Job 30:16-23

And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

Job's outward calamities affect his mind.

Poured out - in irrepressible complaints (Psalms 42:4; Joshua 7:5).

Verse 17. In the Hebrew night is poetically personified, as Job 3:3, 'Night pierceth my bone (so that they fall) from me' х mee`aalaay (H5921)] (not, as the English version, "in me"), see Job 30:30.

Sinews - so the Arabic, veins, akin to the Hebrew: rather, gnawers, the same Hebrew as in Job 30:3 (note) - namely, my gnawing pains never cease. Effects of elephantiasis.

Verse 18. Of my disease - rather, 'of God' (Job 23:6).

Garment changed - from a robe of honour to one of mourning, literally (Job 2:8; Jonah 3:6) and metaphorically (Umbreit). Or, rather, as Schuttens, following up Job 30:17, My outer garment is changed into affliction - i:e., affliction has become my outer garment; it also bindeth me fast round (my throat) as the collar of the inner coat -

i.e., it is both my inner and outer garment. Observe the distinction between the inner and outer garments. The latter refers to his afflictions from without (Job 30:1); the former his personal afflictions (Job 30:14). Umbreit makes "God" subject to "bindeth," as in Job 30:19.

Verse 19. God is poetically said to do that which the mourner had done to himself (Job 2:8). With lying in the ashes he had become, like them, in dirty colour.

Verse 20. Stand up - the reverential attitude of a suppliant before a king (1 Kings 8:14; Luke 18:11).

Not - supplied from the first clause. But the intervening affirmative "stand" makes this ellipsis unlikely. Rather, as Job 16:9 (not only dost thou refuse aid to me 'standing' as a suppliant, but), thou dost regard me with a frown: eye me sternly.

Verse 22. Liftest ... to wind - as a "leaf," or "stubble" (Job 13:25). The moving pillars of sand raised by the wind to the clouds, as described by travelers, would happily depict Job's agitated spirit, if it be to them that he alludes.

Dissolvest ... substance - the margin, Hebrew reading (Qeri'): 'my wealth.' or else 'wisdom' - i:e., sense and spirit; or 'my hope of deliverance' х tuwshiyaah (H8454)]. But the text (Kethibh) is better, Thou dissolvest me (with fear, Exodus 15:15) in the crash (of the whirlwind; as Job 30:14, note) [tªshuwaah] (Maurer.) Umbreit translates as a verb, 'Thou terrifiest me' [tªshaweh].

Verse 23. This shows Job 19:25 cannot be restricted to Job's hope of a temporal deliverance: he had no anticipation of deliverance before death and the grave. Death - as in Job 28:22, the realm of the dead (Hebrews 9:27; Genesis 3:19).