Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:15

So that my soul chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.

15. Consequence of the preceding, Job 7:14.

chooseth strangling ] A sense of choking is one of the accompaniments of the disease, which is said to end sometimes in actual suffocation. Job refers to this symptom, saying that he is driven to desire that it might be really fatal. The parallel word death in the next clause shews that this is what he is driven to wish for, but he selects this form of death as one incidental to his disease, and one with which he had perhaps felt himself more than once threatened.

death rather than my life ] lit. death rather than these my bones. So he describes the emaciated skeleton to which he was reduced.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

So that my soul – So that I; the soul being put for himself.

Chooseth strangling – Dr. Good renders it suffocation, and supposes that Job alludes to the oppression of breathing, produced by what is commonly called the night-mare, and that he means that he would prefer the sense of suffocation excited at such a time to the terrible images before his mind. Herder renders it, death. Jerome, suspendium. The Septuagint, Thou separatest ( apallaceis) my life from my spirit, and my bones from death; but what idea they attached to it, it is impossible now to tell. The Syriac renders it, Thou choosest my soul from perdition, and my bones from death. The word rendered strangling ( machanaq) is from chanaq, to be narrow, strait, close; and then means to strangle, to throttle, Nah 2:12; 2Sa 17:23. Here it means death; and Job designs to say that he would prefer even the most violent kind of death to the life that he was then leading. I see no evidence that the idea suggested by Dr. Good is to be found in the passage.

And death rather than my life – Margin, as in Hebrew, bones. There has been great variety in the exposition of this part of the verse. Herder renders it, death rather than this frail body. Rosenmuller and Noyes, death rather than my bones; that is, he preferred death to such an emaciated body as he then had, to the wasted skeleton which was then all that he had left to him. This is probably the true sense. Job was a sufferer in body and in soul. His flesh was wasting away, his body was covered with ulcers, and his mind was harassed with apprehensions. By day he had no peace, and at night he was terrified by alarming visions and spectres; and he preferred death in any form to such a condition.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 15. Chooseth strangling] It is very likely that he felt, in those interrupted and dismal slumbers, an oppression and difficulty of breathing something like the incubus or nightmare; and, distressing as this was, he would prefer death by this means to any longer life in such miseries.

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

Chooseth; not simply and in itself, but comparatively, rather than such a wretched life.

Strangling; the most violent, so it be but a certain and sudden death.

Rather than my life, Heb. than my bones, i.e. than my body, formerly the souls dear and desired companion; or than to be in the body, which commonly consists of skin, and flesh, and bones, but in Job was in a manner nothing but a bundle of boiles; for his skin was every where broken, and his flesh was quite consumed, as he oft complains, and his bones also were not free from pain and torment; for as Satans commission reached to Jobs bones, Job 2:5, so doubtless his malice and wicked design would engage him to execute it to the utmost.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

15. UMBREITtranslates, “So that I could wish to strangle myselfdead bymy own hands.” He softens this idea of Job’s harboring thethought of suicide, by representing it as entertained only inagonizing dreams, and immediately repudiated with horror in Job7:16, “Yet that (self-strangling) I loathe.” This isforcible and graphic. Perhaps the meaning is simply, “My soulchooses (even) strangling (or any violent death) rather than mylife,” literally, “my bones” (Ps35:10); that is, rather than the wasted and diseased skeleton,left to him. In this view, “I loathe it” (Job7:16) refers to his life.

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

So that my soul chooseth strangling,…. Not to strangle himself, as Ahithophel did, or to be strangled by others, this being a kind of death inflicted on capital offenders; but rather, as Mr. Broughton renders it, “to be choked to death” by any distemper and disease, as some are of a suffocating nature, as a catarrh, quinsy, c. and kill in that way and indeed death in whatsoever way is the stopping of a man’s breath; and it was death that Job chose, let it be in what way it would, whether natural or violent; so weary was he of life through his sore and heavy afflictions:

[and] death rather than my life; or, “than my bones” i; which are the more solid parts of the body, and the support of it, and are put for the whole and the life thereof; or than these bones of his, which were full of strong pain, and which had nothing but skin upon them, and that was broken and covered with worms, rottenness, and dust; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, “and my bones death”; that is, desired and chose death, being so full of pain, see Ps 35:10.

i “prae ossibus meis”, Montanus, Tigurine version, Bolducius, Cocceius, Schmidt, Schultens; so Mercerus, Piscator, Michaelis.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(15) So that my soul maketh choice of strangling and death rather than a life like this. Literally, than these my bones, or, as some take it, a death by these my members: a death inflicted by myself, suicide.

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

15. Strangling Difficulty of swallowing is one of the symptoms of elephantiasis, (Bridel,) and suffocation is its usual end. (Delitzsch.) It often becomes necessary to open the jugular vein to relieve the hoarseness and the tendency to suffocation. (Avicenna.)

Life Literally, my bones. So emaciated was he that he calls his body but mere bones. Schlottmann and Umbreit render “than,” from, and read from my bones, and attribute to Job the thought of suicide. But there is no authority for using “bones” in the sense of hands. Umbreit’s admission “that the sufferer is represented as strangling himself in agonizing dreams,” is fatal to his theory. “There is fearful irony,” says Davidson, “in the comparison of this skeleton, impotent and helpless, his very weakness a terror to himself and his on-lookers, to the great heaven-assaulting ocean, lifting itself up in the consciousness of infinite power, or to some dragon of the prime, in which the whole energy of creation in its youth lay compressed.”

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

Job 7:15. So that my soul chooseth strangling, &c. My soul therefore chooseth strangling; death rather than the recovery of my health. Heath. But Houbigant renders it thus: Yet thou preservest me from a violent end, and drivest death far from my bones: Job 7:16. Yet I shall not live always; cease therefore from me, since my days are vanity. See his note.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Job 7:15 So that my soul chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.

Ver. 15. So that my soul chooseth strangling ] i.e. Quamvis durissimam sed praesentissimam mortem, any violent or ignominious death, as long as it were a speedy death. Hippocrates telleth us, that many have been so frightened with dreams and apparitions, that they have hanged themselves, leaped into deep pits, or otherwise committed suicide. Let those that either have not been so terrified, or so tempted, or so deserted of God, bless him for that mercy.

And death rather than life ] Heb. Rather than my bones; that is, any kind of death rather than such a body, which is now nothing else but a bag of bones; or than such rotten bones full of sores and ulcers. He maketh mention of his bones, because his pain had pierced as far as his very bones; the putrefaction had sunk down into his marrow.

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

rather than my life = by mine [own] hands.

life = bones, or limbs: i.e. hands.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

chooseth: 2Sa 17:23, Mat 27:5

life: Heb. bones

Reciprocal: Num 11:15 – kill me Num 14:2 – Would Job 3:20 – Wherefore Job 6:9 – that it would Job 9:21 – I would Job 13:13 – and let come Job 36:20 – Desire Pro 18:14 – but Ecc 2:17 – I hated Isa 2:22 – for wherein Isa 15:4 – his Jer 8:3 – death Jon 4:3 – for Luk 14:26 – hate Rev 9:6 – shall men

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 7:15. So that my soul chooseth strangling The most violent death, so it be but certain and sudden, rather than such a wretched life. Hebrews , megnatsmothai, rather than my bones That is, than my body, the skin of which was everywhere broken, and the flesh almost consumed, so that little remained but bones.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

7:15 So that my soul {k} chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.

(k) He speaks as one overcome with sorrow, and not of judgment, or of the examination of his faith.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes