Job 17:7

7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow.

Job 17:7 Meaning and Commentary

Job 17:7

Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow
Through excessive weeping, and the abundance of tears he shed, so that he had almost lost his eyesight, or however it was greatly weakened and impaired by that means, which is often the case, see ( Psalms 6:7 ) ( 31:9 ) ;

and all my members [are] as a shadow;
his flesh was consumed off his bones, there were nothing left scarcely but skin and bone; he was a mere anatomy, and as thin as a lath, as we commonly say of a man that is quite worn away, as it were; is a walking shadow, has scarce any substance in him, but is the mere shadow of a man; the Targum interprets it of his form, splendour, and countenance, which were like a shadow; some interpret it "my thoughts" F20, and understand it of the formations of his mind, and not of his body, which were shadows, empty, fleeting, and having no consistence in them through that sorrow that possessed him.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 (yruy) "cogitationes meae", Pagninus, Bolducius, Codurcus, so Ben Gersom.

Job 17:7 In-Context

5 Those who denounce friends for reward— the eyes of their children will fail.
6 "He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom people spit.
7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.