Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 4:19

How much less [in] them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed before the moth?

19. houses of clay ] The verse refers to men, and their “houses of clay” are their bodies, which are of the dust, Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19; 2Co 5:1.

whose foundation ] Men’s bodies being compared to houses are now spoken of as, like houses, having a foundation. They are not only of earth, they are founded on earth of the earth earthy. They are built of earth, derived from earth, limited to earth. The accumulation of terms enhances the material nature of man in opposition to the spirits on high. Yet even these spirits are limited, and, as creatures, not absolute in their holiness, and to God’s eye even erring. No words could more strongly express God’s unapproachable holiness.

before the moth ] The words may mean: sooner, easier, than the moth is crushed. They can hardly mean in the connexion, by the moth; although the moth is usually elsewhere spoken of as the destroyer, ch. Job 13:28; Isa 50:9; Isa 51:8, and not as the object of destruction. The phrase before might have a sense similar to what it has in ch. Job 3:24, like the moth; so the Sept.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

How much less – ( ‘aph). This particle has the general sense of addition, accession, especially of something more important; yea more, besides, even. Gesenius. The meaning here is, how much more true is this of man! He puts no confidence in his angels; he charges them with frailty; how much more strikingly true must this be of man! It is not merely, as our common translation would seem to imply, that he put much less confidence in man than in angels; it is, that all he had said must be more strikingly true of man, who dwelt in so frail and humble a habitation.

In them that dwell in houses of clay – In man. The phrase houses of clay refers to the body made of dust. The sense is, that man, from the fact that he dwells in such a tabernacle, is far inferior to the pure spirits that surround the throne of God, and much more liable to sin. The body is represented as a temporary tent, tabernacle, or dwelling for the soul. That dwelling is soon to be taken down, and its tenant, the soul, to be removed to other abodes. So Paul 2Co 5:1 speaks of the body as he epigeios hemon oikia tou skenous – our earthly house of this tabernacle. So Plato speaks of it as geinon skenos – an earthly tent; and so Aristophanes (Av. 587), among other contemptuous expressions applied to people, calls them plasmata pelou, vessels of clay. The idea in the verse before us is beautiful, and as affecting as it is beautiful. A house of clay ( chomer) was little fitted to bear the extremes of heat and cold, of storm and sunshine, of rain, and frost, and snow, and would soon crumble and decay. It must be a frail and temporary dwelling. It could not endure the changes of the seasons and the lapse of years like a dwelling of granite or marble. So with our bodies. They can bear little. They are frail, infirm, and feeble. They are easily prostrated, and soon fall back to their native dust. How can they who dwelt in such edifices, be in any way compared with the Infinite and Eternal God?

Whose foundation is in the dust – A house to be firm and secure should be founded on a rock; see Mat 7:25. The figure is kept up here of comparing man with a house; and as a house that is built on the sand or the dust may be easily washed away (compare Mat 7:26-27), and could not be confided in, so it was with man. He was like such a dwelling; and no more confidence could be reposed in him than in such a house.

Which are crushed – They are broken in pieces, trampled on, destroyed ( daka’), by the most insignificant objects.

Before the moth – See Isa 50:9, note; Isa 51:8, note. The word moth ( ash), Greek ses, Vulgate, tinea, denotes properly an insect which flies by night, and particularly that which attaches itself to woolen cloth and consumes it. It is possible, however, that the word here denotes the moth-worm. This moth-worm is one state of the creature. which first is inclosed in an egg, and thence issues in the form of a worm; after a time, it quits the form of a worm, to assume that of the complete state of the insect, or the moth. Calmet. The comparison here, therefore, is not that of a moth flying against a house to overset it, nor of the moth consuming man as it does a garment, but it is that of a feeble worm that preys upon man and destroys him; and the idea is, that the most feeble of all objects may crush him. The following remarks from Niebuhr (Reisebeschreibung von Arabien, S. 133), will serve to illustrate this passage, and show that so feeble a thing as a worm may destroy human life. There is in Yemen, in India, and on the coasts of the South Sea, a common sickness caused by the Guinea, or nerve-worm, known to European physicians by the name of vena Medinensis. It is supposed in Yemen that this worm is ingested from the bad water which the inhabitants of those countries are under a necessity of using. Many of the Arabians on this account take the precaution to strain the water which they drink. If anyone has by accident swallowed an egg of this worm, no trace of it is to be seen until it appears on the skin; and the first indication of it there, is the irritation which is caused. On our physician, a few days before his death, five of these worms made their appearance, although we had been more than five months absent from Arabia. On the island of Charedsch, I saw a French officer, whose name was Le Page, who after a long and arduous journey, which he had made on foot, from Pondicherry to Surat, through the heart of India, found the traces of such a worm in him, which he endeavored to extract from his body.

He believed that be had swallowed it when drinking the waters of Mahratta. The worm is not dangerous, if it can be drawn from the body without being broken. The Orientals are accustomed, as soon as the worm makes its appearance through the skin, to wind it up on a piece of straw, or of dry wood. It is finer than a thread, and is from two to three feet in length. The winding up of the worm frequently occupies a week; and no further inconvenience is experienced, than the care which is requisite not to break it. If, however, it is broken, it draws itself back into the body, and then becomes dangerous. Lameness, gangrene, or the loss of life itself is the result. See the notes at Isaiah referred to above. The comparison of man with a worm, or an insect, on account of his feebleness and shortness of life, is common in the sacred writings, and in the Classics. The following passage from Pindar, quoted by Schultens, hints at the same idea:

,

.

Epameroi, ti de tis; ti d’ ou tis;

Skias onar anthropoi.

Things of a day! What is anyone? What is he not? Men are the dream of a shadow! – The idea in the passage before us is, that people are exceedingly frail, and that in such creatures no confidence can be placed. How should such a creature, therefore, presume to arraign the wisdom and equity of the divine dealings? How can he be more just or wise than God?

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Job 4:19

Them that dwell in houses of clay.

The frailty and mortality of man

The great design of God in His Word and in His providence is to humble the pride and cure the fatal presumption of man.

I. The impressive description here of our frail and mortal condition. Angels are pure spirits, men are partly spiritual and partly corporal. We dwell in houses of clay. The frailty of our frame is thus set forth. Its foundation is in the dust, its origin and subsistence are from the dust. This too is a significant expression, Who are crushed before the moth, that is, sooner than the moth.

II. This impressive description of our frailty is verified by instances of daily occurrence. Illustrate by cases of death from simple and sudden accident, and from insidious disease. Draw some practical inferences.

1. If the frame of man is so frail, and liable to death from causes so numerous, what egregious and culpable folly is it to be wholly engrossed in the pursuits and pleasures of the present life.

2. How important to be prepared for a world where death and sorrow are unknown! But what is a due preparation for immortal bliss!

3. If the body is so frail and mortal, and the mind so apt to turn and stray from the solemn consideration required, how necessary is it to pray for light and grace to direct and fix our thoughts on this deeply interesting subject! To learn the method of profitably numbering our days on earth, we all need Divine teaching, and this must be sought of Him who is willing to impart it. (Essex Remembrancer.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 19. How much less] Rather, with the VULGATE, How much more? If angels may be unstable, how can man arrogate stability to himself who dwells in an earthly tabernacle, and who must shortly return to dust?

Crushed before the moth? The slightest accident oftentimes destroys. “A fly, a grape-stone, or a hair can kill.” Great men have fallen by all these. This is the general idea in the text, and it is useless to sift for meanings.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

How much less, understand, doth he put trust in them, &c.! Or, How much more, understand, doth he charge folly on them, &c.! Either of these supplements are natural and easy, being fetched out of the former verse, and necessary to make the sense complete. The sense is, What strange presumption then is it, for a foolish and mortal man to pretend to a higher privilege than the angels do, to make himself more just than God, or to exalt himself above or against God, as thou dost! On them, i.e. on men, as it follows, who, though they have immortal spirits, yet those spirits dwell in mortal bodies, which are great debasements, and clogs, and encumbrances, and snares to them; and which are here called

houses, ( because they are the receptacles of the soul, and the places of its settled and continual abode,) and

houses of clay, and earthly houses, 2Co 5:1; partly because they were made of clay, or earth, Gen 2:7; 1Co 15:47; and partly to note their great frailty and mutability; whereas the angels are free spirits, unconfined to such carcasses, and dwell in celestial, and glorious, and everlasting mansions.

Whose foundation is in the dust; whose very foundation, no less than the rest of the building, is

in the dust; who as they dwell in dust and clay, so they had their foundation or original from it, and they must return to it, Ecc 12:7; and, as to their bodies, lie down and sleep in it, Dan 12:2, as in his long home, Ecc 12:5, and the only continuing city which he hath in this world.

Which are crushed, Heb. they crush them, i.e. they are or will be crushed; the active verb used impersonally, as it is Job 7:3; 24:20; Pro 6:30; Luk 12:20.

Before the moth, i.e. sooner than a moth is crushed, which is easily done by a gentle touch of the finger. An hyperbolical expression. So the Hebrew word liphne, commonly signifying place, doth here note time, as it is used Gen 27:7; 29:26; 36:31. Or, at the face, or appearance, of a moth. No creature is so weak and contemptible but one time or other it may have the body of man in its power, as the worms, the moths cousin-germans, have in the grave. But he instanceth in a moth rather than a worm, because it is the weaker of the two, and because it better agrees with the similitude of a house, in which moths commonly are more frequent, and powerful, and mischievous than worms. How then canst thou think, O Job, to contend with thy Maker, that must become a prey to such small and impotent creatures?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

19. houses of clay (2Co5:1). Houses made of sun-dried clay bricks are common in theEast; they are easily washed away (Mt7:27). Man’s foundation is this dust (Ge3:19).

before the mothrather,”as before the moth,” which devours a garment (Job 13:28;Psa 39:11; Isa 50:9).Man, who cannot, in a physical point of view, stand before the verymoth, surely cannot, in a moral, stand before God.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

How much less [on] them that dwell in houses of clay,…. Meaning men, but not as dwelling in houses, in a proper sense, made of clay dried by the sun, as were common in the eastern countries; nor in mean cottages, as distinguished from cedar, and ceiled houses, in which great personages dwelt, for this respects men in common; nor as being in the houses of the grave, as the Targum, Jarchi, and others, which are no other than dust, dirt, and clay; for this regards not the dead, but the living; but the bodies of men are meant; in which their souls dwell; which shows the superior excellency of the soul to the body, and its independency of it, being capable of existing without it, as it does in the separate state before the resurrection; so bodies are called tabernacles, and earthen vessels, and earthly houses, 2Pe 1:13 2Co 4:7; and bodies of clay, Job 13:12; so the body is by Epictetus c called clay elegantly wrought; and another Heathen writer d calls it clay steeped in, or macerated and mixed with blood: being of clay denotes the original of bodies, the dust of the earth; and the frailty of them, like brittle clay, and the pollution of them, all the members thereof being defiled with sin, and so called vile bodies, and will remain such till changed by Christ, Php 3:21; now the argument stands thus, if God put no trust in angels, then much less in poor, frail, mortal, sinful men; he has no dependence on their services, whose weakness, unprofitableness, and unfaithfulness, he well knows; he puts no trust in their purposes, and resolutions, and vows, which often come to nothing; nor does he trust his own people with their salvation and justification, or put these things upon the foot of their works, but trusts them and the salvation and justification of them with his Son, and puts them upon the foot of his own grace and mercy: and if he charges the holy angels with folly, then much more (for so it may be also rendered) will he charge mortal sinful men with it, who are born like the wild ass’s colt, and are foolish as well as disobedient, even his chosen ones, especially before conversion; or thus if so stands the case of angels, then much less can man be just before him, and pure in his sight: the weakness, frailty, and pollution of the bodies of men, are further enlarged on in some following clauses:

whose foundation [is] in the dust; meaning not the lower parts of the body, as the feet, which support and bear it up; rather the soul, which is the basis of it, referring to its corruption and depravity by sin; though it seems chiefly to respect the original of the body, which is the dust of the earth, of which it consists, and to which it will return again, this being but a poor foundation to stand upon, Ge 2:7; for the sense is, whose foundation is dust, mere dust, the particle being redundant, or rather an Arabism:

[which] are crushed before the moth? that is, which bodies of men, or houses of clay founded in the dust; or, “they crush them”; or “which” or “whom [they] crush” e; either God, Father, Son, and Spirit, as some; or the angels, as others; or distresses, calamities, and afflictions, which sense seems best, by which they are crushed “before the moth” or “worm” f; that is, before they die, and come to be the repast of worms, Job 19:26; or before a moth is destroyed, as soon, or sooner g, than it is; so a man may be crushed to death, or his life taken from him, as soon as a moth’s; either by the immediate hand of God, as Ananias and Sapphira, Ac 5:5; or by the sword of man, as Amasa by Joab, 2Sa 20:10; or rather, “like a moth” h, as easily and as quickly as a moth is crushed between a man’s fingers, or by his foot: some, as Saadiah Gaon, and others, render it, “before Arcturus” i, a constellation in the heavens, Job 9:9; and take the phrase to be the same as that, “before the sun”; Ps 72:17; and to denote the perpetuity and duration of their being crushed, which would be as long as the sun or Arcturus continued, that is, for ever; but either of the above senses is best, especially the last of them.

c Arrian. Epictet. l. 1. c. 1. d Theodor. Gadareus, apud Sueton. Vit. Tiber. c. 57. e “conterent eos”, Montanus, Mercerus, Michaelis, Schultens; “sub trinitas personarum”, Schmidt; “angeli”, Mercerus; so Sephorno and R. Simeon Bar Tzemach; “calamitates”, Vatablus; so some in Bar Tzemach. f “conam verme”, Coceius; so the Targum and Bar Tzemach. g “Antequam tinea”, Junius Tremellius “citius quam tinea”, Piscator. h , Sept. “instar tineae”, Noldius, Schmidt; so Aben Ezra and Broughton. i “Donec fuerit Arcturus”, Pagninus, Vatablus; so some in Aben Ezra, Ben Melech.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(19) Houses of clay.This may perhaps contain an allusion to Gen. 11:3.

Are crushed before the moth?That is to say, are so frail that even the moth destroys them.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

19. Much less in them , ( aph,) much more them. The strong logical argument is to be remarked. The same kind of argument is employed in Job 15:16; Job 25:5-6. Houses of clay A far more expressive figure for them than for us. Niebuhr says of the huts among the Arabs: “The walls are of mud mixed with dung, and the roof is thatched with a sort of grass.” Trav. 1:255. Such habitations are exceedingly exposed to destruction from floods of rain or storms of wind, and are a poor protection against the depredations of men. Belzoni witnessed the destruction of several villages of earth-built cottages by the rising of the Nile. “Men, women, children, cattle, corn, every thing was washed away in an instant.” The body is a similar house of clay. Paul speaks of “our earthly house of this tabernacle:” (2Co 5:1🙂 a like figure to which, Plato employs when he calls the body an earthly tent. If the angels untainted by sin are imperfect and untrustworthy in the sight of God, much more men, dwellers in “vile bodies,” that is, “bodies of humiliation,” (Php 3:21,) houses of clay. Natural inference the soul may live apart from the body as a man may away from his house.

Crushed before the moth Easier or sooner than the moth. ( Furst, Hahn.) Or, liphne may be better rendered, as the moth (is crushed.) The moth is a destructive insect which every one is ready to destroy. And such a being, alas! is man. Nature on every side antagonizes man, the great destroyer; ever arraying her forces against him. For a little while he maintains his hold upon life, and passing, justifies the moral of Pindar: “Men are the dream of a shadow,” .

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 4:19. How much less in them, &c. How much more in them. Heath. The expression, dwelling in houses of clay, is used with great propriety to convey the idea of the frailty of the human nature: whose foundation is in the dust, is a poetical expression to denote the formation of man from the dust of the ground. There are various opinions concerning the next clause; who are crushed before the moth, lipni osh, like or after the manner of the moth. “I retain this interpretation,” says Mr. Hervey, “both as it is most suitable to my purpose, and as it is patronised by some eminent commentators, especially the celebrated Schultens; though I cannot but give the preference to the opinion of a judicious friend, who would render the passage more literally, before the face of a moth; making it to represent a creature so exceedingly frail, that even a moth flying against it may dash it to pieces: which, besides its closer correspondence with the exact import of the Hebrew, presents us with a much finer image of the most extreme imbecility; for it certainly implies a far greater degree of weakness, to be crushed by the feeble flutter of the feeblest creature, than only to be crushed as easily as that creature, by the hand of man. The French version is very expressive and beautiful; a la recontre d’un vermisseau.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Job 4:19 How much less [in] them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed before the moth?

Ver. 19. How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay ] Or how much more (in reference to the latter part of the preceding verse) may God charge men with folly and depravity! And how much more ought he to acknowledge that he cannot subsist nor stand before God’s judgment, as Job 4:17 but only by his gracious pardon and absolution!

That dwell in houses of clay ] Periphrasis est hominum, saith Mercer; this is a description of men, as opposed to angels, those inhabitants of heaven, called therefore the angels of heaven, Mat 24:36 Gal 1:8 , the courtiers of that heavenly Jerusalem, Heb 12:22 , in and with which, it may seem, they were created; as Christ’s soul was in and with his body in the virgin’s womb, the same moment. Hence they are also said to be in heaven, when as men and other things here below are said to be on earth, Mat 6:10 , on the surface only, as ready to be shaken off, and as having here no continuing city, Heb 13:14 , no mansions till they come to heaven, Joh 14:2 , no settled abode: some huts we have here, rather than houses; clay cottages, earthly tabernacles, , as Paul after Plato calleth men’s bodies, 2Co 5:1 . And so the most interpreters understand these words of Eliphaz concerning the body of man (rather than of his house he dwells in here, made up of clay and dust a little refined and sublimated by art or nature), which is nothing else but a clod of clay neatly made up. What is man, saith Greg. Nazianzen out of Gen 2:7 , but N , soul and soil, breath and body, a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other? no solidity in either, , cinis, ashes Gen 3:19 ; Gen 18:21 . Pulvis et umbra sumus, Dust and shadows we are, saith the poet, Her. Od. iv. 7, 16; and K , saith the Greek proverb, Man is but an earthen pot. The first man, Adam, was of the earth earthy, 1Co 15:47 . And no better are the best, quos ex meliore forsan lute finxit Titan, who are made of the finest common mould; but as the finer the metal, the purer the matter of any glass or earthen vessel, the more subject it is to break, so are they to die: for what reason?

Whose foundation is in the dust ] The house is but weak, and yet the foundation weaker, terra friabilis, flying, light, unstable, unmoveable, dust that is soon wherried and whirled about with every puff of wind. Hence the apostle calleth man’s body not a house only (in respect of, 1. The comely and orderly workmanship thereof; 2. The soul which inhabiteth it), but a tabernacle, which hath no foundation, and is transportative, 2Co 5:1 , opposing to it building, which is firm and stable. Hence David, Omnis Adam est totus Abel, saith he. Verily every man in his best estate (when he is best founded and settled on his best bottom, when he is underlaid on all sides, and seems set to live) is altogether vanity, Psa 39:5 ; Psa 39:12 . So Psa 144:4 . Adam is Abel’s equal, or man is like to vanity; what can he be better, when as

Which are crushed before the moth? ] He saith not, before the lion, but before the moth. Now what a poor thing is man, that a moth may crush him; that a flee may choke him, as it did Pope Alexander; that a light bruise on his toe may kill him, as it did Aemilius Lepidus (Plin. lib. 7, cap. 53), that a poisoned torch may light him to his long home, as it did the Cardinal of Lorraine! I have known, saith one, death admitted in by a corn on the toe; and enough the hurt were so far off the heart, yet the man died upon it (Purchas). Another I knew, who seeming to have conquered the elements, the wide ocean, wild wilderness, wilder beasts, wildest men, hottest climates; after sixteen years’ absence, returned home, and died of a hurt in his thumb. Mr Terry, a great traveller, telleth of a nobleman in the Great Mogul’s court, who sitting in dalliance with one of his women, had a hair plucked by her from his breast; this little wound, made by that small and unexpected instrument of death, presently festered; and turning to an incurable cancer, killed him (Lawless Liberty, in a Serm. at Paul’s, by Edm. Terry, p. 21). God needs no bigger a lance than a hair to kill an atheist, as this dying man acknowledged. But besides all ill accidents and casualties from without; look how the garment breeds the moth, and then the moth eats the garment; so man’s own distempered body breeds ill burnouts, they diseases, and these breed death, as one well observeth upon this text. It is holden for certain, that in every two years there is such store of ill humours and excrements engendered in the body, that a vessel of one hundred ounces will scarce contain them. Ipsa suis augmentis vita ad detrimenta impellitur, saith Gregory, et inde deficit undo proficere creditur. Life weareth out by the very meat that maintaineth it; and every man hath his bane about him.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

houses of clay. Compare 2Co 5:1.

before = sooner than.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

dwell: Job 10:9, Job 13:12, Job 33:6, Gen 2:7, Gen 3:19, Gen 18:27, Ecc 12:7, 2Co 4:7, 2Co 5:1

crushed: Job 13:28, Job 14:2, Psa 39:11, Psa 90:5-7, Psa 103:15, Psa 103:16, Psa 146:4, 1Pe 1:24

Reciprocal: 2Ch 6:18 – how much Job 9:14 – How much Job 15:16 – abominable Job 25:6 – How much less Psa 144:4 – Man Isa 51:8 – the moth

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

4:19 How much less [in] them that dwell in houses of {n} clay, whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed before the moth?

(n) That is, in this mortal body, subject to corruption, as in 2Co 5:1.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes