Yesaya 38:17

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ¹ 

You delivered me ²  from the pit of oblivion. ³ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ⁴ 

Yeremia 16:17

16:17 For I see everything they do. Their wicked ways are not hidden from me. Their sin is not hidden away where I cannot see it. ⁵ 

Mikha 7:18-19

7:18 There is no other God like you! ⁶ 

You ⁷  forgive sin

and pardon ⁸  the rebellion

of those who remain among your people. ⁹ 

You do not remain angry forever, ¹⁰ 

but delight in showing loyal love.

7:19 You will once again ¹¹  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ¹²  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ¹³  sins into the depths of the sea. ¹⁴ 

[38:17]  ¹ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ² 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”).

[38:17]  ³ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[16:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “For my eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hidden from before me. And their sin is not hidden away from before my eyes.”

[7:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “Who is a God like you?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!”

[7:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “one who.” The prayer moves from direct address (second person) in v. 18a to a descriptive (third person) style in vv. 18b-19a and then back to direct address (second person) in vv. 19b-20. Due to considerations of English style and the unfamiliarity of the modern reader with alternation of persons in Hebrew poetry, the entire section has been rendered as direct address (second person) in the translation.

[7:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “pass over.”

[7:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”

[7:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he does not keep hold of his anger forever.”

[7:19]  ¹¹ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ¹² tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

[7:19]  ¹⁴ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).