Job 7:5

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

Ver. 5. My flesh is clothed with worms] Here Job showeth how and whence his nights were so wearisome and restless; he was in his grave clothes before he died (saith Mr Caryl), viz. a gown of worms set or embroidered with clods of dust. Covered he was with sores, and putrefied ulcers full of worms, which made him abhorring to himself.

And clods of dust] A fit dress for a dying man. The word signifieth the filings of any metal, or the scrapings of an unclean thing. He meaneth then the scurf, scraped off from him, or the dust contracted by his sitting upon the ground, Job 2:8 .

My skin is broken] Or, cleft and chapped (as the earth is in drought), in most loathsome and formidable manner.

And become loathsome] Or melted, as in that distemper which physicians call corruptionem totius substantiae; or as in the leprosy or gangrene, when the flesh falleth off from the bones. Hinc igitur disce patientiam in morbis, saith Lavater. Hence, then, learn to be patient under the most noisome and troublesome diseases. What though thou be in such a pickle all over, that thou canst neither stand, nor walk, nor sit, nor lie, nor live, nor die: was not this holy Job's condition, and worse? Remember that there are not a few sick as heart can hold, sore all over, and want necessary food and physic which thou dost not; consider that God could, and justly might, lay more and heavier plagues upon thee, &c. When Dr Munster was sick, and some friends came to visit him, being very sorry for pains he was put to by the ulcers of his body; O my dear friends, said he, these boils and blains, gemmae sunt et pretiosa ornamenta Dei, are God's gems and jewels wherewith he adorneth his friends, that he may draw them to himself; which ornaments let us esteem far more precious than all the gold and wealth of this whole world. Soon after which speech he piously and peaceably fell asleep in the Lord. Craterus also, when he saw his body begin to swell with a dropsy, and other distempers, Euge Dee sit laus et gloria, said he, Oh, blessed be God, that my deliverance is at hand, et horula gratissima, and that sweet hour that shall put an end to all my miseries (Melch. Adam).