Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:5
My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
5. with worms and clods of dust ] His ulcers bred worms; and the hard earthy-like crust of his sores he calls lumps of dust.
is broken, and become loathsome ] Rather, my skin closes and breaks afresh the allusion being to the alternate gathering and running of his sores, which went on continually.
Job 7:1-5 describe the pain of life; the following verses, 6 10, its brevity and utter extinction in death. There is no break, however, in the connexion, for it is the exhausting pains described in Job 7:3-5 that naturally suggest the hopeless brevity of his life. Job has been thought inconsistent in complaining that life being evil is also brief. But in his view life itself is the highest good; it should be free of evil and prolonged. And his complaint is that human life has been made by God both evil and brief; cf. ch. Job 14:1 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
My flesh is clothed with worms – Job here undoubtedly refers to his diseased state, and this is one of the passages by which we may learn the nature of his complaint; compare the notes at Job 2:7. There is reference here to the worms which are produced in ulcers and in other forms of disease. Michaelis remarks that such effects are produced often in the elephantiasis. Bochart, Hieroz. P. II, Lib. IV. c. xxvi. pp. 619621, has abundantly proved that such effects occur in disease, and has mentioned several instances where death ensued from this cause; compare Act 12:23. The same thing would often happen – and particularly in hot climates – if it were not for the closest care and attention in keeping running sores as clean as possible.
And clods of dust – Accumulated on the ulcers which covered his whole body. This effect would be almost unavoidable. Dr. Good renders this, worms and the imprisoning dust, and supposes that the image is taken from the grave, and that the idea in the whole passage is that of one who is dead while he lives; that is, of one who is undergoing putrefaction before he is buried. But the more common and correct interpretation is that which refers it to the accumulated filth attending a loathsome disease; see Job 2:8. The word which is used here and rendered clods ( gush) means a lump of earth or dust. Septuagint, bolakas ges; Vulgate, sordes pulveris, clods of earth. The whole verse is rendered by the Septuagint, My body swarms with the putrefaction of worms, and I moisten the clods of earth with the ichor ( ichoros) of ulcers.
My skin is broken – – raga. This word means, to make afraid, to terrify; and then to shrink together from fear, or to contract. Here it means, according to Gesenius, that the skin came together and healed, and then broke forth again and ran with pus. Jerome renders it, aruit – dries up. Herder, my skin becometh closed. Dr. Good, my skin becometh stiff; and carries out his idea that the reference here is to the stiffened and rigid appearance of the body after death. Doederlin supposes that it refers to the rough and horrid appearance of the skin in the elephantiasis, when it becomes rigid and frightful by the disease. Jarchi renders it, cutis mea corrugata – my skin is rough, or filled with wrinkles. This seems to me to be the idea, that it was filled with wrinkles and corrugations; that it became stiff, fixed, frightful, and was such as to excite terror in the beholder.
And become loathsome – Gesenius, runs again with pus. The word here used ma’as means properly to reject, contemn, despise. A second sense which it has is, to melt, to run like water; Psa 58:7, Let them melt away ( yma’asu) as waters. But the usual meaning is to be preferred here. His skin became abhorrent and loathsome in the sight of others.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. My flesh is clothed with worms] This is perhaps no figure, but is literally true: the miserably ulcerated state of his body, exposed to the open air, and in a state of great destitution, was favourable to those insects that sought such places in which to deposit their ova, which might have produced the animals in question. But the figure is too horrid to be farther illustrated.
Clods of dust] I believe all the commentators have here missed the sense. I suppose Job to allude to those incrustations of indurated or dried pus, which are formed on the tops of pustules in a state of decay: such as the scales which fall from the pustules of the smallpox, when the patient becomes convalescent. Or, if Job’s disease was the elephantiasis, it may refer to the furfuraceous scales which are continually falling off the body in that disorder. It is well known, that in this disease the skin becomes very rigid, so as to crack across, especially at the different joints, out of which fissures a loathsome ichor is continually exuding. To something like this the words may refer, My SKIN is BROKEN, and become LOATHSOME.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Clothed, i.e. covered all over as with a garment.
With worms; which oft breed and break forth in divers parts of living bodies, as history and experience witnesseth, and which were easily bred out of Jobs corrupted flesh and sores.
Clods of dust; either the dust of the earth upon which he lay, which his sores would quickly lick up; or the scabs of his sores, which by degrees mouldered away into dust.
My skin is broken, by ulcers breaking forth in all parts of it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. In elephantiasis maggots arebred in the sores (Act 12:23;Isa 14:11).
clods of dustrather, acrust of dried filth and accumulated corruption (Job 2:7;Job 2:8).
my skin is broken and . . .loathsomerather, comes together so as to heal up, and againbreaks out with running matter [GESENIUS].More simply the Hebrew is, “My skin rests (for a time)and (again) melts away” (Ps58:7).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust,…. Not as it would be at death, and in the grave, as Schmidt interprets it, when it would be eaten with worms and reduced to dust; but as it then was, his ulcers breeding worms, or lice, as some y; these spread themselves over his body: some think it was the vermicular or pedicular disease that was upon him, and the scabs of them, which were all over him like one continued crust, were as a garment to him; or those sores of his, running with purulent matter, and he sitting and rolling himself in dust and ashes, and this moisture mingling therewith, and clotted together, formed clods of dust, which covered him all over; a dismal spectacle to look upon! a precious saint in a vile body!
my skin is broken: with the boils and ulcers in all parts, and was parched and cleft with the heat and breaking of them:
and become loathsome; to himself and others; exceeding nauseous, and extremely disagreeable both to sight and smell: or “liquefied” z; moistened with corrupt matter flowing from the ulcers in all parts of his body; the word in Arabic signifies a large, broad, and open wound, as a learned man a has observed; and it is as if he should say, whoever observes all this, this long time of distress, night and day, and what a shocking figure he was, as here represented, could blame him for wishing for death in the most passionate manner?
y So Sephorno and Bar Tzemach. z “liquefit”, Junius Tremellius “colliquefacta est”, Piscator, Mercerus. a Hinckelman. Praefat. ad Alcoran. p. 30.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(5) With worms and clods of dust.It is characteristic of Elephantiasis that the skin becomes hard and rugous, and then cracks and becomes ulcerated.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Worms In the decaying sores, worms were engendered. “In cases of elephantiasis the body is covered with boils, in some of which maggots are bred, while others are covered over with a crust of dried corruption which often breaks out again.” Justin.
Clod of dust Crusts of earth. Earth-coloured crust, or scabs of hardened sores, cover up the wholebody like a garment. (Dillmann.)
Is broken My skin heals and breaks open again. (Dillmann, Hitzig.) The meaning of accords, according to Furst, with our Authorized Version, but Gesenius and others render it as above, heals; literally, “closes together.” In this disease the skin comes together and heals, and then breaks forth again and runs with pus. The incidental remarks of Job here and there in his speeches quite satisfactorily determine his disease to be the elephantiasis.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 7:5. My flesh is clothed with worms, &c. My flesh is clothed with worms, and with the filth of dust: my skin is broken and putrifies. Houbigant. Heath renders it, The worm covereth my flesh, and filthy mud my skin; suddenly it will turn even to putrefaction. See ch. Job 19:26.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
Ver. 5. My flesh is clothed with worms ] Here Job showeth how and whence his nights were so wearisome and restless; he was in his grave clothes before he died (saith Mr Caryl), viz. a gown of worms set or embroidered with clods of dust. Covered he was with sores, and putrefied ulcers full of worms, which made him abhorring to himself.
And clods of dust
My skin is broken
And become loathsome
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
flesh: Job 2:7, Job 2:8, Job 17:14, Job 19:26, Job 24:20, Job 30:18, Job 30:19, Psa 38:5-7, Isa 1:6, Isa 14:11, Act 12:23
loathsome: Job 9:31, Isa 66:24, Eze 20:43
Reciprocal: Job 6:11 – What Job 19:20 – and I am Job 33:21 – His flesh Psa 38:7 – my loins Psa 103:14 – we are dust
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 7:5-6. My flesh is clothed with worms Which were bred out of his corrupted flesh and sores, and which, it seems, covered him all over like a garment. And clods of dust The dust of the earth on which he lay. My skin is broken By ulcers breaking out in all parts of it. My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle Which passes in a moment from one side of the web to the other. So the time of my life hastens to a period; and therefore vain are those hopes which you would give me of a restoration to my former prosperity in this world. And are spent without hope Of enjoying any good day here.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
7:5 My flesh is {c} clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
(c) This signifies that his disease was rare and most horrible.