Psalms 103:12

The choice of axis is the whole verse, and it is easy to read past.

David could have said as far as the north is from the south. He does not, and the difference is not decorative. North and south have ends. Travel far enough north and you reach a pole, after which every direction you go is south. The distance is finite and measurable.

East and west have no such property. Set out west and you never arrive at west; you never begin travelling east. The two never meet, and the distance between them cannot be closed or counted.

That is the claim being made about the transgressions. Not that they are a long way off, which would leave open the question of how long, and whether anything might bring them back. There is no arithmetic that can be done here.

And the verb is removed. Something was done to them. They did not fade, and time did not handle it; the psalm does not offer the modern hope that things stop mattering eventually. Someone took them and put them somewhere, deliberately.

The verse before this one is about God not dealing with us according to our sins, and the one after compares him to a father who pities his children. This sits between two claims about disposition — and it is the only one that describes an action.