Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 30:28

I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation.

28. I went mourning ] Better perhaps, I go blackened, not by the sun. The reference is to his appearance from his disease: he is black, but his blackness is not due to the sun, comp. Son 1:6.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I went mourning – Or rather, I go, in the present tense, for he is now referring to his present calamities, and not to what was past. The word rendered mourning, however ( qadar), means here rather to be dark, dingy, tanned. It literally means to be foul or turbid, like a torrent, Job 6:16; then to go about in filthy garments, as they do who mourn, Job 5:11; Jer 14:2; then to be dusky, or of a dark color, or to become dark. Thus, it is applied to the sun and moon becoming dark in an eclipse, or when covered with clouds, Jer 4:28; Joe 2:10; Joe 3:15; Mic 3:6. Here it refers to the fact that, by the mere force of his disease, his skin had become dark and swarthy, though he had not been exposed to the burning rays of the sun. The wrath of God had burned upon him, and he had become black under it. Jerome, however, renders it moerens, mourning. The Septuagint, I go groaning ( stenon) without restraint, or limit – aneu fimou. The Chaldee translates it , black.

Without the sun – Without being exposed to the sun; or without the agency of the sun. Though not exposed, he had become as dark as if he had been a day-laborer exposed to a burning sun.

I stood up – Or, I stand up.

And cried in the congregation – I utter my cries in the congregation, or when surrounded by the assembled people. Once I stood up to counsel them, and they hung upon my lips for advice; now I stand up only to weep over my accumulated calamities. This indicates the great change which had come upon him, and the depth of his sorrows. A man will weep readily in private; but he will be slow to do it, if he can avoid it, when surrounded by a multitude.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 28. I went mourning without the sun] chammah, which we here translate the sun, comes from a root of the same letters, which signifies to hide, protect, c., and may be translated, I went mourning without a protector or guardian or, the word may be derived from cham, to be hot, and here it may signify fury, rage, anger; and thus it was understood by the Vulgate: Maerens incedebam, sine furore, I went mourning without anger; or, as Calmet translates, Je marchois tout triste, mais sans me laisser aller a l’emportement; “I walked in deep sadness, but did not give way to an angry spirit.” The Syriac and Arabic understood it in the same way.

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

I went, or, I walked hither and thither as I could. Or, I converse or appear among others.

Mourning without the sun; spending my days in mourning, without any sun-light or comfort; or so oppressed with sadness, that I did not care nor desire to see the light of the sun. Heb. black not by the sun. My very countenance is changed and become black, but not by the sun, which makes many other persons black, Son 1:5,6; but by the force of my disease and deep melancholy, which ofttimes makes a mans visage black and dismal. See Psa 119:83; Lam 5:10. And this he repeats in plainer terms, Job 30:30, as an eminent token of his excessive grief and misery.

I stood up; either because my disease and pain made me weary of other postures; or that others might take notice of me, and be moved with pity towards me.

I cried with a loud and direful clamour, through great and sudden anguish.

In the congregation; where prudence and modesty taught me to forbear it, if extreme necessity and misery had not forced me to it.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

28. mourningrather, I moveabout blackened, though not by the sun; that is, whereas manyare blackened by the sun, I am, by the heat of God’s wrath (so”boiled,” Job 30:27);the elephantiasis covering me with blackness of skin (Job30:30), as with the garb of mourning (Jer14:2). This striking enigmatic form of Hebrew expressionoccurs, Isa 29:9.

stood upas an innocentman crying for justice in an assembled court (Job30:20).

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

I went mourning without the sun,…. So overwhelmed with grief, that he refused to have any comfort from, or any advantage by the sun; hence Mr. Broughton renders it, “out of the sun”; he did not choose to walk in the sunshine, but out of it, to indulge his grief and sorrow the more; or he went in black attire, and wrapped and covered himself with it, that he might not see the sun, or receive any relief by it: or “I go black, [but] not by the sun” q; his face and his skin were black, but not through the sun looking upon him and discolouring him, as in So 1:6; but through the force of his disease, which had changed his complexion, and made him as black as a Kedarene, or those that dwell in the tents of Kedar, So 1:5; and he also walked without the sun of righteousness arising on him, with healing in his wings, which was worst of all:

I stood up, [and] I cried in the congregation: either in the congregation of the saints met together for religious worship, where he cried unto God for help and deliverance, and for the light of his countenance, Job 30:20; or such was the extreme anguish of his soul, that when a multitude of people got about him to see him in his distressed condition, he could not contain himself, but burst out before them in crying and tears, though he knew it was unbecoming a man of his age and character; or he could not content himself to stay within doors and soothe his grief, but must go abroad and in public, and there expressed with strong cries and tears his miserable condition.

q “non propter solem”, Vatablus; “non a sole”, Junius Tremellius, Drusius, Mercerus “non ob solem”, Piscator.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

28 I wandered about in mourning without the sun;

I rose in the assembly, I gave free course to my complaint.

29 I am become a brother of the jackals

And a companion of ostriches.

30 My skin having become black, peels off from me,

And my bones are parched with dryness.

31 My harp was turned to mourning,

And my pipe to tones of sorrow.

Several expositors (Umbr., Vaih., Hlgst.) understand of the dirty-black skin of the leper, but contrary to the usage of the language, according to which, in similar utterances (Psa 35:14; Psa 38:7; Psa 42:10; Psa 43:2, comp. supra, Job 5:11), it rather denotes the dirty-black dress of mourners (comp. Arab. qddr , conspurcare vestem ); to understand it of the dirty-black skin as quasi sordida veste (Welte) is inadmissible, since this distortion of the skin which Job bewails in Job 30:30 would hardly be spoken of thus tautologically. therefore means in the black of the , or mourning-linen, Job 16:15, by which, however, also the interpretation of , “without sunburn” (Ew., Hirz.), which has gained ground since Raschi’s day ( ), is disposed of; for “one can perhaps say of the blackness of the skin that it does not proceed from the sun, but not of the blackness of mourning attire” (Hahn). also refutes the reading in lxx Complut. ( ),

(Note: Whereas Codd. Alex., Vat., and Sinait., , which is correctly explained by in Zwingli’s Aldine, but gives no sense.)

Syr., Jer. ( sine furore ), which ought to be understood of the deposition of the gall-pigment on the skin, and therefore of jaundice, which turns it (especially in tropical regions) not merely yellow, but a dark-brown. Hahn and a few others render correctly in the sense of , “without the sun having shone on him.” Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning ( as Job 24:10; Psa 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what means, Joe 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.

In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dech, Munach, Silluk, according to which belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth, and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach, according to Psalter ii. 503, 2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch) belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which must be written without the Dag. instead of (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dech cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: ”before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations”), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice, before all the world (Hirz.: comp. , , Pro 26:26); , however, is a circumstantial clause declaring the purpose (Ew. 337, b; comp. De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe ii. 357), as is frequently the case after , Job 16:8; Psa 88:11; Psa 102:14: surrexi in publico ut lamentarer , or lamentaturus , or lamentando . In this lament, extorted by the most intense pain, which he cannot hold back, however many may surround him, he is become a brother of those , jackals ( canes aurei ), whose dolorous howling produces dejection and shuddering in all who hear it, and a companion of , whose shrill cry is varied by wailing tones of deep melancholy.

(Note: It is worth while to cite a passage from Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, ii. 348 (transl.), here: “When the ostriches are running and fighting, they sometimes make a wild, hideous, hissing noise with their throats distended and beaks open; at another time, if they meet with a slight opposition, they have a clucking or cackling voice like our domestic fowls: they seem to rejoice and laugh at the terror of their adversary. During the loneliness of the night however, as if their voice had a totally different tone, they often set up a dolorous, hideous moan, which at one time resembles the roar of the lion, and at another is more like the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, especially the bull and cow. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies.” In General Doumas’ book on the Horse of the Sahara, I have read that the male ostrich ( delm ), when it is killed, especially if its young ones are near, sends forth a dolorous note, wile the female ( remda ), on the other hand, does not utter a sound; and so, when the ostrich digs out its nest, one hears a languishing and dolorous tone all day long, and when it has laid its egg, its usual cry is again heard, only about three o’clock in the afternoon.)

The point of comparison is not the insensibility of the hearers ( Sforno), but the fellowship of wailing and howling together with the accompanying idea of the desert in which it is heard, which is connected with the idea itself (comp. Mic 1:8).

Job 30:30

Now for the first time he speaks of his disfigurement by leprosy in particular: my skin ( , masc., as it is also used in Job 19:26, only apparently as fem.) is become black ( nigruit) from me, i.e., being become black, has peeled from me, and my bones ( , construed as fem. like Job 19:20; Psa 102:6) are consumed, or put in a glow ( , Milel, from , as Eze 24:11) by a parching heat. Thus, then, his harp became mournful, and his pipe ( with raphatum ) the cry of the weepers; the cheerful music (comp. Job 21:12) has been turned into gloomy weeping and sobbing (comp. Lam 5:15). Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is somewhat lengthened and tedious; it is Job’s last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously! One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto, flebile .

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament