this translator, to fit the details of the text more consistently than alternative ones, which separate the concept of “destroying/destructive” from “mountain,” explain the figure of the mountain as symbolizing the dominating political position of Babylon, and take the “mountain of burning” to be a “burned [or burned over] mountain.” The use of similes in place of metaphors makes it easier for the modern reader to understand the figures. It also more easily incorporates the dissonant figure of “rolling you down from the cliffs,” which involves the figure of personification.

⁴ sn The figure here involves comparing Babylon to a destructive volcano that the Lord makes burned-out, i.e., he will destroy her power to destroy. The figure of personification is also involved because the Lord addresses the mountain and rolls her off the cliffs, an act normally inapplicable to a mountain.

¹ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “a mountain of a house (בֵּית, bet), Zion,” but the marginal reading (Qere) correctly reads “the mountain of the daughter (בַּת, bat) of Zion.” On the phrase “Daughter Zion,” see the note on the same phrase in 1:8.

¹ tn Heb “[the] mountains will bear peace to the people, and [the] hills with justice.” The personified mountains and hills probably represent messengers who will sweep over the land announcing the king’s just decrees and policies. See Isa 52:7 and C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms (ICC), 2:133.

² tn 2 Sam 22:8 has “heavens” which forms a merism with “earth” in the preceding line. The “foundations of the heavens” would be the mountains. However, the reading “foundations of the mountains” has a parallel in Deut 32:22.

² tn The Hebrew מִשֹּׁרֶשׁ (mishoresh) means “from/at [their] root [or base].” In mining, people have gone below ground, under the mountains, and overturned rock and dirt. It is also interesting that here in a small way humans do what God does—overturn mountains (cf. 9:5).