Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 16:12
I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken [me] by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
12. The figure of a man seized by another of overwhelming strength and dashed to pieces. This attack was sudden and unexpected, when Job was at ease and in security cf. ch. Job 29:2 seq. This meets what Eliphaz said of the forebodings of conscience, ch. Job 15:20 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
12 14. More particular description of the hostile attack of God, its unexpectedness and destructiveness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I was at ease – I was in a state of happiness and security. The word used here ( shalev) means sometimes to be at ease in an improper sense; that is, to be in a state of carnal security, or living unconcerned in sin (Eze 23:42; compare Pro 1:32); but here it is used in the sense of comfort. He had everything desirable around him.
But he hath broken me asunder – He has crushed me.
He hath also taken, me by my neck – Perhaps as an animal does his prey. We have all seen dogs seize upon their prey in this manner.
And set me up for his mark – Changing the figure, and saying that God had directed his arrows against him; so Jeremiah, Lam 3:12 :
He hath bent his bow,
And set me as a mark for the arrow.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
I lived in great peace and prosperity, which makes my present miseries more grievous to me; and therefore my complaints are excusable, and I deserve pity rather than reproach from my friends.
Broken me asunder; broken my spirit with the sense of his anger, and my body with loathsome ulcers, as also by destroying my children, a part of my own flesh or body.
Taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; as a mighty man doth with some young stripling, when he wrestleth with him. Set me up for his mark; that he may shoot all his arrows into me, and that with delight, which archers have in that exercise.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. I was at easein pasttimes (Job 1:1-3).
by my neckas an animaldoes its prey (so Job 10:16).
shakenviolently; incontrast to his former “ease” (Ps102:10). Set me up (again).
mark (Job 7:20;Lam 3:12). God lets me alwaysrecover strength, so as to torment me ceaselessly.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder,…. He was in easy and affluent circumstances, abounding with the good things of this life, lay in his nest, as his expression is, Job 29:18; quietly and peaceably, where he expected he should have died; and he was easy in his mind, had peace of conscience, being a good man that feared God, and trusted in his living Redeemer, enjoying the presence of God, the light of his countenance, and the discoveries of his love, see
Job 39:2; but now he was broken to pieces, he was stripped of his worldly substance; his family was broken up, and not a child left him; his body broken, and full of ruptures through boils and ulcers; and his spirits were broken with his afflictions, and a sense of divine displeasure; the arrows of God’s wrath, in his apprehension, stuck in him, and the poison thereof drank up his spirits. Mr. Broughton renders it, “I was wealthy, [and] he hath undone me”; though once so opulent, he was now broken, and become a bankrupt. It may be applied to Christ, his antitype, who, though rich, became poor to make his people rich, 2Co 8:9; and whose body was broken for them; and he was wounded and bruised for their transgressions, and whose heart was broken with reproach:
he hath also taken me by the neck, and shaken me to pieces; as a combatant in wrestling, who is stronger than his antagonist, uses him; or as a giant, who takes a dwarf by his neck or collar, and shakes him, as if he would shake him to pieces, limb from limb; or “hath dashed” or “broken me to pieces” f; or to shivers; as glass or earthen vessels dashed against a wall, or struck with a hammer, fly into a thousand pieces, can never be put together again; so Job reckoned of his state and condition as irrecoverable, that his health, his substance, his family, could never be restored as they had been:
and set me up for his mark; to shoot at, of which he complains Job 7:20; a like expression is used by the church in La 3:12; and a phrase similar to this is used of Christ, Lu 2:34; and in consequence of this are what follow.
f “confregit me”, V. L. Pagninus; “minutatim confregit me”, Tigurine version; so Schultens, Jarchi, & Ben Gersom.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
12 I was at ease, but He hath broken me in pieces;
And He hath taken me by the neck and shaken me to pieces,
And set me up for a mark for himself.
13 His arrows whistled about me;
He pierced my reins without sparing;
He poured out my gall upon the ground.
14 He brake through me breach upon breach,
He ran upon me like a mighty warrior.
He was prosperous and contented, when all at once God began to be enraged against him; the intensive form (Arab. farfara ) signifies to break up entirely, crush, crumble in pieces ( Hithpo. to become fragile, Isa 24:19); the corresponding intensive form (from , Arab. fdd , cogn. ), to beat in pieces ( Polel of a hammer, Jer 23:29), to dash to pieces: taking him by the neck, God raised him on high in order to dash him to the ground with all His might. (from , , like from ) is the target, as in the similar passage, Lam 3:12, distinct from , Job 7:20, object of attack and point of attack: God has set me up for a target for himself, in order as it were to try what He and His arrows can do. Accordingly (from = , , jacere ) signifies not: His archers (although this figure would be admissible after Job 10:17; Job 19:12, and the form after the analogy of , , etc., is naturally taken as a substantival adj.), but, especially since God appears directly as the actor: His arrows (= , Job 6:4), from , formed after the analogy of , , etc., according to which it is translated by lxx, Targ., Jer., while most of the Jewish expositors, referring to Jer 50:29 (where we need not, with Bttch., point , and here ), interpret by . On all sides, whichever way he might turn himself, the arrows of God flew about him, mercilessly piercing his reins, so that his gall-bladder became empty (comp. Lam 2:11, and vid., Psychol. S. 268). It is difficult to conceive what is here said;
(Note: The emptying of the gall takes place if the gall-bladder or any of its ducts are torn; but how the gall itself (without assuming some morbid condition) can flow outwardly, even with a severe wound, is a difficult question, with which only those who have no appreciation of the standpoint of imagery and poetry will distress themselves. [On the ”spilling of the gall” or “bursting of the gall-bladder” among the Arabs, as the working of violent and painful emotions, vid., Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenlnd. Gesellsch. Bd. xvi. S. 586, Z. 16ff. – Fl.])
it is, moreover, not meant to be understood strictly according to the sense: the divine arrows, which are only an image for divinely decreed sufferings, pressed into his inward parts, and wounded the noblest organs of his nature. In Job 16:14 follows another figure. He was as a wall which was again and again broken through by the missiles or battering-rams of God, and against which He ran after the manner of besiegers when storming. is the proper word for such breaches and holes in a wall generally; here it is connected as obj. with its own verb, according to Ges. 138, rem. 1. The second ( with Kametz) has Ssade minusculum, for some reason unknown to us.
The next strophe says what change took place in his own conduct in consequence of this incomprehensible wrathful disposition of God which had vented itself on him.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(12) I was at ease.A highly poetical passage, in which Job becomes, as it were, a St. Sebastian for the arrows of God. It is hardly possible to conceive a more vivid picture of his desolate condition under the persecuting hand of the Almighty.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Second strophe Notwithstanding Job’s life of purity, God has maltreated and persecuted him even unto death, Job 16:12-17.
12. I was at ease Our ungrateful nature has only a word, , “at ease,” for years of prosperity, but dwells at length upon months of affliction.
By my neck As a beast does his prey.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 16:12 I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken [me] by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
Ver. 12. I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder ] It is no small misery to have been happy. Fuimus Troes et fortis Milesis. Euripides bringeth in Hecuba as ashamed to look Polymnestor in the face, because having been a queen she was now a captive; her former felicity was no small aggravation compared to her present misery: so was Job’s. Prosper eram, sed disrupit me, saith he. I was wealthy, but he hath undone me; so Broughton rendereth it. The same Hebrew word signifieth both to be rich and to be at ease; for such commonly sing requiems to their souls, as he did Luk 12:19 , and say, “I shall never be moved,” Psa 30:6 ; “I shall see no sorrow,” Rev 18:7 . But God can quickly confute them. Job’s worldly prosperity was quickly dashed and lost. He once hoped to have died in his nest, but God not only unnested him, but broke him to shivers, yea, beat him to dust and atoms, as the word here signifies. Nay, more,
He hath also taken me by my neck
And hath shaken me to pieces
And set me up for his mark
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
at ease: Job 1:2, Job 1:3, Job 3:26, Job 29:3, Job 29:18, Job 29:19
broken me: Job 4:10, Psa 44:19, Lam 3:4, Mat 21:44
by my neck: Job 15:26, Rom 16:4
shaken: Lam 3:11, Eze 29:7
set me up: Job 7:12, Job 7:20, Lam 3:12
Reciprocal: Job 6:4 – the arrows Psa 21:12 – make Psa 88:17 – They Isa 30:32 – shaking Isa 38:13 – as a lion Lam 2:4 – bent
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 16:12. I was at ease I lived in great peace and prosperity, and was contented and happy in the comfortable enjoyment of the gifts of Gods bounty, not fretful and uneasy, as some are, in the midst of the blessings of providence, who thereby provoke God to take these blessings from them; but he hath broken me asunder Hath broken my spirit with the sense of his anger, and my body with loathsome ulcers; and all my hopes and prospects, as to the present life, by the destruction of all my children and property. He hath also taken me by the neck And thrown me down from an eminent condition into one most despicable; and shaken me to pieces As a mighty man acts with some young stripling when he wrestles with him; and set me up for his mark That he may shoot all his arrows into me, and wound me with one calamity after another.