The metaphor of God as a hunter with a bow and arrows indicates an even more intensive description of the terrible condition that the author and the people experience because of God's punishment. To express this, the image of a victim’s helpless plight against a skilled archer is used. This image is also to be found in Job 16:12. The hunter is possibly a soldier (see also Lamentations 2:4). The hunter’s bow with an arrow is ready for action.1 The arrows are symbols of destruction, disease, and illness (see also Job 34:6; Psalm 91:5), appointed by God. It seems that the writer is used for target practice, and a bull’s eye will be hit.2 The target is his kidneys. In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, animal kidneys were held to be one of the locations of life. This is also the case with human kidneys. Kidneys
represents the inner life of an individual, including his thoughts and emotions (see Psalm 73:21; Jeremiah 12:2; Jeremiah 17:10). Emotional attributes of joy (Proverbs 23:16) and sorrow (Job 19:27; Psalm 73:21) are also associated with them.3 God’s striking is not just physical, but also psychological and spiritual. In the case of the writer and Jerusalem, the wounds have not yet healed.4
12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.