Job 30

16-23. Job's outward calamities affect his mind.
poured out--in irrepressible complaints ( Psalms 42:4 , Joshua 7:5 ).

17. In the Hebrew, night is poetically personified, as in Job 3:3 : "night pierceth my bones (so that they fall) from me" (not as English Version, "in me"; see Job 30:30 ).
sinews--so the Arabic, "veins," akin to the Hebrew; rather, namely, my gnawing pains never cease. Effects of elephantiasis.

18. of my disease--rather, "of God" ( Job 23:6 ).
garment changed--from a robe of honor to one of mourning, literally ( Job 2:8 , John 3:6 ) and metaphorically [UMBREIT]. Or rather, as SCHUTTENS, following up Job 30:17 , My outer garment is changed into affliction; that is, affliction has become my outer garment; it also bindeth me fast round (my throat) as the collar of the inner coat; that is, 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 30:1-13 ); the former his personal afflictions ( Job 30:14-23 ). UMBREIT makes "God" subject to "bindeth," as in Job 30:19 .

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 color.

20. stand up--the reverential attitude of a suppliant before a king ( 1 Kings 8:14 , Luke 18:11-13 ).
not--supplied from the first clause. But the intervening affirmative "stand" makes this ellipsis unlikely. Rather, as in 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.

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 travellers, would happily depict Job's agitated spirit, if it be to them that he alludes.
dissolvest . . . substance--The marginal Hebrew reading (Keri), "my wealth," or else "wisdom," that is, sense and spirit, or "my hope of deliverance." But the text (Chetib) is better: Thou dissolvest me (with fear, Exodus 15:15 ) in the crash [MAURER]. UMBREIT translates as a verb, "Thou terrifiest me."

23. This shows Job 19:25 cannot be restricted to Job's hope of a temporal deliverance.
death--as in Job 28:22 , the realm of the dead ( Hebrews 9:27 , Genesis 3:19 ).

24. Expressing Job's faith as to the state after death. Though one must go to the grave, yet He will no more afflict in the ruin of the body (so Hebrew for "grave") there, if one has cried to Him when being destroyed. The "stretching of His hand" to punish after death answers antithetically to the raising "the cry" of prayer in the second clause. MAURER gives another translation which accords with the scope of Job 30:24-31 ; if it be natural for one in affliction to ask aid, why should it be considered (by the friends) wrong in my case? "Nevertheless does not a man in ruin stretch out his hand" (imploring help, Job 30:20 , Lamentations 1:17 )? If one be in his calamity (destruction) is there not therefore a "cry" (for aid)? Thus in the parallelism "cry" answers to "stretch--hand"; "in his calamity," to "in ruin." The negative of the first clause is to be supplied in the second, as in Job 30:25 ( Job 28:17 ).

25. May I not be allowed to complain of my calamity, and beg relief, seeing that I myself sympathized with those "in trouble" literally, "hard of day"; those who had a hard time of it.

26. I may be allowed to crave help, seeing that, "when I looked for good (on account of my piety and charity), yet evil," &c.
light--( Job 22:28 ).

27. bowels--regarded as the seat of deep feeling ( Isaiah 16:11 ).
boiled--violently heated and agitated.
prevented--Old English for "unexpectedly came upon" me, "surprised" me.

28. mourning--rather, I move about blackened, though not by the sun; that is, whereas many are 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 ( Job 30:30 ), as with the garb of mourning ( Jeremiah 14:2 ). This striking enigmatic form of Hebrew expression occurs, Isaiah 29:9 .
stood up--as an innocent man crying for justice in an assembled court ( Job 30:20 ).

29. dragons . . . owls--rather, "jackals," "ostriches," both of which utter dismal screams ( Micah 1:8 ); in which respect, as also in their living amidst solitudes (the emblem of desolation), Job is their brother and companion; that is, resembles them. "Dragon," Hebrew, tannim, usually means the crocodile; so perhaps here, its open jaws lifted towards heaven, and its noise making it seem as if it mourned over its fate [BOCHART].

30. upon me--rather, as in Job 30:17 "my skin is black (and falls away) from me."
my bones--( Job 19:20 , Psalms 102:5 ).

31. organ--rather, "pipe" ( Job 21:12 ). "My joy is turned into the voice of weeping" ( Lamentations 5:15 ). These instruments are properly appropriated to joy ( Isaiah 30:29 Isaiah 30:32 ), which makes their use now in sorrow the sadder by contrast.