Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 30:16
And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
16. The condition of despondency to which Job was reduced.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And now my soul is poured out upon me – So in Psa 42:4, I pour out my soul in me. We say that one is dissolved in grief. The language is derived from the fact that the soul in grief seems to lose all firmness or consistence. The Arabs style a fearful person, one who has a watery heart, or whose heart melts away like water. Noyes.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 30:16-20
The days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
Physical pain
In these verses the patriarch sketches his great corporeal sufferings, his physical anguish. Probably mans capability of bodily suffering is greater than that of any other animal existence. His nerves are more tender, his organisation is more exquisite and complicated.
I. It tends to stimulate intellectual research. Pain, says a modern author, has been the means of our increasing our knowledge, our skill, and our comforts. Look to the discoveries made in science–in botany, in chemistry, in anatomy: what a knowledge have we gained of the structures and uses of plants, while we were seeking some herb to soothe pain or cure disease! What a knowledge have we gained of drugs, and salts, and earths, useful for agriculture, or for the fine arts, while we have been seeking only to find an ointment or a medicine! We have sought a draught to allay the burning thirst of a fever, and we have found a dozen delicious beverages to drink for our pleasure or relief. We studied anatomy to find out the seat of disease, and how to attack it, and we found what we did not seek–a thousand wonderful works of God, a thousand most curious contrivances, most admirable delights! We found a model for the ribs of a ship; we found the pattern of a telescope in the eye; we found joints and straps, strutting and valves, which have been copied into the workshop of the mechanic and the study of the philosopher. Yes, we may thank our liability to pain for this–for if pain had not existed, who can tell whether these things would have been so soon, if at all discovered.
II. It tends to heighten mans estimate of Divine goodness. The physical sufferings of men, however aggravated and extensive, are not the law of human life, but the exception. They are but a few discordant notes in the general harmony of his existence, a few stormy days and nights in his voyage through life. We appreciate the dawning of the morning, because we have struggled fiercely with difficulties in the night. We appreciate the full flow of health because we have felt the torture of disease. Inasmuch, therefore, as human suffering, which is an exception in the general life of mankind, helps to heighten our estimate of Gods goodness to our race, it is anything but an unmitigated evil. Nay, it is a blessing in disguise.
III. It tends to improve our spiritual nature. Physical sufferings have led many a man to a train of spiritual reflections that have resulted in the moral salvation of the soul. As by the chisel the sculptor brings beauty out of the marble block; as by the pruning knife the gardener brings rich clusters from the vine; as by the bitter drug the physician brings health to his patient; as by the fire the refiner brings pure gold out of the rough ore–so by suffering the great Father brings spiritual life, beauty, and perfection into the soul. Affliction, says quaint old Adams, is a winged chariot, that mounts up the soul toward heaven. (Homilist.)
The use of afflictions
As opposite colours in a picture contribute to the beauty of the scenery or figures portrayed on the canvas by the artist, so God makes contrary things to promote His glory, and equally develop grace and character in us. There could be no vocal or musical harmony if all the voices and sounds were exactly alike in a concert. There is no real beauty in a painting that has no shades blending with the bright sunlight. As a foil is adapted to make the lustre of a diamond more conspicuous to the eye of the observer, so the contrary things and afflictions of this life God will use to make His love more illustrious and convey His grace with more agreeable sensations to our souls. (R. Venting.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
My soul is poured out; all the strength and powers of my soul are melted, and fainting, and dying away, through my continued and insupportable sorrows and calamities.
Upon me; or, within me, as this Hebrew particle is elsewhere used, as Psa 42:5,6; Isa 26:9; Hos 11:8.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16-23. Job’s outward calamitiesaffect his mind.
poured outinirrepressible complaints (Psa 42:4;Jos 7:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And now my soul is poured out upon me,…. Either in prayer to God for help and deliverance; or rather he was dissolved as it were in floods of tears, because of his distress and anguish; or his spirits were sunk, his strength and courage failed, and his heart melted, and was poured out like water; yea, his soul was pouring out unto death, and he was, as he apprehended, near unto it; his body was so weakened and broken by diseases, that it was like a vessel full of holes, out of which the liquor runs away apace; so his life and soul were going away from him, his vital spirits were almost exhausted:
the days of affliction have taken hold upon me; afflictions seize on good men as well as others, and on them more than others; and there are certain times and seasons for them, appointed and ordered by the Lord; and there is a limited time, they are not to continue always, only for some days, for a time, and but a little time, and then they will have an end; but till that time comes, there can be no deliverance from them; being sent they come, coming they seized on Job, they laid hold on him, they “caught” him, as Mr. Broughton renders it, and held him fast, and would not let him go; nor could he get clear of them till God delivered him, who only can and does deliver out of them in his own time and way.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16 And now my soul is poured out within me,
Days of suffering hold me fast.
17 The night rendeth my bones from me,
And my gnawers sleep not.
18 By great force my garment is distorted,
As the collar of my shirt it encompasseth me.
19 He hath cast me into the mire,
And I am in appearance as dust and ashes.
With this third (Job 30:1, Job 30:9) the elegiac lament over the harsh contrast between the present and the past begins for the third time. The dash after our translation of the second and fourth strophes will indicate that a division of the elegy ends there, after which it begins as it were anew. The soul is poured out within a man ( as Job 10:1, Psychol. S. 152), when, “yielding itself without resistance to sadness, it is dejected to the very bottom, and all its organization flows together, and it is dissolved in the one condition of sorrow” – a figure which is not, however, come about by water being regarded as the symbol of the soul (thus Hitzig on Psa 42:5), but rather by the intimate resemblance of the representation of a flood of tears (Lam 2:19): the life of the soul flows in the blood, and the anguish of the soul in tears and lamentations; and since the outward man is as it were dissolved in the gently flowing tears ( Isa 15:3), his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestation and result of an inward action. we have translated days of suffering, for , with its verb and the rest of its derivatives, is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Days of suffering – Job complains – hold him fast; unites in itself, like , the significations prehendere and prehensum tenere . In Job 30:17 we must not, with Arnh. and others, translate: by night it (affliction) pierces … , for does not stand sufficiently in the foreground to be the subject of what follows; it might sooner be rendered: by night it is pierced through (Targ., Rosenm., Hahn); but why is not to be the subject, and consequently Piel (not Niph.)? The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night (the restless night, Job 7:3, in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it, increases) pierces his bones from him, i.e., roots out his limbs (synon. , Job 18:13) so inwardly and completely. The lepra Arabica (Arab. ‘l – brs , el – baras ) terminates, like syphilis, with an eating away of the limbs, and the disease has its name Arab. judam from jdm , truncare , mutilare : it feeds on the bones, and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached.
In Job 30:17, lxx ( ), Parchon, Kimchi, and others translate according to the Targum. (= ), and the Arab. ruq , veins, after which Blumenf.: my veins are in constant motion. But in the sense of Job 30:3: my gnawers (Jer. qui me comedunt , Targ. , qui me conculcant, conterunt ), is far more in accordance with the predicate and the parallelism, whether it be gnawing pains that are thought of – pains are unnatural to man, they come upon him against his will, he separates them from himself as wild beasts – or, which we prefer, those worms ( , Job 7:5) which were formed in Job’s ulcers (comp. Aruch, , a leech, plur. , worms, e.g., in the liver), and which in the extra-biblical tradition of Job’s decease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job’s monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job.
(Note: In Mugir ed-dn’s large history of Jerusalem and Hebron ( kitab el – ins el – gell ), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs ( tegedhdhem ), and worms were produced ( dawwad ) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill ( mezbele ), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad “on the basket dealer” ( zembilfrosh ), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihje, are these words:
Veki Gergis beshara beri
Jusuf veki abdan keri
Bikesr’ Ejub kurman deri
toh anin ser sultaneti
to men chalaski ‘j zahmeti .
And sold Joseph like a slave,
When worms fed themselves in Job’s body,
Then Thou didst guide them by a sure way:
Thou wilt also deliver me from need.”
More concerning these worms of Job in the description of the monastery of Job. – Wetzst.)
Job 30:18 would be closely and naturally connected with what precedes if could be understood of the skin and explained: By omnipotence (viz., divine, as Job 23:6, Ew. 270 a) the covering of my body is distorted, as even Raschi: , it is changed, by one skin or crust being formed after another. But even Schultens rightly thinks it remarkable that , Job 30:18, is not meant to signify the proper upper garment but the covering of the skin, but , Job 30:18, the under garment in a proper sense. The astonishment is increased by the fact that signifies to disguise one’s self, and thereby render one’s self unrecognisable, which leads to the proper idea of , to a clothing which looks like a disguise. It cannot be cited in favour of this unusual meaning that is used in Job 41:5 of the scaly skin of the crocodile: an animal has no other but its skin. Therefore, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we take strictly: “by (divine) omnipotence my garment is distorted (becomes unlike itself), like the collar of my shirt it fits close to me.” It is unnecessary to take as a compound praep.: according to (comp. Zec 2:4; Mal 2:9: ”according as”), in the sense of , as Job 33:6, since is, according to the nature of the thing mentioned, a designation of the upper opening, by means of which the shirt, otherwise only provided with armholes (distinct from the Beduin shirt thob , which has wide and long sleeves), is put on. Also, Psa 133:2, signifies not the lower edge, but the opening at the head , Exo 28:32) or the collar of the high priest’s vestment (vid., the passage cited). Thus even lxx , and Jer.: velut capitio tunicae meae . True, Schlottm. observes against this rendering of Job 30:18, that it is unnatural according to substance, since on a wasted body it is not the outer garment that assumes the appearance of a narrow under one, but on the contrary the under garment assumes the appearance of a wide outer one. But this objection is not to the point. If the body is wasted away to a skeleton, there is an end to the rich appearance and beautiful flow which the outer garment gains by the full and rounded forms of the limbs: it falls down straight and in perpendicular folds upon the wasted body, and contributes in no small degree to make him whom one formerly saw in all the fulness of health still less recognisable than he otherwise is. , cingit me , is not merely the falling together of the outer garment which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it: then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar, lying round about the shrivelled figure like the other about a thin neck. On the terrible wasting away which is combined with hypertrophical formations in elephantiasis, vid., Job 7:15, and especially Job 19:20. The subject of Job 30:19 is God, whom Job 30:18 also describes as efficient cause: He has cast me into, or daubed
(Note: The reading wavers between and , for the latter form of writing is sometimes found even out of pause by conjunctive accents, e.g., 1Sa 28:15; Psa 118:5.)
me with, mud, and I am become as ( instead of the dat., Ew. 221, a) dust and ashes. This is also intended pathologically: the skin of the sufferer with elephantiasis becomes first an intense red, then assumes a black colour; scales like fishes’ scales are formed upon it, and the brittle, dark-coloured surface of the body is like a lump of earth.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
b. His unhappy misery (Job. 30:16-23)
TEXT 30:1623
16 And now my soul is poured oat within me;
Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me,
And the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
18 By Gods great force is my garment disfigured;
It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
19 He hath cast me into the mire,
And I am become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me:
I stand up, and thou gazest at me.
21 Thou art turned to be cruel to me;
With the might of thy hand thou persecutest me.
22 Thou liftest me of to the wind,
thou causest me to ride upon it;
And thou disolvest me in the storm.
23 For I know that thou wilt bring me to death,
And to the house appointed for all living.
COMMENT 30:1623
Job. 30:16For the third time Job emphasizes the contrast between his past and present existenceand nowJob. 30:1; Job. 30:9; Job. 30:16; Psa. 42:4. Now he experiences only days of afflictionJob. 30:27 and Lam. 1:7. His soul (nephesh) can absorb no more emotional strain. His suffering has drained him of all zest for life1Sa. 1:15; Psa. 42:5; and Lam. 2:19.
Job. 30:17The subject of this verse could be either the night personified or He, i.e., God. The night pierces, or God pierces. The A. V. takes my bones as subject and renders the verb are pierced. The night is the time when his suffering is most severeJob. 7:3; Job. 7:13 ff. My gnawers (lit. Heb.) do not lie down, i.e., sleep.
Job. 30:18If God is taken as the subject as in A. V., then God seizes his garment and distorts or disfigures it. The line suggests a tightly fitting collar that binds, but this is problematic in that eastern garments were loose and free flowing. Without extensive emendation, little sense can be made from the text. In spite of this fact, Job is declaring that his diseased body is very uncomfortable.
Job. 30:19It is better to supply the unexpressed subject as God (Heb. has he, or it has cast), as there is no indication that the subject of this verse is any different from Job. 30:18. It is probable that in both verses Job is reaffirming that God causes his pain and suffering. Perhaps dust and ashes are to be understood as symbolizing Jobs humiliation.
Job. 30:20Job cries to God for respite but God will not break His silence. The verb does not imply that God stared at as the A. V. rendering gazed might implyJob. 19:7.
Job. 30:21The verb rendered turned appears in Job. 13:24; Job. 19:11; and Isa. 63:10. The image suggests one falling into enemy hands and being gradually and progressively infected with new and more intense pain.
Job. 30:22This difficult verse has caused editors to provide many unconvincing emendations, but the basic sense is clear enough. The image shifts to that of a violent windstorm. He is tossed about and can neither control nor resist the wind. God rides the storm, but for Job it represents terror and destruction.
Job. 30:23Though the Hebrew has bring me back in the sense of return, the context leaves little doubt that it should read bring him to death and leave him there. The grave is the house appointed for all the living.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Third strophe In his extreme distress Job cries in vain to a God who casts him into the mire and coldly stares upon him, or lifts him up upon the stormy wind that he may dissolve him in the crash of the storm, and thus make more conspicuous and startling the divine determination to destroy. 16-23. Compare Job 29:2-5.
16. Poured out upon me We say of the heart, “it dissolves in grief,” an effect of grief recognised in other languages.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Unspeakable Misery and Disappointment with which Job Battled
v. 16. And now my soul is poured out upon me, v. 17. My bones are pierced in me in the night season, v. 18. By the great force of my disease is my garment changed, v. 19. He hath cast me into the mire, v. 20. I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me, v. 21. Thou art become cruel to me, v. 22. Thou liftest me up to the wind, v. 23. For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death, v. 24. Howbeit, he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction, v. 25. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? v. 26. When I looked for good, then evil came unto me, v. 27. My bowels boiled and rested not, v. 28. I went mourning without the sun, v. 29. I am a brother to dragons, v. 30. My skin is black upon me, v. 31. My harp also,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Job 30:16. And now my soul is poured out upon me For now my soul melteth within me. Houb. See Psa 42:4.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 30:16 And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
Ver. 16. And now my soul is poured out upon me ] Now that I am under these inward terrors, I am become strengthless, even weak as water, my soul doth melt away for grief, as in Psa 42:4 , and I am as a hollow tree, wherein there is not any heart of oak; I am utterly dispirited.
The days of affliction have taken hold upon me
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
soul. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Job 30:16-24
Job 30:16-24
FURTHER DIMENSIONS OF JOB’S MOURNFUL CONDITION
“And now my soul is poured out within me;
Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
In the night season my bones are pierced in me.
And the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
By great force is my garment disfigured;
It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
He hath cast me into the mire,
And I am become like dust and ashes.
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me.
I stand up, and thou gazest at me.
Thou art turned to be cruel to me;
With the might of thy hand thou persecutest me.
Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it.
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death,
And to the house appointed for all living.
Howbeit, doth not one stretch out his hand in his fall?
Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?”
“Beginning with this paragraph and on to the end of the chapter Job turns to the familiar burden of his complaint, his actual misery.”
“By God’s great force is my garment disfigured” (Job 30:18). One does not need to be a scholar to know that this is a false rendition. Does it take the “great power” of Almighty God to disfigure such a trifling thing as a garment worn by a human being? “Job’s garment seems a trivial effect of the mighty power of God.” Other translations suggested by scholars are also subject to uncertainty and question. Perhaps it is best to view the passage, as stated by Driver, to be, “Hopelessly obscure or corrupt.”
“He hath cast me into the mire” (Job 30:19). As this reads, we have a false charge against God, and therefore we do not accept this as the proper translation of the text. God never casts anyone into the mire. Perhaps Rowley is correct who wrote that, “The Hebrew reads. `He (or it) has cast me into the mire, and there is no indication that the subject is any different from that of Job 30:18.’ And what disfigured Job’s garment? It was his disease, not God; and we think that it was that same disease that had cast Job into the mire.
“I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me … thou art turned to be cruel to me … thou persecutest me … and thou dissolvest me in the storm … I know that thou wilt bring me to death” (Job 30:20-23). The general opinion of scholars on these verses is that Job is here accusing God of doing all these terrible things to him; but we find it impossible to harmonize such opinions with God’s words in Job 42, “My servant Job has spoken of me the thing that is right” (Job 42:7-8). The reader knows that it was Satan, not God, who dealt so severely with Job. And, if our translation in these verses is correct (and we remain skeptical about that), then we must read Job’s words as references to what God was allowing to happen, and not as references to what God was doing against Job.
“Verse 24 is unintelligible.” But some liberal scholars cannot overlook a chance like that to `emend’ the text and make it say something that fits their theories. For example, Pope wrote concerning this unintelligible verse, “Taken in its hostile sense, by implication, Job accuses God of assaulting him while he is helpless and imploring help.” This cannot possibly be correct, because God twice declared that Job had spoken the truth concerning God. God never assaulted any human being while he was praying, or at any other time.
E.M. Zerr:
Job 30:16. The soul or life of Job was practically all relaxed from being overwhelmed by his afflictions.
Job 30:17. The ulcerous sores that infested the surface of his body had finally gone in and attacked the bones.,
Job 30:18. This verse describes what must have been a very uncomfortable condition. Garment is a general name for Job’s clothing and coat is rendered “a shirt” in the lexicon. Naturally the collar of a shirt fits closer to the body than the more outward articles of apparel, and would be a more approprite illustration of what he was describing. The discharges from the ulcers had been penetrating all of his clothing until they had become dry and stiff and tightened about his body like the close fitting of a shirt collar.
Job 30:19. He means that God had suffered Job to have this terrible affliction.
Job 30:20-21. Thou refers to God and the paragraph is describing the afflictions that he had caused to come upon Job. I cry should not be thought of as applying to the prayers of Job in his religious devotions. The cry was the physical longing for relief from his sufferings. Didat not hear was because God’s plan of teaching Job required that he go on with the afflictions until the desired result was accomplished.
Job 30:22. Wind means the blast from God had reduced Job to want.
Job 30:23. Job had never had it explained to him as to why he was made to suffer. He expected it to continue until death. House is a figurative name for the grave.
Job 30:24. This does not deny the resurrection, for Job has given abundant proof that he believed in such a coming event. He means God would not perform a miracle to prevent anyone from going to the grave.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
my soul: Psa 22:14, Psa 42:4, Isa 53:12
have taken hold: Psa 40:12
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 30:16-17. My soul is poured out upon me Or within me, as the particle , gnali, is elsewhere used. All the strength and powers of my soul are melted, faint, and die away. My bones are pierced Or rather, it, namely, the terrors or affliction last mentioned, hath pierced my bones. This is no slight and superficial, but a most deep wound, that reaches to my very heart, bones, and marrow. Nothing in me is so secret but it reaches it; nothing so hard and solid but it feels the weight and burden of it. In the night season When others and I should receive some rest and refreshment; and my sinews take no rest The flesh of my body, which covereth the sinews and is mixed with them. So he signifies that neither his bones nor his flesh rested.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
30:16 And now my soul is {l} poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
(l) My life fails me, and I am as half dead.